Being yourself

next stop

rafting down the colorado in the grand canyon. yet another long time dream of mine. this one i dreamt of in my early 20s when i was in india. i was watching an adventure sports show on television with my family. they showed various adventure sports including sky diving, bungee jumping, paragliding and of course white water rafting. the show described how white water rafting down the colorado in the grand canyon is one of the hardest to do and one of the most thrilling. those days, i was telling my parents what i wanted to do if i went to the US. my mother would often ask what i would do when i earned money.

when watching that show, i turned around and said to her that when i made money i would teach, travel and do adventure sports. today, i am living my dream. and so, my next stop is grand canyon rafting with the Arizona Raft Adventures company. it'll be an 8 day trip along the lower section of the river experiencing the biggest rapids it has to offer.

legs of lead

i ended last week with another open water swim. my eyes remaining shut as i stuck my head in the water. and, just when i thought i was on my way to having a chance at finishing this triathlon, i discovered that my legs are actually made of lead. yes, lead! i came upon this discovery earlier in the week after getting off my bike just having finished a 30 minute ride. the next leg (ha ha) of my training was to run. or, so, i thought. as i started to get into running, my legs just wouldn't lift. they were grounded solidly, one with the earth, unable to move. willing them to move was not an option. forcing them physically worked for a little bit until they began to hurt and just dragged the rest of my body to the ground as well. ok, ok. i know it sounds all very dramatic but how else am i convey my frustration at not being able to move my silly ole legs. i thought i had this one figured out at age 1!

my darling partner, vamshi, ventured the suggestion that i might be riding too hard in an "anerobic zone" (god bless this endearing geek) and what i need to do is to keep my rpm high at a lower gear. when i had finally made him translate all of that into lay person speak, i figured that i was getting my muscles stuck by working them too hard. i needed to lay off them. ah, i can do that. just ride my bike in an easier gear. so, i got on my bike this morning to test out this theory. it worked, at least a little. this time, my legs moved and caused pain but i didn't come to a complete halt.

when i got my tired body back into the house i stood amazed by how hard something that seems so simple can be. i guess this is why training is called "training" -- i am training my body and hoping it will learn new things like being able to run after biking.

right now, i don't know if i can run 3.1 miles after having swum and bicycled. i am hoping my body will learn to run somehow. i don't exactly know what it is that makes our bodies learn the way they do. i do however know that i am not giving up ...

"don't look"

it's time to do open water swimming for the triathlon. i grew up swimming in the arabian sea off the west coast of india but we wouldn't go too deep. having been trained as a lap swimmer, i have always swum with my head in the water. be it in the pool or the shallow waters of the sea, i have also always been able to see the floor of the body of water i swam in. so, when i got into lake washington last weekend, i was in for some surprises.

i started out floating on my back just so i could get used to the water. i felt comfortable quite soon and so turned around and headed out into the lake. as i stuck my head in the water, i was greeted by the sight of rocks, sand and lake flora. the trouble started when i swam deeper. the light to the bottom of the lake faded and i couldn't see much. what i could see was long snake-like objects and thicker fauna. my heart began to beat fast, just as it is even now. i raised my head, stopped my stroke and took a huge gasp of air. i was scared! i was afraid i would hit some fish or get tangled in the tall lake fauna. my heart was racing and i couldn't catch my breath. i felt claustrophobic as i tried to see the bottom of the lake and just couldn't see anything. finally, i turned around and returned to the shore. i spent the rest of my time swimming in shallower waters.

i knew open water swimming would be different but i never thought it would be scary. what was i going to do? i just didn't have the heart to get out on my own again. as i thought through my fear, i realized that if i had someone swimming alongside me, i might be able to get into deeper waters. so, i emailed my friend jamie who had done a triathlon just last year and is a good swimmer. she agreed to get out into the water with me this weekend.

and, so, off we went, this morning. the water was cold and choppy. we decided that it would be best not to think about the conditions but to just head out into deeper waters and stay with the plan. and so, we did. i was too afraid to stick my head into the water so i swam with it out. this made it possible for the choppy water to enter my mouth, thus, making it impossible to breath through my mouth. it also put my stroke out of sync. i struggled as we made it out not even 100 yards. we were both getting cold. i ducked my head in periodically, trying to deal with my crazy claustrophobia. it didn't work. i either saw nothing or i saw scary fauna. i stayed with it though and we returned to shore having done what we said we would do. it wasn't confidence building though. i wondered if i could ever do the swim part of the triathlon.

then, we decided to swim in shallow waters to get warmed up. that worked well and i found myself enjoying seeing the bottom of the lake. i was even a little curious. after a little bit of swimming, jamie looked at me and said, "let's go out into deeper water again". i knew it was the right thing to do but hell, i was so scared. i braced myself and agreed. i started to talk myself into staying calm, keeping my head in and being curious about the bottom of the lake, rather than being scared. i started out fine. as the water got deeper, i couldn't see much. then i saw the snake-like objects. it wasn't some crazy lake creature, it looked like a sunken sail. ah! and then, it got darker and i could see the scary fauna again. i kept talking myself to stay with it but my fear allowed no thoughts, no talking. it had this crazy grip of me. i raised my head and said to jamie that i was really scared. i didn't like what i was seeing, she retorted with a, "don't look". "don't look", what does that mean? how could i do that? then she followed with the other set of magic words, "close your eyes". and so i did. i closed my eyes whenever i put my head into the water and opened them when my head tilted to the side for a breath. and, it worked! this way, i could keep track of where i was going, i could keep my head in, keep my stroke smooth and not see the scary stuff! it worked, it worked! when we turned around to return to the shore, i stayed with the plan -- don't look! i swam back to the shore calmly.

closing your eyes seems like such a simple thing to do to deal with my fear. in fact, it seems like the obvious thing to do. how come i never thought of it? my fear had such a grip of me that it froze my brain. i learnt several things from this experience -- what fear does to my mind, how i always choose to brave it out and that it is okay not to brave through everything in life. it is okay to be scared and deal with the fear slowly, rather than taking it head-on.

more important than the lessons though, those magic words from jamie have made me realize that i can do the triathlon. thank you, jamie!

still tri-ing

4 weeks and still going, probably only because last week was my week of rest from the triathlon training. though before i ended week 3, i had a breakthrough. i need to be able to swim 1/2 mile which equates to 16 full laps of the 25 yard pool i swim in. i am no continuous swimmer or so i thought until the friday of week 3 in my training. i jumped into the pool with a decision to focus on being relaxed in the water. i let my body loosen as i warmed up and kept up steady but not hastened breathing. i tend to get all tensed up about the breathing and gasp for breaths instead of taking the air in gradually. i watched that this time. at the end of 4 laps i felt like i could keep going and so i did. at 8 laps i still felt strong. so i kept going, finishing with 10 continuous laps and then a cool down lap, all in 40 minutes. i know that is no olympic record. i stepped out feeling very content. the monday before, i could do 2 laps back-to-back. who knew i would breakthrough so in the same week?

most folks that train for triathlons say that the swimming is the hardest part. i think it is so for me too except that i love swimming and i am really enjoying returning to the first athletic sport i ever did as a child.

onto week 5 ...

Bicycling galore

There are some things that signal that it is summer in Seattle -- yes, the weather does but the unmistakably large number of bicyclists in this city-for-the-outdoorsy tells you that summer sure is here. I live with a crazy bicyclist which means I get more than my fair share of exposure to this great outdoor activity. I am bicycling and watching the Tour de France at 6 am every morning! What has captured me the most though is velodrome racing. I love watching sports and watching it outdoors is special. Add to it watching hard core athletes race their heart beats to unimaginably high speeds. Its so inspiring. The only thing that could beat watching the velodrome races is being in France, by the roadside, camping and following the Tour. Ah, that would be quite something ....