Done for the Week: Crossing the Finish Line

Back from my day at the races.  But not back to earth.  Not yet.  And not for a while, if I can help it.

Here's the story of what I got done last week: 

Done for the Week:  Aug. 15-21, 2011

1. Completed Week 15 of 15-week triathlon training program, resting for race; ran twice; biked once; swam twice
2. Worked out and meditated several times with my training partner
3. Attended second Open Water Swim class
4. Swam across the lake--sort of 
5. Rented new, larger, more life-sustaining wetsuit (unlike the one I own, this one permits breathing, which I've come to appreciate--the hard way!)
6. Continued working on pre-race anxiety, mental training, pre-race nutrition and hydration
7. Packed to leave town for the race
8. Picked up race packet; bought stuff at the expo 
9. Shared pre-race dinner with my husband and training partner
10. Did gear check with my training partner
11. Finished the race!!!  Beat even my stretch goal
12. Celebrated with my training partner and friend, who also finished with strength and grace
13. Attended triathlon camp reunion, post-race
14. Helped youngest son prepare for first long-distance flight on his own
15. Finished No Death, No Fear:  Comforting Wisdom for Life, by Thich Nhat Hanh
16. Continued to work my two part-time jobs 
17. Provided technical assistance to nonprofit organization
18. Meditated four times
19. Published 1 blog post
20. Continued reading Elizabeth George's In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner aloud with my husband
21. Continued work on current clients' projects
22. Attended Issues Night
23. Attended Jobs Prayer Vigil
24. Paid the monthly bills
25. Accomplished major cleaning/decluttering/rearrangement of main work room
26. Did laundry

Last week's focus goal was to "finish my training using the less-is-more and self-nurturing approach appropriate to the final days before the race."  Did that. 

Tuesday evening's pre-race swim across the lake proved even more of a hurdle than I had anticipated.  Last Monday I wrote about this planned workout that "I intend to get to the other side by any means necessary."  And by Tuesday night, I had delivered on that prediction.  The "means necessary" turned out to include yelling "Help!" in the middle of the lake when my extra small wetsuit and this year's two additional pounds combined in a way that was literally breathtaking.  After the motor boat came to my rescue, and I had regained my breath, but not my cool, I transversed about a third of the race distance using a "noodle."  Thus I joined the ranks of what my partner referred to as the "noodle girls."  A humbling, and scary experience overall.

Subsequent race preparation made room for learning all I could about how wetsuits can restrict breathing and contribute to panic attacks in the open water swim portion of a triathlon.  This led to re-thinking my sausage casing of a wetsuit, and deciding to rent one a size larger.  I also crammed in a short session in the pool on Friday trying out the borrowed suit.  The result?  I could breathe on race day, and made it all the way across the lake , without stopping to rest, or switching from freestyle.    Spent my way out a dilemma, but it was soooo worth it.

Last week's most important accomplishment--hands down--was finishing the triathlon.  Once again, I surprised myself by doing better than I expected.  I took 4:44 off the swim; 1:03 off T1 (the time spent shedding the wetsuit; getting on shoes, socks, helmet, Camelbak, and sunglasses; and, unfortunately discovering I had forgotten to unlock my bike before the race); 1:06 off T2 (bike to run); and 2:22 off last year's run time.  I added 1:18 to my bike time, but race officials had added 1.5 miles to the course this year.  My pace was just shy of 2 mph faster.  My net gain put me at 2:00:35--36 seconds over my "dream" goal of breaking 2 hours, nearly 2-1/2 minutes under my stretch goal of 2:03:00, and 4-1/2 minutes under the 2:05:00 I thought I would do.

Needless to say, I am ecstatic!  In my second tri, I moved from the back of the back of the pack, to a position near the middle--and in the top third of my age group. 

For today, I'm resting on my . . . ahem, laurels.  

My goal for the week:  come down gently, and as little as possible, from Cloud 9-3/4.

A Cast of Thousands, Each One Significant

Some of us are old enough to remember the heart-stopping daffodil scene from Dr. Zhivago;  spring, and life, returning after the ravages of the Siberian winter and war.  The artful cinematography drew the eye into the multitudes of blossoms, the profusion of glorious yellow, to a symphonic backdrop.  After what Yuri and his loves and his countrymen had been through, only this surfeit of daffodils would suffice.  


The scene came back to me this morning as I contemplated my fear of redundancy, and of being derivative.  This fear overtakes me especially in bookstores, and libraries, where I am surrounded by the words of others.  I encounter it, too, when confronted with the zillions of blogs dealing with issues of procrastination and productivity.  I know that I am not alone in the feeling that my little creations don't much matter against the scale of all that has been written.   


But if I look to the daffodils, I see that there is room for all that each of us can be, and make. We don't ask each individual flower to justify its blooming.  And we rejoice that when each one fades, there will eventually be others to gladden us.  


So if others write, and have written, and will write, it means nothing to the value of my work.  And I am not off the hook, after all.  My particular life can only be nurtured or neglected by me, for my own reasons.  And it is worth what it is worth.


In this season of underground regeneration, I will work on trusting that we are heading toward the light, that growth will occur, and that our individual beauty is enough. 

Done for the Week: These Little Lights of Mine

Did I mention that there are only 15 days, 13 hours, and some amount of minutes and seconds (depending on how long it takes me to complete this post and get it up) until the Winter Solstice--that nadir of light toward which we are inexorably headed, and which I am looking forward to being on the other side of?  [Note to spouse, who will be reading this from halfway around the world:  We will be attending a Solstice Service the night you return.  So rest up!]

I have been working on befriending the darkness, and my partnerless state this past week.  Of course, the downside is that I expose myself to the possibility of missing these two formerly dreaded conditions once they are gone.  I am reminded of the first two of Buddha's Four Noble Truths.  1. Life means suffering; and 2. The origin of suffering is attachment.  So I guess I'm right on track, complicating things by trying to escape suffering.

While I've been engaged in this particular "stupid human trick," I got an astonishingly (to me) long list of admittedly not world-changing things done.

Done for the Week:  Nov. 29-Dec. 5

1. Continued off-season race training; ran once, biked 4 times 
2. Succeeded in getting one son to gym with me once
3. Finished A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future: Twists and Turns and Lessons Learned, by Michael J. Fox 
4. Continued reading The Zen Path Through Depression, by Philip Martin, and Undoing Perpetual Stress: The Missing Connection Between Depression, Anxiety, and 21st Century Illness, by Richard O'Connor; Baking Cakes in Kigali, by Gaile Parkin.  Discontinued reading Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna
5. Continued support of transitioning not-for-profit organization--continuing to taper off
6. Worked my two part-time jobs
7. Published 5 blog posts
8. Meditated 5 times
9. Wrote 4 Gratitude Journal entries
10. Wrote 3 Morning Pages
11. Spent 3-1/2 hours working on my novel
12. Attended church
13. Participated in more frustrating transcontinental skype calls with absent spouse; one less frustrating one after his hosts fixed their internet connection
14. Attended 2 yoga classes
15. Took my sons out for (nonalcoholic) Happy Hour
16. Babysat my grandson one evening
17. Watched our two favorite basketball teams play 4 games, with son 
18. Purchased new outdoor lights, which my aesthetically astute son put up
19. Found working wall clock at Goodwill, to replace broken one in family room
20. Purchased replacement headlamp for my car, which my mechanically-inclined son installed
21. Ordered and received new "touchless" kitchen trash can--which my dog can't outfox-- to replace old no-longer-working one
22. Spent hours almost mastering new (to me) web design feature
23. Worked on straightening sun/dining room
24. Survived second week with absent spouse
25. Saw my therapist
26. Cleaned bathroom sink
27. Straightened living room
28. Did laundry
29. Coordinated dinner preparation by sons (yay!)
30. Played my wounded piano several hours, over the course of the week
31. Purchased nosebleed seats for my son and me to see H.M.S. Pinafore
32. Purchased and sent senior-friendly cell phone as birthday and Christmas gift for my mom
33. Accomplished significant progress as employment counselor/placement specialist for two unemployed sons

This past week saw the return of my attempt to focus my efforts.  Highlighted in green above is evidence of my need to do so.  I had intended to meditate daily, but managed only five sessions on the cushion.  The hitch seems to be scheduling.  I found myself, on several days, running out of day before I ran out of planned tasks, including meditation.  On some of these days, I forced myself to sit just before going to bed.  Late night basketball games that needed to be watched meant that bedtime on these occasions was already too late to get adequate sleep before early morning commitments.  Less than ideal circumstances for keeping my attention on my breath.  Similarly, I struggled to get to the gym by the end of the day, squeezing this important anti-stress measure into my last hours of consciousness and working it around other commitments, mealtimes, gym closing times, etc.

I think I am experiencing a variant of my old procrastination habits, where I build suspense, or juice, or something, by putting off important things to the point that their achievement is in jeopardy.  This week, my focus goal will be to put first things, if not first, at least earlier in the day.  Oh, and to figure out what those first things might be, on any given day. 

With all of the items crammed onto the list this week, it may strike the reader as strange that I identify item #18, "Purchased new outdoor lights, which my aesthetically astute son put up," as my most important accomplishment.  Though it may be seen as merely symbolic, it is consonant with my "believing" project.  (See recent posts, Belief Control--My Take, and Believe--The Musical.)  Having the lights up, shining through the dark, glinting off the snow, gives me hope; the kind my minister referred to yesterday as "courageous hope," not to be confused with optimism with its denial of difficulty, but acting in the face of all that is hard.  "Knowing full well. . .," but doing it anyway.  As in a real but metaphorical story she recounted, it is my "cello playing in Sarajevo," though clearly my challenges don't rise to the level of Vedran Smailovic's.

The closing words of yesterday's service, used also to conclude my most recent yoga class, were these:

May the long time Sun shine upon you, 

All love surround you. 

And the pure light within you, 

Guide your way on.

Believe--The Musical

This week has seen way too many late-night blogging sessions.  I'm not sure what's up with that,  but I believe that I can get back to a better routine, with some more vigilant patrolling of my borders.  Today, I kept myself from stressful absorption in a tangle of solitary tasks by listening to Irish music.  As I did so, I was caught by the idea of putting together a playlist to reinforce flagging belief.  Below is my first effort.


Ten Songs for Bolstering Belief

1. Believe by Yellowcard
2. When You Believe by Celtic Woman
3. Believe in Yourself by Diana Ross
4. I Believe by Chris Isaak
5. I Believe in You by Frank Sinatra
6. Believe in Life by Eric Clapton
7. I Shall Believe by Sheryl Crow
8. Dredd Song by Cure
9. Still Believing by Mary Black
10. Keep Believing by Brand New Shoes
11. You'll Never Walk Alone by Aretha Franklin

I finally figured out how to link to iTunes, so if you are interested, you can preview these songs, and purchase them if you wish.  (No kickback to me.)

And now, I believe, it's time for bed. . . 

Belief Control--My Take

While I was fishing around for something to write about today, I came across an article entitled "Sometimes Self-Control is Belief-Control," written by cognitivie scientist Art Markman, Ph.D., for his Psychology Today blog Ulterior Motives.  I arrived at this piece by that circuitous route so familiar to all of us these days.  I followed a link to another article, which failed to hold my attention.  That article's sidebar directed me to another, which ultimately led me to Markman's observations.

In addition to this kind of serendipitous learning, more pronounced on the internet than in the stacks of my undergraduate school's famed library, I am also interested in the "packaging and promotion" phenomenon, which guides these little intellectual journeys, and in the surprises and disappointments that greet us at the end.  Because so often, as in the case of Markman's belief control article, what we see is not what we expected to get.

Markman didn't write what I imagined would go with his title.  His post dealt with research demonstrating that 

when people are trying to pursue an important long-term goal, they change the way they think about temptations in ways that make the temptations seem more damaging to the long-term goal. 

Fascinating enough, addressing as it did the reactions of dieters faced with cookies and serious students tempted to party.  But as we often do, I saw what I was interested in seeing in the words of his title.  And I was intrigued enough with what I thought his premise was going to be to perform the requisite clicking ritual that would take me to its exposition.  And so I was disconcerted by what I read.  Because I wanted Markman to agree with me.

Because of the lens through which I see the word "belief" at this point in my life, I expected him to make the case that believing in the possibility, or likelihood, of a desired outcome can keep us on track.  For example, I am presently living through the dog days of late life parenting.  Some days, I have a hard time imagining my nearly grown children's futures.  I remind myself to "believe," and I am calmed and able to mother them less frantically.  And to continue offering what support and wisdom I can.  When my confidence faltered last summer as I neared the date for the triathlon I had been training for, I purchased and wore a small sterling pendant engraved with the word "believe."  I continued training and completed the triathlon more comfortably because of "belief control."

Even the behavior of the dieters and the students Markman discusses can be seen in this light--if, instead of looking at their "beliefs" about the size of the consequences attached to the temptations they are trying to resist, we concern ourselves with their beliefs in the attainability of their goals.  If a dieter believes that he or she can reach a healthy weight, such an individual is probably more likely to stay with the program, no matter how many calories are "believed" to be in a particular cookie, or in an entire meal.  If a student believes that she or he can do well on a project, it will be easier to refrain from partying and put in the necessary effort, whatever the assessment of the length of time to be spent socializing. 

If I am turning on its ear the relationship between belief and discipline that Markman reports, maybe it's because some of my undertakings just now have me standing on my head.  Be that as it may, it is time to finish this post and go to bed, because I believe that tomorrow can be a good and productive day, and that a decent night's sleep can make a difference.