136 days to go till “the Fondo” of my life. One might say I’m blowing this thing way out of proportion, but I like gentle pressure.
This fun will cost us the same as new flooring for our house :), I will take at least two and half weeks off, no pay of course and I will spend countless hours training. Given this finishing is not optional, it is required :), finishing under seven hours- lovely, finishing under six and half- cool, finishing under six- the dream is alive baby!
I’m looking forward to being in NYC again, so much had changed since 2004. Jason will see the amazing place for the first time. I can’t wait to go for a ride in Central Park and riding through sleeping Manhattan getting to the starting line.
Well, 136 days.
For tonight it is another movie marathon, this time Beerfest and Slamin Salmon ;)))
Ringing in the amazing, exciting year 2015

My last post was full of race jitters, and I must admit I’m properly addicted to them now.
Excercise surely helped me tremendously with managing my depression, but achieving goals in races also created an enormous sense of accomplishment.
Just to recap last year. I rode on my bike for a first time in a group of people and placed seventh in my category. Then in the fall I ran 10km in 64 minutes, me who in May couldn’t run 200m without running out of breath. Not to forget that thanks to strictly monitoring my diet and training I lost 14 pounds. I haven’t been in this kind of shape since ever in my adult life.
As my forties approach I do feel the need to work towards goals. My goal for this year is to include Sara and encourage her to set her goals and work hard to get them. She has such an amazing potential, if we can just harness it.
Two weeks ago we spent the weekend at the parent’s house and as usual we all went swimming in the morning. Sara wanted to jump from the one meter diving board. She used to do it when she was three years old, much to amazement and entertainment of the pool goers :). Now she is afraid of the hight, her brain is suddenly starting to process consequences and she is much more cautious. She voiced her concerns several times and my advice was not to think too much, remember that she did it before and nothing bad had happened and take a deep breath and just go for it. She climbed onto the diving board four times just to climb back down utterly upset and defeated, beating herself up for not being able to do it. But she went back again to try and to fail and punish herself some more. We realized that she will not leave the pool until we either drag her from there secreaming that she wants to try one more time or we need to help her do it.
She climbed up the board, stood at the end of it and me and J both got into the pool to help her out. We were shouting encouragement, advice, but nothing seemed to work. I knew time was running out, that she might just walk off again to go through the motion of failure yet again. I’m not a psychologist or an amazing parent with inert intuition of the needs of my offspring, but somehow my last attempt hit the target dead on. I started to joke that she needs to jump because I can’t stay afloat much longer, I was laughing, pretending to drown, gargling the pool water. She responded with jokes about waiting a bit longer to see if I can make it or not. At this point many people have gathered around the board. After this light hearted intermission I pulled out the last gun, a bribe. I offered an ice cream if she jumps… she took a deep breath and jumped emerging from the water with the biggest grin possible looking at the elated crowd cheering. She jumped several more time bathing in the attention of people and the wonderful feeling when you know you just “ kicked your fear’s butt” as she calls it. Later in the day we debriefed this teachable moment, stressing that it wasn’t the ice cream that was the real reward, the feeling of winning the inner battle was ever so sweeter than any amount of sweets can ever be.
So for next year there are several races lined up, new challenges set up for our bodies and the continuous challenge of parenting one heck of emotionally complicated, overly competitive, driven to the brink of madness, yet profoundly amazing and unique kid.

We all suffer from it on occasions. Some of us almost permanently, but when reality hits, the true us appears.

I have been training with my 10k app for long 13 weeks, logging about 26 km of running a week in the end. I had less time for preparation than anticipated, there is a surprise honey, for somebody who has to get up at 5 am to make that felt story that she promised to make a week ago :))).

I entered into the Seawall 10k to give myself a goal to work towards to and my goal is not to just finish, but to run it all and finish under 75 min at the worst. Today is the day before the race, my joints ache, I had only ran 5k  last week and my energy level is nowhere to be found. So suddenly the previous sentence seems overly ambitious to say at least, but does it matter? I’m not a professional athlete, I have no hope for prize money, so what is the deal?

This event is about enjoying yourself while doing something good for your body. So get over your overly competitive nature and go and god damm enjoy yourself! ;)))))

New Year came and went. We “celebrated” by watching Simon Pegg’s old movies (Run fat boy, Hot fuzz and Shaun of Dead), I was creating , well more like just practising, a lovely macrame necklace. I must say that is the way I want to spend the rest of the year, with my hubby, in our home making stuff 🙂

Sara returned to her routine of swimming and gym. The art class she just loves starts in a week, yupii.

I started to attend 360 cycle, it has nothing to do with a new year resolution, it’s my way to survive this winter without depression. Actually I had to start skipping doses of my meds. If my body can create enough serotonin that is fantastic. So far i took two classes of my beginning to spinning, 48km so far :).

Our last instructor was just fantastic and I would like to take more of her classes, so Sunday morning 50 min spin :))))

On Thursday night it started snowing on Grouse, so yesterday I packed the car and took Sara skiing after school.

I love how great my little girl is on skis, i was admiring her so much I fell and hit my left shoulder ( again!), so after I dealt with sore foot and calf for the week I have an achy shoulder for a change 🙂

Does that indicate I’m getting old?

I must say I don’t care, because last week my body surprised me how much it can do. The spinning class was really hard, but I could do everything and survive :). I’m fit to go to work, do my job and still have energy to keep my home tidy, fresh healthy dinner on the table in the evening and be with Sara, swim and ski with her. I still can’t run 5km, but that would be just an unimportant cherry on top 🙂