Fear of Falling

Fear is my least favorite emotion. Unfortunately, I feel it all too often: feel of failure, fear of the unknown, and, most often, fear of falling. This time of year, the roads get slick with rain and wet leaves, the wind gusts, and there are days when my morning 3.5 mile ride to work is spent desperately clutching the brakes of my bike, hoping that I don't hit that bad patch or unexpected opening car door and go down.

Earlier this fall, I was "softly doored." Getting "doored" is my and every cyclist's nightmare: riding fast down on the right side of the road near parked cars, and one of those car doors opens without time to swerve and bike hits door, with the cyclist usually taking the brunt of the accident; severe injuries are usually the result. My experience was much less brutal. I was riding through crowded evening traffic - early fall, so still daylight - in the bike lane on the left side of 4th ave in the heart of downtown Seattle. I was going no more than 10 mph when I saw the passenger door of a taxi open into the street in front of me. I saw the door open with time to react: I slammed on my brakes, yelled, and when I fell, I don't think it was due to impact with the door, just the quick stop without time to clip out of my petals. I was lucky and the car behind me saw me fall and stopped. As I quickly got up, a few shocked pedestrians asked if I was okay while the idiot who was getting out of the cab (into traffic - who does that when one can get out of the backseat of the cab onto the sidewalk?) just stared at me dumbly as if puzzled as to why a bike was trying to crash into his cab. I wasn't really hurt, some very minor scrapes and bruises, but was shaken and sore (from the panicked stop) for days afterwards.

Last night I tripped and fell as Jeff and I were trotting through our neighborhood (in the dark, slippery streets) to catch a bus. The worst part is when I start to fall - the worst result flashes through my mind, and the fear sets in. The landing is always just a shock; there is rarely pain at first. The taste of blood in my mouth makes me wonder if I bit my tongue or broke a tooth. I get up and try to figure out if I'm okay. Wet patches on my knees and my shin. Sore hip where I took some of the fall. The wet on my knee is just mud, the shin hurts more. Hands and elbows took a beating as well, but hands aren't bleeding. Turns out the shin was the worst of it; good thing I'm wearing old blue jeans and sneakers; they soak up most of the blood until I can get to a drug store. Again, no serious injuries (although the shin will have a very nice scar), but the shakiness and fear afterwards and the internal berating - how could I be so stupid?

There should be a point to all of this. The fear is the worst part, never the fall. If only there were a way to avoid the fear. What could I achieve if I didn't get so scared and neurotic? I keep biking to work despite the rain and wind and stupid, taxi-riding tourists. I swim in open water despite the liklihood of a kick to the face from another athlete. I keep going to work even though my work doesn't always make everyone happy and sometimes fails to fully deliver. I do these things through the fear, despite the fear, perhaps because of the fear. The more I fall and get back up again, the easier it is.

Test, test, 1 - 2 - 3

Does this thing still work?

Updates:

Jeff and I both had a good race back in June and are "Iron-man and -woman" respectively. I had a long post that I started the days following, which was never finished, but perhaps I'll try to resurrect.

Work has continued to be crazy; it's been the year to beat all years in my office. Things are finally starting to slow down, but with a new boss coming in on Tuesday, things will get interesting in an uncertain way as we see new staff come and old staff go.

Facebook has become my online media of choice and pretty much the way I keep in touch with life, friends, and the world. There is, however, still room for other expression and longer exposition.

Stay tuned?

A Valentine Wish

I'm watching You've Got Mail, because I'm a total sap who can watch this film a million times. Anyway, in addition to to the romance and the architecture, it's a tale about the loss of small local business due to the big boxes.

Jeff and I always celebrate our birthdays with a fancy meal out, birthday boy/girl choice. This year, Jeff selected Portage, after considering other newer, trendier, hipper spots. His reason: it's amazing and local, and did we really want to bemoan the loss of that wonderful local treasure that we complain about losing due to low sales (what were they thinking?), but that we didn't frequent.

So, if you are celebrating Valentine's Day (or President's Day, or your birthday, or just a night you don't want to cook), please eat local, even if the cuisine is global.

(Note: we normally avoid restaurants on Valentine's Day at all costs, but we'll be in Vancouver this weekend for a race, so it's inevitable. We've got reservations here.)

Tri-Training Update

It's been over 2 months since we've officially been "training" for our upcoming Ironman triathlon. Fortunately for my career, but unfortunate for said training, the beginning of my training period coincided with the beginning of my new job. I've taken over my former supervisor's role, which has lead to a very busy work schedule and associated stress. I'm still doing the old job and we have another vacancy on the team, which has meant trying to learn a new job, doing an old job, and trying to train a temporary employee. This, combined with a few non-Seattle-like weeks of snow and freezing temps, has not been great for the training.

What's going well:
Swimming: I've been swimming twice a week consistently since December, and am already swimming more than twice as much as I ever trained for my two half-iron-distance tri's.
Running: I'm running three times a week consistently, and I've gotten up to 12 miles for my long run. I still need to up the shorter runs in distance, but this is feeling pretty good.

What's not on track:
Cycling: I have a hard time making it to early morning (need sleep!) or post-work spin classes (leave the office at 5 pm?!?) and I also have a hard time getting out for long weekend rides in the cold (early darkness and drippy days don't help). I'm commuting regularly and have done some weekend rides, but the time-in-saddle is not where it should be by now.
Strength and core work: I just haven't gotten into a good routine. No good or lame excuses for this one.
Weight loss: I've held pretty steady with my weight, but I should be losing about a pound a week to be where I'd like to be for the race. I need to eat like I'm in training and cut out the junk. Again, no excuses, just a need to shift my attitude and do the difficult work of changing habits. Post dinner snacking is my downfall.

I can see my body changing with the training. I'm building muscle mass in my arms, back, thighs, and calves. I guess it's a tri-thing when jeans are tightest around the calves and you have a hard time zipping up boots that extend past the ankle.

I've had to adjust my expectations for the race and now am aiming for a finish without injury or too much pain. Technically, this was my expectation all along, but I must admit I had fantasies of finishing in 12 hours. Unfortunately, this just encourages thoughts of the next Ironman...

Welcome 2009!

New Year's Eve was great: dinner at the Steelhead Diner (finally tried poutine) and then the DeVotchka show at the Showbox.

New Year's Day was appropriately quiet. We ate lots of roasted meat and watched Dr. Zhivago. I didn't realize that the DVD was a 2-sided disc, however, until we finished watching the second half of the movie. I couldn't figure out why the movie didn't make any sense. We then watched the first half, throughout which I kept saying, "oh, now I get it..."

Goal for 2009: get it done. I've signed up for the Coeur d'Alene Ironman, so I just want to train enough to finish with as minimal suffering as possible. I have a new job at work (still doing the old job while in the process of hiring the backfill), so just getting through the work week is a challenge. We have a backlog of house projects that Jeff is heading up, but I need to step up my support. Finally, and most significantly, I'll become an aunt late next spring, so will look forward to that adventure.

Despite the challenges we're all facing right now, I'm excited and hopeful about what will happen in 2009.

Happy New Year!

Snow!

We've gotten about 3 inches so far, with more falling. Thank goodness for the internet, so I can work from home. KEXP playing, snow falling, hot coffee at hand; it's pretty good. Poor Jeff left his laptop at work, so he is mountain biking in to his office.

"Everyone Celebrates Thanksgiving by Eating Turkeys..."

If you enjoyed the Sarah Palin turkey pardon video, you should check out the Woodland Park Zoo turkey toss. Fun for the whole family!

As I was considering what book to read next, I happened upon the Yeti's NaNoReMo08 post, so decided to join in the fun that is reading about a pedophile. I saw the Kubrick movie version years ago and remember being surprised by how good it was, so had some hopes for the book. So far, it's very well written, although it's getting a bit tedious. Since I'm still early on, I'm not positive I'm going to make it through, but we'll see.

Happy reading!