Ten for ten

I realized today (because I'm a humanities major and therefore can't count), that 2013 is my 10th season of this 'being fit' thing.  Next year's Ironman will be within one month of the 10th anniversary of my first triathlon, so that seems like an appropriate way of celebrating.  But before that first race, I had spent several months obsessively working out, starting with the first few sessions at the gym with a personal trainer who even had the audacity to introduce me to the treadmill.  It was several weeks (months?) before I struck up the courage to try it, but when I did, I ran 2 miles in 30 minutes and called everyone I knew to tell them all about it.

After 35 years of conch-potatohood, it still amazes and delights me that I can power myself through the world on a bike or a pair of sneakers.  Those moments of awe haven't gotten any less and there are days like today where beautiful countryside and good company makes me so very very happy that I decided to try this athletics jazz.

So, to mark the close of my tenth season of being fit, here are my top ten favorite athletic memories from the past ten years.  These are sort of in order, but I could easily swap several of them around.  And I'd be remiss if I didn't throw in some blanket highlights like "buying Indy," or "joining Team Z."  Some of these are solo efforts, some group efforts, and it delights me that so many are shared with Mark who introduced me to the joys of cycling.

#10 Hiking Old Rag at night, December 2012.  A group of us started around 3 am and hiked up to watch the sunrise from the top of Old Rag.  It's a challenging hike at the best of times and the dark just made it all the more special.  That was a weekend when I also unveiled my new tattoo at the team dinner and felt like a million bucks.  So to go on and climb a mountain later than night was just further proof of how far I'd come - from my life as a non-athlete and from my depression.

#9 Annual Festivus Urban Hike with my partner in urban adventure, Taneen.  What started in 2009 as a way of two strapped-for-cash women having a good time on the town has become an annual tradition going on five years now.  We fill our bike bottles with wine, pack our backpacks with holiday snacks and hike upwards of ten miles in an evening, all over DC from the National Christmas Tree to the Southwest Waterfront to Capital Hill.  We air our grievances on a Festivus pole if there's one handy and if there isn't, we write them out and then ritualistically burn them.  Can't wait for #5 in a month!

#8 Marine Corps Marathon, October, 2013.  I've just written about this, so I shan't bore you again

#7 Muddy Marathon, May 2010.  What a fun race this was.  Laura and I intended to each run a half marathon and add our times together for the marathon relay.  We only each made it through one 6 mile loop, it was so tough between bushwhacking, clambering up boulders and slogging through swamps.  But the motto for the race is "The most fun you'll have going so slow."  And how true that was.  I don't think I'd ever giggled in a race before.

#6 My very first triathlon, September, 2004.  I've always said that accomplishments are not measured by the distance or the difficulty, but by how far you had to travel to get there.  I traveled a long road of many many years of inactivity, borderline obesity and had to change many many bad habits to make this race a reality.  I still view it as my greatest accomplishment and I'm not ashamed of having cried like a baby at the end.

#5 A bike ride that Mark and I took out near Leesburg, Summer 2004.  The cicadas were in full bloom and the day was hideously hot.  I was on my nearly ten year old Mongoose and we were going longer than we'd ever had before.  We struggled up some hills, ran out of water and bumped along a very rocky section of the C&O.  At one point, I turned to Mark and said "I'm as happy as I have ever been."

#4 Otago Rail Trail, February 2007.  Evidence of how far we'd come was this short bike trip along a converted rail trail in the beautiful, open and stark countryside of Central Otago, New Zealand.  Rented bikes, fish & chips at pubs along the way, staying at B&Bs on working farms.  It's a side of New Zealand that we really miss and it was so wonderful to enjoy our homeland as athletes.

#3 Cycling the length of the C&O Towpath (184.5 miles), November, 2010.  It's evidence of my depression that I didn't blog about this at the time.  It was not only one of the most fun things I've ever done, it was a necessary reminder of what I could do.  Thank you to my friend Laura who took me out of myself and challenged me to three days of pain, laughter, gorgeous scenery, fascinating history and some surprisingly good food!

#2 Adirondacks Adventure, July 2006.  My first bike tour!  I think this is where I learned that Indy's destiny is to fly (especially when there are these kinds of signs around).  I climbed mountains at 4 mph for an hour, hit 50 mph down the other side and we completed our first century.  The scenery was glorious and the company even better.  I announced one night that I had found something better than triathlon and that feeling has never left me.  I am never happier than when on my bike and what could be better than multiple days on my bike?  And as a bonus, I rode one loop of the Ironman Lake Placid course and announced that I would never do an Ironman.

Which leads me to my favorite athletic memory so far ...


#1 Ironman, Lake Placid, July 2009.  Yes, this one blew everything else before it out of the water.  Not only was it the culmination of a year of intense training, but it came five weeks after breaking my elbow and ten days after losing my job.  I know now that I didn't rule the world, but it sure felt like it at the time.