NYX Camp, and Dissolution

Julie, Alison, and I were a bit nervous heading into our first ever triathlon camp. Aside from the logistics, we wanted to be able to provide value for all of our athletes, who cover a full spectrum of fitness, speed, endurance, and experience. Ever since the 3 of us originally came together to form NYX, we've been focused on weaving together the unique ways in which we coach, race, and embrace the darkness. 

Camp Day 1: Arrival day started off with a quick welcome-to-camp intro, followed by an open water swim and a shake-out run. For 2 of our athletes, it was the first time putting on a wetsuit and getting in open water, complete with that panicky breathless feeling to round out the experience. Since the coaches can't be everywhere at once, other campers gave them pointers, calmed their nerves, and helped them through. 

I asked the athletes to be intentional about what they each bring to the table and to share it. Whether you bring drive, intensity, lightness, joy, beginner's mind, or anything else, we want all of it. Then at the same time, be open to what your teammates are bringing to the table and see where you can create space to integrate something new. 

One of our athletes brought a NYX colored pompom and it was quickly evident that I was the coach who identified most with the pompom. 

Each coach was staying in a house with our own athletes and dinner that night was in each of our respective houses. At my house, we talked about what we wanted to get out of camp and started to build bridges. (My athletes knew that convo was coming.)  

It has been 2 months since I moved to southern California and I imagine it will be much longer until I feel completely settled in here. I'm still floundering around without specific goals for this upcoming season. My old methods and foundations for setting goals have decomposed and the new ones have not yet emerged from the compost pile. I was hoping that I'd find something at camp, with my people, that I could grab ahold of. 

Camp Day 2: We split into 3 bike groups to arrange for a 4ish hour ride with some elevation, followed by a 30 minute run off the bike. Unfortunately midway through the ride, one of my athletes went down on his bike and one of our SAG vehicles took him to the hospital for what he already seemed to know was a broken collar bone. True to triathlete form, he completely protected his bike with his body and the bike is completely in tact. 🙌

Since I was responsible for a group of athletes, I finished the ride with them before heading to the hospital. After stopping by our house to bring him some food, I found each of my other athletes piling themselves into my car. I didn't ask them to come to the hospital with me and they didn't ask for my permission to come. This is just what we do. 

We made it back from the hospital in time to see the sunset on the beach.

Camp Day 3: Day 3 would obviously be the best day of camp because we had our strength training session! The first session of the day was a 90 minute swim, where each coach took turns pulling athletes out of the workout to get some individual stroke instruction. 

This is a pic of me being a totally normal sized human.

Showing athletes how strength training can be doable and FUN is one of my most spirited life goals. Our bodies are the amazing vehicles through which we get to do this sport that we love... blah blah blah. If you know me, you've heard the rant. 

This session was the moment of truth where I got to find out whether my athletes had or hadn't been doing their strength training workouts. I'm happy to report that their technique was indicative of their compliance. (Also their lack of injuries is indicative of their compliance.)

This is how you recover from a meniscus injury in record time and dominate the 70.3 WC with only 1 run under your belt. 

And since this is camp after all, we finished the strength workout with some bear crawl relays where this competitive crew launched themselves through the grass as quickly as their arms and legs would carry them. 

After lunch, we got back on our bikes for either a 3 hour hilly ride, or a ride down the coast to work on bike handling skills.  

Camp Day 4: Palomar Mountain is one of the iconic rides of San Diego. It's 12 miles of relentless incline, climbing from the base to over 5k feet. One of the bike groups rode a little bit longer so that we could all get in about 5 hours, followed by another run off the bike. Going into the day, I encouraged my athletes to find an edge and to be curious about what goes on there. There's a threshold somewhere between "can I hold on" and "do I have more" which is begging for exploration. Camp is the perfect environment to get up close and personal with the voices that pop up on that threshold, trying to convince you that you can't do what you've never done before. And at the same time there's the feedback from your body, which if you take away your fearful interpretations, is simply providing you with information. If you listen closely and objectively, your body is almost always telling you that it's ok - that you got this.

Not that it's a competition, but I'm pretty sure my athletes won this workout (in addition to everyone else also winning). My injured athlete got up early and came out with us to ride in the SAG vehicle and cheer us on all day. The 2 in the longer ride group absolutely flew up Palomar, complete with a showing on the Strava top 10 list. But I was most impressed with my athlete in the back of the group who knew he might be the slowest one up the climb and heading into the day, was unsure of his ability to make it. Since I was riding with the back group that day, I spent time going back and forth from one athlete to another, and every time I checked on him, I couldn't even sense a hint of quitting. He was clear on his mission - all the way to the top. 

At camp and as a coach in general, I am trying to carve out spaces for my athletes to pursue endurance in their own specific way. The athletes I work with are compelled to find another level in themselves. They understand that not everything that has gotten them this far will be what gets them to where they are going next. But the path through these waters is dark and irrational and can only be navigated through the senses. No one has ever been on your path before and therefore you must learn to trust your own ability to see, feel, and know in the darkness.    

Camp Day 5: We finished out the last day of camp with a long run along the coast. The light came up over the ocean and we collapsed onto the grass of the park before we said our goodbyes. 

It has been 2 months since I moved to southern California and I've spent most of it in what has felt like a hazy dream. I've wondered if my goals have been eluding me because I've all but melted into California's tan muscular arms - and not the kind of muscle that comes from doing bicep curls in the mirror at the gym, but the kind that comes from carrying surfboards around and possibly using their spare time to advocate for rescue dogs or pick up trash on the beach - but you know, heavy trash.

In much the same way that I try to create containers for my athletes to navigate the depths of their undoing - which by the way is a process we go through continually, whether we choose to engage with it or not - community is what holds the foundation for me as I stretch further into my dissolution: losing myself in order to find myself. By the end of camp, I still don't have goals for this season. All I can find is a familiar call to keep dancing along the edges: between holding on and letting go, between pushing and allowing myself to be overtaken; knowing that the path to radical wholeness weaves through the murky undisturbed wetlands of radical emptiness.   

In case you've been living under a rock for the past 2 years, the world has not been an easy place to inhabit. As the camp bubble of support and camaraderie was about to burst and disperse us back into the world, I wanted to make sure we left with as clear of an intention as we came in with. The campers had each brought and shared a piece of themselves, as I had invited them to do on day 1. Now it was time to bring what we cultivated at camp back into the world. We come together, we fill up. We disperse, we give out.

New Year, No Goals

I've always known what needed to be done and when. I was often dressed and ready for kindergarten before my parents got out of bed. I didn't know much but I knew that I wanted to be on time and that I wanted to be self sufficient. Everything running smoothly with minimal disturbances gave me the most control over my environment and drew the least amount of attention to me. I never had to learn discipline or consistency. If there was an instruction manual that came with each new baby, mine would have said, "doesn't need help with structure."

When I decided I wanted to play Division 1 lacrosse, it never occurred to me that I might not get recruited. In my head, I had simply made a decision about what I was going to do. All I had to do next was figure out the recruiting process, sell the coaches on my whole discipline thing, hope that they overlooked my height, and that was that. Doing the work to get myself to that level? That was the easy part. 

I started doing triathlons right after college. I transferred my high-achieving athlete mindset from one sport to the next. I was competitive and driven. But all along the way, this sport has been pushing me around and knocking me off course, which is the entirety of the reason I've stuck with it for so long. First it taught me that more and more work isn't the answer to more and more achievement. And now I'm learning that more and more achievement isn't the answer to what actually fills my cup. 

My race medals live in a box somewhere out of sight. I would rather decorate my walls with art and inspiration than mementos from the past. I would rather leave blank space for imagining new life than clutter my hallways with the ingrained patterns of yesterday. This doesn't mean I'm not proud of my accomplishments, but they do, in at least a small way, keep me tied to my past. 

A couple weeks ago we packed up and moved from Colorado to Southern California. Both Ryan and I wanted to use the move as an opportunity to declutter and enter this next phase a little bit lighter. We got rid of a startling amount of crap.  And still, seeing all of our possessions in boxes, ready to be shipped across the country, made me think how did we get here? How did we convince ourselves that we need so much shit in order for our lives to function?

But after 2 weeks of living in our new home still waiting on the arrival of said shit, I am reminded that as much as I like to pretend I live in the clouds, I am still a humble servant to my swanky desk chair. The first week, I set up my laptop next to Luna's dog bed, and she was kind enough to let me borrow it. 

The second week, Ryan bought us two $20 folding chairs and mini tables from Target so we could work like actual humans. At night, we push our desks together to form a dinner table.

Since I have a desk now and it is January and I live in a new house, in a new state, I sat down to write my goals for the upcoming year, but I couldn't find them in the usual places. I searched for them through the threads of my old life. I thought about winning races and executing at a high level and the structure of audacious goals that used to hold me upright and together. But what I found is that I don't fit inside that structure anymore. 

I sent my athletes a goal sheet for 2022, like I do every year. Today is their deadline to fill it out to return it to me. I've only received 2 so far, so I suspect that I am not the only one feeling the unsteadiness of the ground beneath our feet. 

We are not fulfilled by the same things we used to seek. We're not interested in running ourselves into the ground for the sake of some arbitrary achievement because we know now more clearly than we've ever known it, that our value is not tied to a result. We will not ever have made it. 

There is no finish line to the relentless grind. The false promise that someday all of our hard work will pay off and we will be granted a glorious seat at the table of admiration and belonging is beginning to breach our consciousness. If there is such a table, and access is only granted after years of wasting away on the treadmill of self destruction, then we are not interested in that table. We feel the weight of relying on the external world to tell us when we are finally good enough and we're ready to build bridges to something new. We will not go down with the fucking patriarchy.   

In the great cycle of death and rebirth, the compost pile of our old skin is rich and fertile. But composting takes time and we are unfamiliar with sitting quietly with uncertainty. We can feel the earthquakes underneath our skin and it is tempting to reach for our old ways of being to stop the madness. The death cycle always feels like madness before it feels like home. 

When I sit quietly in the aftermath of the earthquakes
In the unforgiving uncertainty 
And sort through the debris of my old skin
I know that I don't care to be better than anyone else or 
Better than I was last year, or even yesterday. 
At my core, what I really want to feel
Is unburdened. 

If best is the enemy of better
And perfect is the enemy of done
Then let me be at my best right now
At my peak of perfection
So I can get on with pursuing nothing but the joy of living.  

Without goals, I am free to pursue the sport that I love in the way that I love it. I want to run as fast as I can only to feel the salty air burning in my lungs, reminding me of my edges. I want to be intoxicated by the wild ecstasy of breathlessness, not worrying about if I can do it again tomorrow, or ever again. And when I'm tired, I want to sit down by the ocean for hours, just to watch it breath - a third wheel to the rhythm shared only between the tide and the moon.

Since I started my last post with a quote from Mary Oliver, it feels appropriate to end this post with another one:

"You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body 
    love what it loves."

Not Searching for Happiness

 "When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. When it's over, I don't want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular and real. I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened, or full or argument. I don't want to end up simply having visited this world."

- Mary Oliver, from her poem: When Death Comes

For so long, safety and stability have been the organizing structures of my life. Even as I pursue far-reaching goals and generative experiences, I've relied upon the ground beneath my feet to be unchanging. But lately, as the world around us appears to mirror the uncertainty of plans and the inevitability of change, I've noticed a new longing emerging at my roots. There is a part of me that yearns to feel untethered. 

11 years ago, I asked my boyfriend (Ryan) if he was interested in moving to Colorado with me. Fortunately he too felt the magnetism of the mountains and we began a new adventure together. Fresh out of college with mountains of student loans, we spent our first 3 years in a tiny basement studio apartment, and we paid more attention to what we did have than what we didn't. The wide open spaces encouraged us to breath more deeply. We felt both softened by the beauty of the land, and hardened as we carved out the edges of who we were, in particular. 

This past August, I went to San Diego to stay with Julie and train for the Ironman World Championship. Partway through our training camp, when we heard the news that the race was canceled, I recognized that I was there for a different reason. I changed my flight and stayed 2 extra days by myself, with the ocean. I asked the universe for clarity and I knew the answer in my body almost immediately, but I didn't know it in my mind until I returned home. Back in Colorado, the distance between my heart and the ocean had become explicit.  

I never used to "ask the Universe" for anything. Ever since I emerged from the soul-imprisonment of 9 years in Catholic School, I relied on nothing but my own will and determination to create the life of my dreams. I needed to prove to myself that I didn't need a guiding light - for lack of a better way to describe it. And I did that. I did the proving. The harder part was knowing when it was over and putting down my defenses.

What I've taught myself to do is to create a bridge between an old way of being and a new one with habits and practices that fill my cup and keep me afloat while the bridge is under construction. I write. I journal. I ask questions and I leave them open ended. I give myself space to put the most raw truth on paper so I can get it out of my body and it doesn't try to trick me into believing that it's scarier than it really is. It's this practice of excavating truth that has led me to my heart: the wisdom keeper. 

Every day, I renew my vow to my heart that I will pay attention to the edges. I vow to resist the devastatingly seductive urge to push away the messages that I don't feel equipped to handle or the ones that I know will lead to some sort of open-ended change. My agreement is only to pay attention. I can handle knowing about the rough edges because I've committed myself to knowing the soft ones too. 

In return for my listening, my heart teaches me about what is most true in each moment. It speaks over any conditioning which might try to fool me into believing that comfort is a higher priority than truth. 

I am happy in Colorado. Happy enough, perhaps. But while I was in California and I asked the universe for clarity, I knew that I would have to uphold my end of the bargain and truly be open to clarity - not just clarity that lives inside a box of how much change I've predetermined that I'm willing to make. That's not how it works with hearts. Shortly after, I wrote in my journal that I'm ready to live near the ocean.

When I told Ryan, he took a deep breath the way he always does when he recognizes that I'm speaking from my heart, and he started making the plans. He has never been afraid of my most raw truths and he has never shied away from their potential implications. I don't know how rare this is but I do know how special it is. 

We (Ryan) planned a 2+ week road trip, starting with Ironman California. It went a little something like this:

10/19: 11ish hour drive to Elko, Nevada, which is a town that has a dog-friendly Marriott and a gas station and is more than halfway to Sacramento. When the excited women at the front desk asked us what brought us to Elko, we didn't know what to say.

Ralph is a road trip pro.

10/20: 6ish hour drive to Sacramento for Ironman California. 

10/20 - 10/23: The days that precede an Ironman are all the exact same day meshed into one where basically nothing happens except for the relentless waiting for the gun to go off.

10/24: There was a bomb cyclone in Sacramento and the gun never actually went off. See this blog post. I ran a marathon instead. It was sad and slow.

10/25: 6ish hour drive from Sacramento to Pismo Beach, where we had planned to recover for a few days post Ironman. Along the drive, we kept our minds and our hearts open for a new place to be from. We stopped in Santa Cruz, fell in love with Carmel-by-the-Sea, and were mesmerized by the stunning radiance of Big Sur. In a temporary moment of cell service, we accepted an offer on our house in Colorado while driving down the Pacific Coast Highway. We felt the rush of being untethered, the reality that the countdown to our homelessness had just begun, and the safety of relying on nothing but each other.

Pismo Beach was the first time our dogs had ever experienced the ocean. It was the place that held our transition between belonging to Colorado and belonging to a new place. While we were there, we belonged only to ourselves. 

10/27: Another amount of hours drive from Pismo Beach to North County, San Diego. At first, we mostly felt fear and discomfort. But I've been speaking to my heart for long enough to know that those signs are my guideposts. As far as I know, discomfort is the only path to growth. 

One thing that I've learned about hearts is that they are the first to speak - before thoughts, before judgment, before analysis or rationality. It is tempting to dismiss the message because it gets covered up so quickly. That's why I write it down. Otherwise it gets lost in fear and rationality and I am tempted to convince myself that what I felt wasn't real.

We spent a few days looking at houses and we took a break to cheer on our NYX Endurance teammates at 70.3 Oceanside. We felt hopeful.  

Luna settled right into her cheering spot at 70.3 Oceanside.

#sherpasquad

10/31: We put in an offer on a house that we loved and we drove 7 hours to Sedona. We crossed our fingers and wanted to believe that it would be this easy. But underneath our hope was something stronger and more lasting. We believed that it would work out the way it was supposed to, not necessarily the way we had envisioned. And we trusted more in the uncertainty than we did in our plans. 

11/1: We didn't get that house. More importantly, it was our 7 year wedding anniversary and we were in one of our favorite places in the world. 

The desert is where I remember. Not the kind of remembering that lives inside thoughts and comes attached to stories, but the kind that is stored inside my bones. I remember nothing specific but everything essential. I remember why I am searching, and that I am searching. I feel the connection to the thing that is searching for me too - searching through me, with me, for me when I'm tired, for me when I forget. It is all so clear in the desert.  

I knew I wouldn't be able to put an offer down on another house without seeing it in person, and we both acknowledged the uncertainty of what would happen next. Old stories tried to convince us that listening to our hearts and taking risks was a bad idea, but we were already too fiercely committed to the flow and to taking the world in our arms.

11/2: We made the last long 12+ hour drive back to Colorado. Back to a home that no longer belonged to us. The tension in my body was forcing me to acknowledge that I had put us in this situation, forcing me to answer: Why do I think I'm worthy of pursuing more than happiness? I should be grateful. I can't even provide a rational explanation for why I led us here. 

My heart doesn't privy me to the explanations. It simply sends a message and asks me if I'm brave enough to listen. Brave enough to step into the unknown for a feeling I can't make sense of. But when I don't listen, my life becomes more and more out of alignment. Everything starts to feel forced. The colors begin to dull. And worst of all, if I don't listen, my heart will slowly stop speaking to me. What good is a voice without an ear to receive it?

I'm not leaving Colorado because there is something lacking for me here. As far as I can tell, grass is always green; unless of course, it's dying. 

It was easy to leave the east coast, we knew there was nothing for us there. But Colorado is the place where we became a family of 2 humans and 2 dogs. We got married here. Built our lives together here. We learned from the mountains that stillness can be just as powerful as movement.   

Moving on is not an escape but an inevitability; everything changes. Making space for change also requires making space for grief. That's why so few of us choose it. But I am not searching for happiness, so I have room in my heart for grief. 

I want to know what exists at the bottom of the well. I want to carve away everything that isn't the essence of me. I am a digger. What I'm searching for is underneath, not above. I want to know what is under the surface. I am willing to hold my breath for long enough to witness something under the surface that may not have appeared a moment earlier - something that needed me to prove that I wanted it more than I wanted air to breath. I'm searching for something simple. The revelations that take my breath away are always the ones that I knew all along, that we all knew, but have forgotten - things we may have even known in our thoughts but have forgotten in our hearts. 

11/3: We remembered that there was another house that we had liked while we were in San Diego, so we put an offer down without expecting anything to happen. Later that evening, our offer was accepted. 

Flow cannot happen when we resist change. We resist because we think only about the bad things. What could go wrong? Too often we forget to ask, what could go right? When I take action in alignment with my heart, I feel the saltwater of my body start to flow more freely. I feel my skin begin to vibrate in a new way - in an old way, that I think I might vaguely remember. When I listen to my heart, I know I won't end up simply having visited this world. 

Ironman Feels

The taper for Ironman Coeur d'Alene has begun and in order to mitigate my pre race nerves/doubts/obsessive vacuuming, I'm choosing to focus on the feelings I have while I'm racing. Without this, my brain will default to focusing on what I'm nervous about. I wrote this for myself, both from past race experience and for future manifestation, and I'm hoping that you'll get something out of it too. 

Race morning, all I can think about is the gun going off. My anxiety is in my throat. I can taste it. Please just let the gun go off so I can stop thinking and start doing.

SWIM

We're doing it! We're in an Ironman! Everyone is frantic all around me. I love the frantic energy and I indulge for a bit. Then I retreat back into the stillness inside me. I fill back up. Drop my shoulders. Remember to breath. I am doing an Ironman!

It's so exciting that I go back into the anxious energy with my people. They are so me. These are the people who reflect my own energy back to me the clearest. It is flawed and it is beautiful and it has brought us all here together. 

That is so special.

I go back in. I think about the video of Alistair Brownlee dunking his competitor (too soon?) and I think I'd really like to do that to the guy next to me. You're ruining our special moment, guy! Get out of my personal space.

I am always so excited to see the blurry large shadowy thing that is definitely not the sky and definitely is the finishing arch. The swim is fun but get me the F out of here and onto the bike where people get penalties for being in my personal space.

BIKE

The stillness is easiest to find on the bike. Simple powerful movements create force and speed. I can feel my center. The contrast between the stillness of my core and the strength of my legs magnifies the opposites.

I am in the energy and the energy is in me. It is hot, sticky, windy, and whatever else has been reserved for race day. The only option is to merge with it. It is too big to resist. I become the heat, the wind, the elements that surround me. It is hard for my body to integrate this energy. I have to remember to be compassionate with my body. To give it the nutrients it needs to sustain integration.

If I am out here forever, will I become the elements
Or will they destroy me
Or both?

I am scared and I am curious.

RUN

The run is where truth finds me.
It's where I find truth.

I've spent the whole day being stripped down. I am raw and I have no defenses. Right away, I can feel that my impending question will be how willing I am to be out of control. All I can do as that question gets louder and louder is continue to give my body the tools that it needs to rise to the occasion.

And then at a time
That seems outside of time
There is a shift.

My body answers the question for me. It allows itself to be overtaken.

This exact moment in time
That is outside of time
Is why I came here.

This is the surrendering.

It has become too hard to exist in a state of resistance. I am completely out of energy to worry or even be curious about what lies ahead. The worry is too heavy. I have to let it go. 
I fill up on belief and I become lighter.

In one dimension, I wish I could be here forever. I'm on the edge of living and dying and again, it's the contrast that brings depth and luminosity to its opposites. I am more alive, more in bliss.

And in another dimension, I feel my body disintegrating. Breaking down. Giving of itself so that I can experience this high of living. 

This feeling is fear.

I acknowledge it and I try not to stay there for too long. Both feelings are getting stronger, together. I have to make sure I'm attuning to each feeling equally. That is the key. It's what I have to maintain until the finish line.

THE FINISH LINE

Only at the last possible second do I allow myself to acknowledge that there is an ending. If I allow stopping into my consciousness too early, I won't be able to maintain my expansion.

When I acknowledge it, I am desperate for it.

The finish line is triumph. It is release and pain and celebration and grief and joy on the most profound level. For this moment, I have no reason to doubt myself, to think little of myself, to believe any of the hurtful lies I've ever told myself about not being deserving of this, and it is overwhelming.

There is not enough room in my body for all of this joy and gratitude and it pours out of me. I want to be able to contain it. It feels shameful to let it out, but it is bigger than me. It has always been bigger than me.
It's ok.

Let it out.
Soak it in.
Share it.

You created this. You lived inside your dreams.

Integration

My dog Ralph is a rule-follower. At first Ryan and I thought we were probably just naturally-inclined dog trainers (until we got the husky, which proved otherwise) because Ralph learned quickly and easily. Operating within a system gives him a sense of control over his environment. But if you allow him to break a rule just one time, he concludes that the rule must not have any substantial merit behind it and he will never again obey any requests to return to the previous mode of operation. Once he has seen the light, he's not going back.

I am decidedly not a rule-follower. 

For the majority of my life I have operated from my narcissistic theory that any rules regarding my behavior must be out to get me, specifically. There seemed to be inexplicable rewards for self diminishment and for creating the most elaborate displays of having your shit together and at first, I wanted nothing to do with it. 

Then inevitably the rewards became shinier and more distracting. My strategy of fighting against something of which I couldn't exactly pinpoint had shown little positive results so I changed my strategy to playing the game with the intention to win. I thought I could "beat" the system. I theorized that I could put myself in a position where I would be so successful and productive that no one would be able to tell me what to do and then I would be free. 

Whatever that means.

Now, as we approach the 1 year anniversary of societal shutdown, I'm beginning to see my life separate into 2 distinct parts: the pre 2020 hamster wheel of productivity and self abandonment and the post 2020 conscious unfolding and feeling, rather than forcing, my way forward. 

And now it's time to integrate. 

The world has begun to spin again and I want to make sure that I am deliberate about incorporating everything that I uncovered from the stillness of 2020, into a self that can exist more intentionally within the spinning. I'm grateful that the timeout gave me space to let go of some of the habits and attachments that I wouldn't have known how to get myself out of otherwise. What I'm most grateful for though, was the timeout from the pieces of my life that I still love, but needed to reimagine. 

The potential of being able to race again fills me with purpose. I've always seen triathlon as the perfect reward system for my most natural inclinations: discipline and consistency. It has provided me with an excuse (albeit, an incredibly enjoyable one) to put my head down and work my ass off. But, like Ralph, now that I've picked my head up I know there is more and I'm not going back. I know I can be fast and have stillness. I can reach my goals without filling every extra hour of my day with productivity. And not only that, I think this may be the only way to get there.

There is a way to integrate everything into a new, balanced, more complex version of myself, and my current task is to imagine it, then integrate it. 

Moving forward, I will need to create my own space. I don't want to have to wait for the next global pandemic to break me of my addiction to an ever-increasing pace. Unfortunately what the laws of physics dictate, as much as laws sound like rules I'd like to break, is that all the energy that currently exists in the universe can only be recycled and repurposed; it cannot be created or destroyed. So begrudgingly I accept that in order to make space in my life, I must first let something go.  

In my negotiations with the universe / higher self / any other implied higher power about what I will consider surrendering, I remember that balance is the universal truth that I can't outrun. I want to work hard, be productive, and achieve great things, but I also recognize that I need and want (which is the harder word) adequate rest and space for growth. 

So I offer up my rigidity, my need to be right or seen as smart, or like I have it all figured out. Like I have anything figured out. But I don't offer it up easily... or maybe at all because that seems fucking scary. Mostly I just write it down, both in my journal and here, because I know that when I write something down it becomes real on its own. 

The latin root of integration is integrare, which means to make whole, or to renew.

When I give myself space to prioritize feeling rather than doing, I give myself permission to renew myself instead of clinging to past behaviors or labels, which once gave me a sense of belonging but since, have hardened into walls that keep belonging out. I can change directions as soon as I've slowed down enough to realize when a particular thought pattern has run its course. 

My sensitivity has always been a strength.

Which is something that I'll continue to tell myself until it finally sinks in. 

Carl Jung said that "Only the paradox comes anywhere near to comprehending the fullness of life," that "The paradox reflects a higher level of intellect and, by not forcibly representing the unknowable as known, gives a more faithful picture of the real state of affairs." 

In the space, I integrate the complexity of my feeling. Even when one feeling is loud and seemingly overbearing, I listen for the timid, often paradoxical ones, which are simultaneously present and contain their own source of wisdom. 

There are always layers and there is always balance. 

Here's a picture of the husky (for balance).

Why 2020 is the Perfect Year (for us) to Start Our Business

So far, at least for me, 2020 has been a year marked by the itchy burning discomfort of forced stillness.

For the first 31 years of my life, I've defined myself by what I do, what I've accomplished, and what I will accomplish. I locked myself into a rhythm of relentless forward progress that I was both proud of, and exhausted by.

Sitting on my bathroom counter is a framed note that I wrote myself on New Years. It's sort of like David Goggins' "accountability mirror," but prettier. I wanted to be reminded of my intentions for personal growth all year, so I put the note in a place that I would see every day. On the note, I wrote: "make time for stillness."

Ask and you shall receive.

I honestly don't think I would have known how to create my own stillness if the universe hadn't stepped in and delivered 2020. I didn't know how deep into the merry-go-round I was. I had created too much momentum.

The initial slamming of the breaks when quarantine orders went into place was jarring. But it was almost too dramatic to accept as the on-going reality for a little while. Then, as the days turned into weeks turned into months, restlessness and anxiety started to creep in. To some degree, we were forced to face the build-up that gathered when the pace slowed down. Or maybe it was already there, but we were moving too fast to see it.

The physical, mental, and emotional piles of garbage that we had been delaying sorting through came knocking on our doors. What I quickly came to understand were all the ways I rationalized holding back my vision for a future that I could more consciously create. I rationalized that my momentum would eventually land me somewhere I'd be happy with. I stayed just unconscious enough to keep up the pace without questioning why I was doing it or where I wanted to go. I rationalized being too unimportant, too busy, too satisfied, too ok-enough to keep going at the current rate without making changes.

What I learned from the stillness is that I wasn't ok-enough.

I didn't become any less uncomfortable talking about my vision, but I slowed down my thought for long enough to realize I had to share it despite the discomfort. And that is how I found my business partners: two smart, driven, fucking forces of women, with complimentary skillsets and talents, who believe what I believe; 

Who were also not ok-enough with the status quo; 

Who were willing to put it all on the line for something better, something truer, something more deeply real.

NYX Endurance officially launches on August 1st, 2020. We are an endurance company and we are 3 coaches who are damn good at what we do. If you want to be a faster, stronger, more capable version of yourself, we know how to get you there. But what will make us (and you) truly successful is the fact that we're starting this company in 2020: a year where anything that isn't designed with purpose, honesty, and raw humanity will crumble and dissipate. Only the deepest truths and the strongest connections will survive.

We feel more confident taking a risk and putting ourselves out there in 2020 because within our stillness,

Within our darkness,

We have found our voice.

Embrace the darkness 

4/4/48 & Finish Lines

It took about 5 days after completing the 4/4/48 challenge for my head to clear from that fog that settles in after an event in which you completely empty your tank. I still obviously gave myself the full week to continue eating whatever I wanted because that is one of the best post-race rewards, but the fog is something I never knew I'd miss so much.

Don't get me wrong, the fog is hugely inconvenient and certainly not a sign of healthy brain function. It isn't conducive to focusing, remembering what you walked into a room for, multi-tasking, or even single-tasking. But the fog is also my little reminder that I plowed straight through an old limit.

Our training allows us to put our output into autopilot for a given intensity (i.e. race-specific speed or power). When we get into this mode, our bodies will be able to do what they've done before- what we've trained them to do. So we can only get to new limits when we're focused and intentional about pushing past the old ones. We have to be continuously taking in the feedback from our bodies, calculating how much we have left in the tank at a given intensity, and consciously applying that output. It is physically and mentally exhausting.

About a month before the challenge, there was a day when Ironman cancelled a bunch of events scheduled for the fall, and for some reason that was the trigger that made me realize I was going to have to find a way to manufacture the intensity of a race on my own.

Ryan blasting through the water-gun aid station

For most of us, 2020 has been an anxiety-inducing year. The disruption from our distractions and upheaval from our relentless numbing has been important, but hard. When we feel anxious, our focus is in our heads, not in our bodies. The quickest way to get back into our bodies and shed the anxiety is through movement. Movement allows us to feel more settled in our thoughts so that we can deal with life more simply and not feel overwhelmed by the chaos. For me, when the movement is at it's maximum intensity, and the simplicity of my thoughts regresses to "get oxygen," "run faster," and "try not to die," it feels nothing short of transcendent. 

David Goggins (Navy Seal, Ultra-runner, & Author) came up with the 4/4/48 challenge: running 4 miles every 4 hours for 48 hours. We did a modified version (5/4/24) back in May, and I realized that "just finishing" is not nearly enough for me. I need more out of myself.

Screen shot from our video footage of the event

So it was settled that I was going to "race" 4/4/48. I had absolutely no idea how to go about that: how to pace it, how to manage energy, and if/when I was going to run out of gas and have to crawl my way across my made-up finish line. What I did know was that the only way to guarantee that I emptied my tank was to go out hard and expect to fall off at the end.

Through the 1st day I was holding a sub 7:30 pace, which didn't feel too bad at the time. I thought I needed a little bit of a cushion for my sub 8:00 pace goal and this seemed like a modest buffer. I continued to run sub 7:30's through the 4am and 8am runs on Sunday, so naturally I started to get ahead of myself, thinking I could continue to hold that pace and not use the cushion.

Then came the noon run on Sunday. At that point we were already 32 miles in, it was pushing 100 degrees, and for some reason Ryan and I decided to run on the completely exposed dirt trail by our house. I came in at 7:45 pace, but not easily. When I got back inside, I was a little dizzy, too nauseas to eat anything, and I spent the whole break period going back and forth between laying on my bathroom floor to shivering under the covers in my bed. It was obviously not a good sign, but unfortunately for me, I'm way too stupid to give up. I just thought I might have to walk the last 12 miles, which I was not happy about.

Then somehow around 3:30pm, right before we were supposed to head up to do the 4pm run with friends, I felt ok enough to get out of bed and head back towards the start line. I had figured out that I could cruise the last 12 miles at 9:00 pace and still finish with a 7:50 average, so I felt good about that.

I ran the first 1/2 mile or so of that next lap nice and easy, and then the race mode switch flipped back on and I couldn't let myself phone it in. I finished that lap right at my 7:30 average.

The last 2 runs at 8pm and midnight were brutal. I had never run anything close to the distance I was at, and I had certainly not maintained any kind of speed for that long. But I had gone through the tough stretch and I could see the finish line. My 7:30 pace goal, although completely arbitrary, was the closest thing I had had all year to a real meaningful competition, and I wanted to win. For the last run, I came in at 7:43 average, which was the exact number I needed to hold to make my overall average 7:30 on the dot. I could not have run any faster. I stopped my watch after those last 4 miles, then turned onto my street to walk home, down the finisher shoot,

In the dark,

By myself.

I closed my eyes, pictured the shoot, held out my hands to collect high fives from the make-believe crowd, and sobbed my eyes out.

Sure, it was a little dramatic, but your level of commitment is directly proportional to your level of vulnerability. That's why people have such a hard time setting goals that they can't guarantee. It's emotionally risky.

Right before the last 4 mile segment, I reached out to my team of athletes who were still running with me, and I wrote them a little note about finish lines. Really though, I wrote this for myself:

"It's difficult to explain what it's like if you've never experienced it. Yes, it's the culmination of your hard work and dedication to your training, and the sacrifices you made along the way. But it's also sort of a graduation to a new state of being. You become a different type of person when you make it there, and it always gives you what you need most. If there's a part of you that ever thought, "I can't do this," or "I'm not smart enough, strong enough, resilient enough, experienced enough," in any part of your life, the finish line proves that you are and you can. That's why we fight for it."

Racing, Stripped Down

"It's amazing when you strip it all down. You don't need much. You don't need big crazy events, just crazy passionate people with wild big goals, all supporting and motivating each other to be amazing."
- Lynn Harris (my athlete, who rode longer, farther, and higher than she's ever ridden)

Before yesterday, there was a slowly widening hole in my heart. I sign up for race after race, year after year because Ironman has been the most easily accessible medium for cultivating self worth. Reminding myself a few times per year that I am a limitless human being spreads through the fibers of everything I do and everything I believe in.

I was also missing the personal growth I get to witness in my athletes. I love that they've all been open-minded and dedicated to challenging themselves in different ways throughout COVID, but it gets increasingly more difficult to stay motivated without an opportunity to put it all on the line. Sure PR's are exciting, getting faster is cool, but what I live for as a coach is giving my athletes a platform to shed layers of doubt so that they can realize potential that they might not have even known existed.

Everesting was never about the numbers for most of us. It was about our own personal Everests. I wanted to shoot for the whole 29,029 because I wouldn't have been as motivated by a lesser goal. Realistically, I knew that on a TT bike with limited gearing, I wasn't completely set up for success. I'm a strong athlete with a shit ton of willpower but I'm not that strong. I would have had a better shot with a road bike, on a steeper hill that allowed for less total mileage. But my TT bike wouldn't have made it up a steeper hill for as long and I loved that the grade of this hill made the challenge more accessible for more people.

At the end of the day, I rode about 150 miles in 13 hours, totaling just over 20k feet of elevation gain, the longest and farthest I've ever exercised for (including all my Ironmans). 20k feet was the most I've ever climbed by over 8k feet. As it became increasingly more inevitable that I would be done before 29,029, my goal evolved into just continuing to pedal until I couldn't anymore. If I was going to DNF, I wanted to make sure that it wasn't because I gave up, it would be because just for today, that was my limit.

My top 5 favorite things about our Everesting Challenge:

1. Being out on the same hill with the Colorado team. Living and breathing in real time with like-minded souls who share the same passion for chasing dreams.
2. Coming together and organizing this challenge with 2 other coaches (Julie & Alison) who also believe in walking the walk. 
3. That indescribably fulfilling feeling of completely emptying the tank.
4. Getting to share my Iron-team with others. I have never been on a solo mission. Ryan (my husband) and Gina (my sister) are part of my endurance journey, and I'm so glad that a few other people got to experience the lift you get when they're behind you. 
5. My amazing team of athletes who all surpassed milestones yesterday. At the beginning of the day, I asked them all to get to the point that they wanted to quit, at least once, and to keep going from there. Even if they didn't make it much further, I wanted them to all experience the feeling of breaking down a wall. And they did. 

The final 2 climbs were wobbly and it had started to rain. The rest of the CO team had gone home so there were no other bikers left on the road, but I had my support crew (Ryan, Gina, and my dogs) driving up and down the mountain with me. I didn't stop because of my legs, and to be honest, I've had a hard time dealing with the fact that I quit before my legs were tapped out. It hit me when I woke up Sunday morning and my legs felt like they could probably get back on the bike and go again. I stopped because I was starting to lose it mentally. My brain was getting foggy and I was starting to lose focus for short periods, and that was a little scary. I've pushed myself beyond that point before and I promised Ryan I would never put him through that again.

I wrote a blog on January first about needing to put myself in situations to fail more. Technically I failed my Everest attempt, and even though I know that I stretched my limits and did things I've never done before, it still doesn't sit well. I know that the path to success is lined with failure, but I have a lot left to learn about how to deal with it.

I'm endlessly grateful for my sport and the community that we've created. Endurance teaches me so much about what I value, who I am, and what I stand for. I believe in the relentless pursuit of better, and I've found myself in the middle of community who shares this drive with me.

Lessons from Endurance

I recently got the results back from an athletic-based DNA test, where my genetic expressions of "gifted" traits, pointed to high potential in sports like power lifting, body building, or being a "linebacker." (Seriously.) Based on my athletic background, and the sports and skills that have always come most easily to me, I could have predicted this. If I wanted to capitalize on my natural physical abilities, I would have never found my way to endurance sports. But instead, I've always chosen to follow my intuition and my heart, and that is exactly how I found Ironman.

Up to this point in my Ironman career, I've been able to tally up the lessons that I've learned through pushing the limits of my endurance. I've continued to sign up for race after race because even though the lessons have been challenging and uncomfortable, they've been my platform for growth and resilience as both an athlete and a person. Each one has given me a new perspective on what I have control over, what I don't have control over, where I need to improve, and when I have to let go.

I firmly believe that Ironman has strengthened my armor and built my character. And now that it has been put on pause, it's time to turn the tables and use this challenging time in life to build upon my foundation. Coming out stronger on the other side of this pandemic is as much, if not more, a feat of endurance as any race I've ever done. It took me a little while to recognize it as such, but thanks to triathlon, I know that I am trained for this.

I've been intently focused on improving my speed at the Ironman distance for a few years now, so it has been a while since my goals have been related to conquering a new distance. And I think I forgot that the first thing you have to do when stepping up to a new distance is to slow down.

It has to be about survival and expansion before it can be about speed.
There's a learning curve and there's a whole lot of failing that comes before mastery.

I still feel myself oscillating between acceptance and resistance. I go through phases where I feel restless and I just want everything to go back to normal. Sometimes in the middle of a long race, I go through phases where I just want the pain to stop and I get caught up in that feeling. Comfort is so easy. Normal is easy. What's known is easy. And sometimes you convince yourself that those things are what makes you happy. But in order to get myself through those phases, I remember that resisting the low points doesn't make them go away, and letting them have control over me is never worth settling for. So I've learned to surrender to the process and embrace the deep discomfort that comes with growth.

I love this quote attributed to an anonymous Navy Seal: "Under pressure, you don't rise to the occasion, you sink to the level of your training. That's why we train so hard."

As endurance athletes, we know this truth too well. We know that without putting ourselves through the fire, we would miss the opportunity to learn what we're made of and what we've trained for. We also know that sometimes by putting ourselves out there, we may find out that we didn't train hard enough or prepare well enough. But it is simply the courageous act of stepping into the arena where we have to face our shortcomings, that we learn exactly what they are and how to conquer them next time.

So right now we might feel a little lost because we're missing our arena. Races are canceled and we don't know when they'll be back. But I'm going to challenge myself to see this pandemic as our current arena. It looks different on the surface, but this is all about endurance. I love that my sport has gotten me to this point: where I'm far from handling things perfectly, but my gratitude and appreciation for a challenge is what keeps driving me forward.

Coaching Myself: Part 3

I honestly didn't think there would be a "Part 3" on coaching myself. I thought for sure Ryan would have thrown me into the looney bin by now and/or begged someone else to coach me. One of the reasons I decided to make this change was that I felt like I needed a hard reset on some of the patterns I had gotten myself into that weren't helping my growth. I expected to hit that reset button with coaching myself for a couple months, but then assumed that I'd go off the deep end and need to hire a new coach by the end of February (that was my pre-determined cut-off). Much to my surprise, things are actually going better than expected.

My sister, Gina, is just so good at photography.

One of the biggest contributors to my sustained sanity, and dare I say, improved fitness, is my shortened and intensified build/recovery schedule. I began by tracking my HRV (heart rate variability) daily to incorporate an objective measure of my fatigue and recovery rate, rather than relying completely on feel. My cycles have been: build for 2 weeks, recover for 4 days. The key here is that I've been able to increase my intensity in those 2 weeks because I'm recovering harder. My workouts in those 4 recovery days include yoga and basically just floating around in the pool. I don't run at all, which is hard for me since running is my favorite. I can't say that I'm mature enough to take full days off yet (baby steps), but I'm not ruling it out for the future.


I made more strength gains in the weight room this off-season than I have in years, and I'm committed to learning more and being more focused on nutrition. I've also been tracking my monthly cycle and applying my newly acquired knowledge from Dr. Stacy Sims' book, "Roar," to make sure I'm working with my physiology to do what's best for my body. If you don't like to hear about periods, go ahead and skip the rest of this paragraph. I have an IUD, which means I don't actually get my period, but I do get all of the other symptoms and have the same hormone highs and lows throughout the month. Without the obvious monthly cue, I had to start with tracking my symptoms as I noticed them, and it took me no time to figure out when my high hormone phase started, with my scientifically coined markers such as "feel fat" and "want chocolate." From there, I've been capitalizing on the low hormone part of my cycle, and making sure that I'm supporting my body with the right nutrition and supplements for the high hormone part.

I don't know how my first race of the season, 70.3 Oceanside, is less than 2 months away already, but I'm excited to put this all to the test. I've never coached myself through a big race, and I'm actually just realizing that right now as I'm typing this... which is mildly anxiety-inducing, even though I was just bragging about how well I think I'm doing.


Whatever. Can't be totally sane to do this sport.

...I wonder what my race plan will look like.

Coaching Myself Part II

In "Coaching Myself Part I," I said that I was going to ask myself if I did my best each week. Turns out that is HARD to do. Maybe I shouldn't have started it right before the holidays, but even into January, I'm having a hard time with it. On the weeks where I know I didn't do my best (even though they were during Christmas and when I was sick for a week), I could not get myself to actually write down that I did not do my best. I thought about it, tried to rationalize it, stared at my notebook for a while, but never actually wrote down the word, "no." For the weeks where I'm on the fence about what my best was, I've had to do a lot of soul searching to figure out what my best even means.

I'm not quite sure what kind of psychological issues we're dealing with here, but I'm not giving up on this one. I'm not going to continue to shy away from things that make me uncomfortable, especially when they stand in the way of my progress. The funny thing about triathletes, is that on the surface, it looks like we do uncomfortable stuff all the time. I'll only speak for myself, but I think I've gotten relatively comfortable doing hard workouts, to the point where my current incremental progress is due primarily to consistency (not to be undervalued), rather than finding ways to dig deeper than I do on a regular basis. This would all be well and good if it matched my goals. Let's say my goals were to get a 15 minute Ironman PR and get back on the podium, like I did in 2018. I could probably accomplish these things by continuing to do what I'm doing, but that's not why I'm here.

This was right after finishing my first ever triathlon (check out my kit), back when everything was hard, every time
.... including shaping my eyebrows, apparently.

When I first got started in triathlon, I didn't even know what a comfort zone was. I had just graduated from UConn and my favorite part of playing college lacrosse was our strength and conditioning workouts. I had a weird masochistic obsession with pushing my body as hard as it could possibly go, then being told to do it again, and somehow finding more in the tank. (If any of my teammates are reading this, yes- I know I was the only one who liked that.) So I've decided that I need to hit reset on my current routines and get back to that mindset.

I have 2 themes that I'm focused on for 2019. They apply to all aspects of my life, and I haven't figured out all of the specifics for some areas, but I know exactly how they apply to triathlon. They are:

1. Show Up

2. Stay Uncomfortable

They can be interchangeable at times and so far, they've mostly manifested as me cursing at myself under my breath when my alarm goes off earlier than I want it to, and I have to drag my ass to masters instead of doing my own swim at a more reasonable time of day. Showing up is about not making assumptions or having any expectations about a workout before it starts. If the workout is in my plan, I'm going to show up no matter how tired I am, and leave the door open to surprise myself with what I can accomplish.

Staying uncomfortable is the only way I'm going to make the progress that I want to make. Last weekend I went to the first of a group bike trainer series (that I prepaid for so I couldn't get out of it), and we worked on all of the exact things that I suck at. I've been ignoring working on cycling drills like ILT and high cadence because I've convinced myself that my time would be better spent just working on getting my power up. We spent the entire 2 hours doing both of those things to exhaustion, and while I'm pretty sure my average watts were around 7, I could barely lift my leg through the pedal stroke by the end.

And then I went running after that group trainer ride. 

Every year, I have my athletes fill out a goal sheet. Since I am currently enlisted on my athlete roster, I made myself fill one out as well. It was harder to fill out than I thought it would be, which I appreciate, because now I have a better understanding of the level of deep thinking and commitment that my athletes have to pull out of themselves when they put theirs together.

The goal sheet starts with the race schedule, and here is what I know of mine so far:

4/6: 70.3 Oceanside
6/9: Escape from Alcatraz
7/28: Ironman Canada

As it has been for the past few years, the second half of my season is left open for the chance that I qualify for Kona.

Aside from my themes, which apply to all levels of goals, the rest of the goal sheet looks like this:

Write your list of goals for the upcoming season, and split them into 3 categories:

Process goals: These are the goals that you have the most control over. What are you going to do in your training that is going to make you a better athlete? Example: be consistent with your strength training, spend x days per week in the pool.

• Train more consistently with other people, especially people who are faster than me
• Ride outside when I have the chance, rather than relying too much on my trainer
• Stay focused on eating nutrient-dense food, rather than just paying attention to macronutrients
• Meditate and journal regularly to stay connected to the roots of my motivation
• Ask myself on a daily basis, "am I making the kinds of choices that someone who podiums in Kona would make?"

Performance goals: You have some control over these goals, especially if you line them up with your process goals? Example: raise your FTP to x

• Run 1:35 off the bike in Oceanside
• Run sub 3:40 off the bike in Whistler
• Swim under an hour in Whistler
• Get a new Ironman PR: sub 10:35

Outcome goals: These are not always under your control. You could have the outcome goal to win a race, and you could have the fastest time of your life, and still not win the race, depending on who else shows up. It’s still important to write them down so that you have something that you’re shooting for.   

• Qualify for Kona
• Podium in Oceanside
• Podium in Alcatraz

If there was a goal that you didn’t reach last season, why did that happen? Were you too focused on outcome goals, and not enough on process goals? Were you consistent in your training, focus, and in your mental toughness?

Ever since I raced on the big island in 2016, it's been my goal to get back, and I did not accomplish that goal last season. Admittedly, I'm always more focused on my outcome goals but that doesn't mean I didn't follow through with my process goals and make a lot of performance improvements. I'm just competitive and I want to win more than anything else. That's what drives me to stick to my process goals. What I need to change is my inner dialogue.

Even though I was consistent with my training, I was not consistent with my mental commitment. I have a really hard time being fully invested in someone else's training plan (someone else being whoever my coach is). I always think I know better and I'm constantly questioning things, which more than anything else, wastes energy. The success of any plan is determined by the level of buy-in, and I've held myself back by not buying in. I needed this coaching change for 2019 because if I can't buy in to my own plan, then I'll never be able to move forward.