Because that's what I can do today.

So my new regimen of Fitness has begun. And I'm proud. I'm killing it. I'm on my path and I know it will build from here. Do you want to know what I've done? I've started taking my vitamins.

Yup. That's it. Oh, that, and I've made the choice not to work out even though I have all of the energetic and emotional intent and desire to, because I've been pretty sick for the last week and haven't had enough rest to properly heal and recover.

I also am recovering my knee from a sprained MCL, and skiing in a brace right now, so my Skier's Edge machine is also taking a rest.

I've been in this place before, where I've gained some weight, lost some fitness and been really unhappy with myself. I mean, I have a year and two months before the regional demonstration team tryouts, and two years before the nationals. I can't really afford to fuck around anymore.

But here's something that has changed. For the first time, I haven't had to talk myself out of doubting my ability to continue increasing my fitness. Yes. I am about TWENTY pounds heavier than I like to be. Welcome to Aspen, let me complain about my job, OH MY GOSH I have to stop eating at the Nell and Cloud Nine and the Ritz and the Aspen Mountain Club for breakfast, lunch and dinner or I'm going to need a uniform that's three sizes bigger next year! (That's a horrible fate, isn't it?)

Okay. The point is, yes I am blessed for sure to have such amazing food to taste, and such good friends to share it with. But there needs to be balance here. I think the major shift for me is that I have compassion for myself.

I understand that I need a huge level of fitness to get where I am going. But I also understand that everything I've been doing has been laying the foundation to create a place where I can focus on becoming fit at that level without taking from my kids or my mom or my partner. Moving here was the first step. Moving into three different houses, helping my mom get here, having discussions with her about how much she can give, how much she wants to give and how to make sure her life feels honored and full while still creating the space to allow me to train was another.

Learning how to exist in this environment professionally, focusing on doing my job well and integrating into this amazing school above my personal training goals, so that I CAN focus on my training eventually has been another compassionate step. And the journey hasn't been frustrating.

I find myself in this place, not as fit as I want to be, heavier than I like to be, but with depth in other crucial areas that are now ready to support the huge physical push I have before me.

Last night, my mom and I watched Lindsay Vonn's winning downhill race on the computer. I have never seen a person, male or female, be affected less by the external forces which act upon a skier at such high speeds. She was so often in balance, so rarely pulled or knocked out of balance, and when she was, the movements that she had to make to get back into balance were so minimal, that she was able to ski at an unprecedented level with less effort. This is a direct result, I believe of her tremendous fitness.

This is what I want from my body. If I have a huge level of fitness, the forces which act on me when I am skiing will have a diminished affect compared to other skiers, it will be harder for me to get out of balance, and easier for me to get back into balance. I'll be able to last longer, perform more athletically, and accurately even on the fifth day of the tryout.

Yes, I have one year and two months to get there. No, that's not as much time as I'd like. But its what I have. And now that the foundation is laid, my kids are happy and thriving and well adjusted, we are moved in, my mom is here and much more comfortable, things are hitting their stride, I can turn my focus to taking the time that I have left and maximizing my ability to become as fit as I can.

Today, I took my vitamins. Because that's what I can do today. I went to on snow training, but I didn't work out further than that because I'm recovering from a cold and an injury. Healing and sleeping well is a part of this. Its a part of patience and restraint that will add up to an ultimately much stronger body.

So for the first time, I don't feel thwarted by being sick or being injured or having no time or needing to move or unpack or care for sick kids when I have the need and desire to train hard and get strong. I feel that I have a real understanding of doing what I can do, with intent towards increasing my focus in this area so that in the next three weeks, I'm in a program that allows me to travel toward a level of fitness that allows me to ski in a way that I only dreamed was possible.

Today, I took my vitamins, because that's what I could do today. And I killed it!

On the overwhleming nature of too much to do.

So I move to Aspen next Saturday. That means I have seven days until I get in my car and drive there. There are many things that I should get done before I go... and for some reason, I've decided that the best way to get that stuff done is to sit down and write a blog post... because I've read everything on Facebook and on my Tweet Deck...

Here's the deal. I'm overwhelmed. Not with the idea of moving, I'm ready to move. In fact, I wish it was moving day. I have felt for the last month like I'm spinning my wheels, just killing time until I can start my new life. And I think that my love of a crushing deadline and my desire not to be in the situation I'm in here at home anymore is making me myopic to the day of the move, unless I'm engaged in my kids, I'm focusing down the tube to the day I leave. Which isn't helpful as far as moving toward getting gone.

I think I also don't relish the fact that once I'm gone, I'm having to trust that everything will be okay here. Letting go of the kids for a few weeks is even harder than I thought, and with so many SO Many unresolved issues, I feel like I can't put my head down and get to work because there is so much obstinately unresolved crap. And its time to take the bull by the horns and hammer out how this is all going to work, because the constant change of plan is making me feel like I'm standing on a keyboard and someone else is playing the paino.

Honestly, I'm excited to be in my own place, living on my own, standing on my own two feet, making my own money, starting over, turning a page, as it were.

I'm overwhelmed with the fact that there's a week to go, and I wish I'd gone through the barn the attic and the garage all summer like I was going to... but didn't really have time or energy to.

This business of divorce is very tiring. It takes up a lot more time than I ever thought it would, and I'd love to write more about it, the ups and downs and what its been like, but I can't do that right now, so there is all this... silence about this huge part of my life, this giant, emotional and time-sucking thing, like swimming upstream through slow molasses.

This is another reason I'm excited to get outa dodge, we both need some space, here, and living on top of one another in the same house has not made this any easier.

What I need to do is make a list of everything I need to do, in all categories, not just of my appointments, and make a performance plan, essentially, to make sure I get it all done before I go. (And here I hear my little sister, who is a workflow expert, saying "Lists don't work!" and she's right, but I gotta do something, because I'm getting nothing done fast except preemptively missing my kids and Mike and his kids.)

But I want to sit at my computer and write and play with my boys in ooblick and make cookies with them, and then next Saturday, just wander out to my car, turn it on, and go to Aspen.

Its not often that I turn my face away from hard work, I'm a fan of running at the thing that scares me, or running at the thing that needs tackling, I find that when you go at it, it gets done sooner, and when you look away, it grows, and sometimes it grows legs and follows you around.

The funny thing is that I also have a bunch of stuff that doesn't need to get done before I go, but needs doing. And I'm gonna loose this awesome enormous iMac that I work on when I leave, and have my old, slow, broken PowerBook to work off when I'm down there, so I feel like I should knock a bunch of computer stuff off the list, too... I had this grand idea that I'd buy one off Ebay for $500, but that's another dream on hold, because money is still tight, and that's okay, the computer I have will make it.

Wishing it was different is taking the energy I need to make it happen. What is now? What is in the now? What is my reality that I need to face, handle, and walk through, no matter how inconvenient, unknown, scary, painful... seven days to do it all.

And its time to get started. Now.

Afraid

Here is one more bit of truth for you. When I get this far off track, I get scared that I'll never get back on track. I hear the tiny voices of doubt from my past, that say, hey, you were fat and out of shape once, that's where you are headed again.

The trick to getting through this fear for me, to staying committed to what is important to me, is to have a little grace and compassion for myself. Every MOMENT is a new moment to begin again.

Letting go of the past, even the past that was only five minutes ago and moving toward a positive future is all I can ask myself to do. And the culmination of those moments of strong, positive choice adds up to a strong body that can climb and ski.

And now, I settle in to write one more post, and then lace up my shoes, drink some water, and walk around in the forest, which makes me feel better on so many levels.

A good choice for fitness, some time alone in nature where things make sense, a re commitment (for the fifth time today) to caring for my body and mind. Reaching for balance and sanity in the midst of uncertainty. Then moving from a peaceful place.

Fit FAST and PAINFUL

Kurt sent me this from the NY times, and I'm gonna give it a try, because my time is SO limited right now, but I'm not willing to sacrifice anything, I need to get it all done AND stay fit.

Does that sound like balance to you? Hmmm... Well, its an experiment, lets try it!


June 24, 2009, 12:26 pm
Can You Get Fit in Six Minutes a Week?
By Gretchen Reynolds
Phys Ed
Getty Images

A few years ago, researchers at the National Institute of Health and Nutrition in Japan put rats through a series of swim tests with surprising results. They had one group of rodents paddle in a small pool for six hours, this long workout broken into two sessions of three hours each. A second group of rats were made to stroke furiously through short, intense bouts of swimming, while carrying ballast to increase their workload. After 20 seconds, the weighted rats were scooped out of the water and allowed to rest for 10 seconds, before being placed back in the pool for another 20 seconds of exertion. The scientists had the rats repeat these brief, strenuous swims 14 times, for a total of about four-and-a-half minutes of swimming. Afterward, the researchers tested each rat’s muscle fibers and found that, as expected, the rats that had gone for the six-hour swim showed preliminary molecular changes that would increase endurance. But the second rodent group, which exercised for less than five minutes also showed the same molecular changes.

The potency of interval training is nothing new. Many athletes have been straining through interval sessions once or twice a week along with their regular workout for years. But what researchers have been looking at recently is whether humans, like that second group of rats, can increase endurance with only a few minutes of strenuous exercise, instead of hours? Could it be that most of us are spending more time than we need to trying to get fit?

The answer, a growing number of these sports scientists believe, may be yes.

“There was a time when the scientific literature suggested that the only way to achieve endurance was through endurance-type activities,” such as long runs or bike rides or, perhaps, six-hour swims, says Martin Gibala, PhD, chairman of the Department of Kinesiology at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. But ongoing research from Gibala’s lab is turning that idea on its head. In one of the group’s recent studies, Gibala and his colleagues had a group of college students, who were healthy but not athletes, ride a stationary bike at a sustainable pace for between 90 and 120 minutes. Another set of students grunted through a series of short, strenuous intervals: 20 to 30 seconds of cycling at the highest intensity the riders could stand. After resting for four minutes, the students pedaled hard again for another 20 to 30 seconds, repeating the cycle four to six times (depending on how much each person could stand), “for a total of two to three minutes of very intense exercise per training session,” Gibala says.
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Each of the two groups exercised three times a week. After two weeks, both groups showed almost identical increases in their endurance (as measured in a stationary bicycle time trial), even though the one group had exercised for six to nine minutes per week, and the other about five hours. Additionally, molecular changes that signal increased fitness were evident equally in both groups. “The number and size of the mitochondria within the muscles” of the students had increased significantly, Gibala says, a change that, before this work, had been associated almost exclusively with prolonged endurance training. Since mitochondria enable muscle cells to use oxygen to create energy, “changes in the volume of the mitochondria can have a big impact on endurance performance.” In other words, six minutes or so a week of hard exercise (plus the time spent warming up, cooling down, and resting between the bouts of intense work) had proven to be as good as multiple hours of working out for achieving fitness. The short, intense workouts aided in weight loss, too, although Gibala hadn’t been studying that effect. “The rate of energy expenditure remains higher longer into recovery” after brief, high-intensity exercise than after longer, easier workouts, Gibala says. Other researchers have found that similar, intense, brief sessions of exercise improve cardiac health, even among people with heart disease.

There’s a catch, though. Those six minutes, if they’re to be effective, must hurt. “We describe it as an ‘all-out’ effort,” Gibala says. You’ll be straying “well out of your comfort zone.” That level of discomfort makes some activities better-suited to intense training than others. “We haven’t studied runners,” Gibala says. The pounding involved in repeated sprinting could lead to injuries, depending on a runner’s experience and stride mechanics. But cycling and swimming work well. “I’m a terrible swimmer,” Gibala says, “so every session for me is intense, just because my technique is so awful.”
Meanwhile, his lab is studying whether people could telescope their workouts into even less time. Could a single, two- to three-minute bout of intense exercise confer the same endurance and health benefits as those six minutes of multiple intervals? Gibala is hopeful. “I’m 41, with two young children,” he says. “I don’t have time to go out and exercise for hours.” The results should be available this fall.

The Phys Ed column will appear here in Well every Wednesday and also in print once a month, in the Sunday magazine. In it, Gretchen Reynolds, who is working on a book about the frontiers of fitness, will write about what the latest science can tell us about how to make ourselves stronger, more flexible, less prone to pain and generally fitter and healthier. We want to hear what you think, so stay tuned and offer your comments and questions.

A little bit of drama

So after the amazing day yesterday, I came home to get some stuff done that I've been putting off, I've been slowly slogging through stuff like this trying to make sure I'm on top of all of my obligations, having good follow through, doing what I say I'm going to do and being where I say I'm going to be when I say I'm going to be there.

That has proven to be a bigger challenge than previously thought, although I'm steadily making progress, I had a very interesting experience last night. I was debating on whether to post about it or not, and I've decided that I'll share the story in this way.

I'm trying to move forward and stay on track, so if you are curious about what happened, click here. For my own sanity and the fact that I need to take the lesson and move on, I'm going to keep it off the front page.

Today, Tomorrow, and Thursday: not at the hill, handling my stuff. Back on the Mtn on Friday!

DONT PANIC

Okay. So its been an amazing month, with nothing but fun great stuff to report. But this blog is supposed to be WARTS AND ALL, so here it is:

AHH!!! I have gained 8 pounds in the last two weeks. I kid you not. And I am FREAKING OUT. I know I shouldn't be. I know that I will get back to work and it will come right off.

But having JUST been a fatty about a year ago, its SO scary, and it was SO hard to hike it all off last season, and I got a bit HAYWIRE about my food and relationships with food, and I SO don't want that to happen again.

SO, rather than freaking out, we are going to have a plan of attack. Right now, that means mowing our pasture for an hour or two every day with a push mower, because that doesn't cost anything and is quite a workout.

Tomorrow morning at 5:30, Jill and I are going to hike Storm Castle, only 2 miles but super steep. This weekend, I am skiing. I don't know where or with whom, but this nonsense must stop! Welcome back to training logs, I need accountability to make it happen!

Back in the Saddle Again

I have to be honest, here, I was worried! I knew that I was going to face certain challenges trying to build a great training regimen that would allow me to be strong and fit enough to perform my best, and learn the techniques I need to in skiing quickly.

I was thinking that my biggest challenge, (and my biggest excuse in the past), was that I have kids, they take a lot of time, babysitting is expensive, I wanted to be a good mom and not farm them out to daycare so I could go work out. Yet I wanted to honor my desire to do something special, difficult, and important. I wanted ot be my own person and still care for them in an extraordinary way.

Over time, especially since I went to Academy, Tom and I seem to have solved that problem. He realized he could handle the kids on his own, and I realized that it is important for me to be a person on my own and separate from my family, yet still a part of it. (Jill and I were just talking about how hard this can be for a person who grew up being the care giver, mediator, healer, whatever... to know that you have worth just for yourself, and to act on it in what feels a selfish way, but what is really just you taking care of yourself, rather than putting everyone else's needs first to the detriment of your own wants and desires.

Sometimes, it is still an issue. The kids get sick, or Tom is in a stressful time at work, and when it is an issue, I feel that it is temporary, and therefore okay. I can be the giver and the helper and the healer when I am needed. But I can step away, now, as well, and be myself. It also helps that in the last six months, they have both grown up so much! Ethan is in school full time and he LOVES it.

Bodhi is having trouble adjusting, and I am taking him out of his evil pre-school, and he'll just be with me until an opening comes up at a new one. I was worried this would spark another hole in my training, but I managed to train before he was in school, so I am sure I will figure it out this time, as well.

The thing that threw me off my training this time around was not the kids, or my mom-ness.It was just Life. Just stuff. You know. My sister needed some help and love, and I was happy to give it to her. I knew it would impact my training, but she is someone I was willing to make that sacrifice for. And all the while, I was watching film, and reading, and trying to keep a part of me focused on returning to training, like a book mark.

I had no idea at the time that it would lead to a two and a half month dearth of training. But more life happened after Liat's situation, we had house guests, with their own troubles, and so I gave myself to them, and then my Auntie died... and now we are backed up on life maintenance issues, bills, healthcare issues, house stuff, our clean, ordered, well balanced life that we had so recently arrived at is in flux and chaos.

What to do? Enter Dr. Backer. Because I recognized a pattern of things snowballing out of control, I asked him about it. And now we are working on appropriate boundaries. If I am truly in training, I can't treat house guests like I used to. I can't be a full service bed and breakfast any more. I loved doing it, but (remember this one?)"Does this help me reach my goal?" No. So we have new rules. People can visit, sure, but I can't set aside completely that which is my life focus right now to entertain.

But HERE is the really exciting difference between times in the past when I have stoped training and tried to start again, and this time.. Its okay! I am doing the best I can with the tools and resources that I have. I am aware that life will happen, and that no schedule can be maintained to its fullest. And that it is a BAD thing to live a totally ordered, scheduled life. My goal here is to be mindful of my training. To fit it in, train hard, try hard, but have space, and patience, in my life for... you know, LIFE to happen. And conversely, to watch my life and all the minutiae that happens, and make sure that it isn't crowding out that which is truly important to me, my training.

So getting started again doesn't feel like starting over this time. It feels like I had to be away from training for a little bit, and now I can be back.

This, for me, is huge. Thanks to my amazing support team, most specifically Michael Hickey and Dr. Marvin Backer, I am learning to build a healthier version of Kate.

Thanks, guys!

PS, I have got to figure out how to embed sound clips. I'd put "I get knowcked down, but I get up again, you ain't ever gonna keep me down..." here, and Gene Autry singing "Back in the Saddle Again" at the beginning!

Cindy Sez: A Burn Out Bummer

I got this comment a while back on the "Never let Go of Your Branch" post, and I thought it merited its own post... Thanks to everyone who has been commenting, I will catch up on my replies as quickly as I can now that I am back!

Most of the time, burn out isn't quite this spectacular. It comes on us slowly, and suddenly one day, we realize we just don't care anymore, and don't have the will or desire to change it, or even to understand what happened. Some brief thoughts on getting it back.

Hi Kate,
I met you at Academy this year and you came to the party that I helped throw on the last night. I stumbled upon you blog and I think it is great. As I have recently lost a little spirit with skiing, it is great to hear our story.Cheers and I would love to hear more about how you over come your sabotages tendency when you get close to the top.
Thanks,
Cindy

Hey, Cindy
Thanks so much! I loved the party by the way, it was a blast. I know what you mean about loosing spirit with skiing, it happens to all of us with almost everything we do. It happened to my mom with scrap booking, it happened to me with rock climbing, and with skating, and it is one of the things that can shake you out of your tree more than anything else.

As I think about this, I think about how frustrating it is to feel this way, just, disillusioned. Lost. Just not interested. (To me anyway.) It can feel like what used to be fun is now work, and maybe the best way to gauge how psyched you are to do it is, well, are you excited to get out of bed at 5am to do it?

If you are feeling flat, probably not. There are ways to get around this, but the first thing, I think, is to check and see if its worth it to you! For my mom, while she had really enjoyed scrap booking, (it had been a bit of an obsession with her), probably not. It wasn't really worth what it would take to push through her performance plateau and make some real breakthroughs. (You'd be surprised, there's ways you can do it, even for scrap booking... you can go to Scrap booking conventions, and three day all nighters with a bunch of other scrap bookers...) But for my mom, she had to just decide, you know, I used to love this, and I have kind of turned it into a job, an obligation to the family, and its just not fun anymore. So she took a break. She isn't sure how long that break will be, but, for now, she is collecting things she may make pages on one day, and just leaving it at that.

You are in a bit of a different situation, having chosen this as a career for you. But maybe not. My mom viewed something she had loved as a job that was no longer fun, maybe the same thing is happening to you.

We didn't really get a chance to talk about skiing and how you came to it and why you teach, and where you want to go with it, so I can't ponder your dilemma directly, but I do know that almost everyone goes through this, with almost everything they do, their marriage, their job, their hobby, their sport, whatever you spend too much time doing, it will, eventually, go flat.

I faced this problem with several of the climbers that trained at a really high level when I was coaching. When you train that hard, with goals that are that difficult to attain, sometimes it just ceases to be fun. And you wonder why you are there, why you are sacrificing the things you sacrifice to work out all day every day. What can you possibly hope to gain?

This goes right back to the "Never let go of your Branch" theory. This flatness, this wondering, this plateau, in desire (and usually performance), is the A-#1 thing that shakes people out of their tree.

I think the trick, here, is to decide if the amount of sacrifice you need to make to get to a place where you love it again, or the amount of belief you have to have in yourself to love what you are doing even when you don't seem to be improving, is worth it.

And that comes down to a different question for everyone. Ben Roberts and I were having a very interesting talk at the Progression Session at Mt. Hood last week (which I will post about soon, I promise), and we were talking about people's motivations. Why you are aspiring to what you are aspiring to.

A lot of times, people don't know. A lot of the people I skated with at the National level were skating because they wanted their parents to be proud of them. They didn't even like skating any more. A lot of them were skating for the fame and the endorsements. A very very few were doing it because they just really loved skating, and they really loved the hard work it took to get to the next level.

So if I were to give you some advice here, I guess I would say, step back and examine why you are in skiing, where you want to go, and why you want to go there. Then you might have some leading questions, that might point the way to weather it's worth it to plug ahead and push yourself, or whether doing that might make something you once loved even less attractive. This is a lot of introspective work, that can be really clouded by lots of different things.

I coached a climber who had the most amazing natural talent I've ever seen at 13. By all rights, he should be on the cover of Climbing magazine monthly. He should be the best climber in the world. He can't succeed because his parenting won't allow him to. His father wants him to win so badly that the boy can't be good enough no matter what he does. When he looses, his father wonders why the boy isn't good enough, and why the boy doesn't have a real job. The boy is doomed no matter what he does, the thing he loves and is talented at is tainted because his sense of self worth is tied to his father's pride in his own success. But he can never succeed, because no matter what he does, he can't be good enough.

This is a pretty extreme example, but I think, when we are looking at ourselves, and excavating the things that are stopping us from being a success or happy at what we have chosen to do, we need to look at outside factors, things that might be installed in us from childhood, as patterns of sabotage. They can be aiding and abetting in our flatness, when things get too intense.

Another thing to think about is learning, as you get to that elite level, to take joy in the minor successes. It is so hard to be psyched and get juiced about your progress when it comes in minute doses far apart. Here you are, after 10 years of teaching, after being a clinician, still working on your turn shape. Thrilling.

But somehow, it has to be. As the learning curve slows down and the progress plateaus, and the plateaus get longer and harder to endure, looking for something to light you on fire becomes a big challenge.

For me, its drills and training. I love to train. This is a bit abnormal, I know, and it is actually rooted in some less than healthy behavior from my childhood. Now that I have worked through that stuff, though, the desire to train has a new meaning for me, and it still gives me the boost that I love. I like to challenge myself with tasks, see where I fall short, train out the weakness, and try the challenge again.

Unfortunately, I am, as Rob pointed out this past weekend, impatient. I like to tackle and conquer, moving on to the next thing. I don't have a lot of patience for endless repetition of the same drill over and over. I like to think that if I have some modicum of success, I have mastered the drill, and I can move on. This kind of cocky attitude leaves holes in my skill set that I pay for later, having to drill out bad compensating habits that I have set up for myself with my impatience.

But when I feel like my interest is waning in something whose overall goal is important to me (no, I don't WANT to practice perfect freakin' wedge turns! good LORD, I want to go SKIING!), I think about what the discipline to get through the task means to my overall ability to reach my goal, and I get a little mini thrill from the fact that I am willing to buckle down and do what needs to be done. Rather than looking at the task itself, I take pride in my ability to be willing to go harder, further, longer, and more dedicated that I thought I could.

In this way, I sort of talk myself into being excited about whatever it is I am working on. I had this same issue with school figures in skating. I sucked at them. I don't have that kind of patience, 90 minutes tracing a pattern to within a quarter of an inch on the ice. I always ALWAYS wanted to move on to the next, more exciting pattern, execute it well enough, and move on again. But I had to learn that the win in that exercise came in executing it perfectly a dozen times in a row, week in and week out. To stay in the beginning set, and to own it in my sleep. No one cared if I had the ability to do a Gold set, I couldn't do it in competition, and to National standards, so it was meaningless. Especially if I couldn't even pull my Bronze set off.

Anyway, as you can tell, your comment got me to thinking about this, about the flatness that we all encounter when we are so single minded about something, the burn out factor, and needing to find something, anything to love about what you are doing again. I don't know if this helps or not, but here are a couple of questions that I ask myself, or my coaching clients, when they have hit a wall, and are just not that interested in forging ahead anymore.

First of all, do you want to get to the Olympics? (D-team, World Cup, PCA tour, climb V14, whatever?) If the answer is yes, then suck it up, this is part of what it takes to be a Champion. No one who lives eats and breathes their sport loves it 24-7. But your job, when you feel flat like this, is to find something, anything you love, and hold onto that with everything its worth, while you climb out of your hole.

If the answer is no, then hey, back off and enjoy yourself, you really don't need to go through this. It may not be worth it, and I mean that.

Then, I'd ask my clients to examine why they are on the track they are on, whatever it is. Why do you teach skiing? For real? Some people started becuse they wanted the free season pass. Some because of the prestige it gave them with their friends. Some because they'd die if they had to work in a cubicle. Some because they love teaching.

I don't know your answer, but if you are feeling disinterested in what you are doing, I'd start here. Why did I start this, and what has changed? Is there a different goal you can shoot for that can re-energize you for your sport? Did you start on the hill and end up in the office?

When I get disillusioned, a good brainstorming session often helps me get back on track. For me it usually means I am over training, and that I need to step away, have a little more fun, and reconnect with the part that gives me goosebumps and makes me smile.

Sometimes it just means pushing hard through a plateau, knowing that if I give just THAT much more, I will be able to punch through. But progress can be made, and it is up to you to find a way to celebrate your wins, find your joy, and put your head down and push through it when you need to.

Feel free to ponder this here on the blog, I think it is a pretty universal problem, and one I wouldn't mind puzzling out with you, because I think all of us can benefit from it!

Good luck, and hang in there.

xoxo
Kate

We are going to think of this as a challenge, rather than a crisis.

Anyone want to babysit? My mom was going to come to watch the kids whilst I nipped off to D Team Tryout Training Camp, however, my favorite Aunt, (my mom's sister) is gravely ill, and my mom will be in Arizona caring for her in a hospice situation.

I am thinking that perhaps we can patch together a day of volunteer babysitting one day at a time... I know this sounds insane, but I'd like to give it a crack and see if anyone is up to the challenge.

I want to go to this clinic specifically, because I will then have four years to practice all the things that we do in the simulated try out, and, of course, we won't have this opportunity again until the next tryout cycle, in four years.

I have someone to drive with, I've raised almost half the money, and I'm in shape to go (well, we'll see...) but...

So it can be enormously beneficial to my training to go... however, I don't have the $150 bucks a day it takes to hire someone to watch the kids, and I want to be sure that this is fun and exciting for them, like when my mom comes to visit, and not horrible and traumatic for both them and my husband.

Well, here's where we see what happens when motherhood and training collide!

Let me know if you are up for watching the little hellions for a day, and lets try to fill in the calendar.

Race Camp:
(I'd love to go, but it is not essential)
Babysitting needed:
7:30 am to 5:15 pm
August 7,8,9

D-Team Tryout Training Camp
7:30 am to 5:15 pm
August 10

And on the weekend just to hang with Tom and make it easier and more fun for him (not as crucial)
10:00am to whenever
August 11, 12

And then again on Monday for the last day of D-Team Training Tryout Camp:
7:30am to 5:15pm
August 13

And on Tuesday while I drive home:
7:30am until I get home
August 14

A Trainwreck Epidemic, and a CHALLENGE

I just got the following comment on one of the posts I wrote, and it echoed SO many sentiments that I have gotten via email, that I thought I MUST post it.

From Lisa:
Today I had to comment because I know exactly what you mean about the vitamins- I am so bad as to be derailed almost daily because I read both that vitamins should be taken with a meal and that dairy products impede absorption. Therefore I feel like I can never take my supplements if I've had a meal with even a trace of dairy- and this includes almost every meal since I'm also vegetarian and have limited sources of protein. Anyway, keep up the good fight. I've been greatly enjoying reading. (Only wish I could comment at pithily as Catherine).

****

First, Lisa, thanks for the comment, and second, you should know you are not alone!

And herein lies the problem. We educate ourselves so that we can do the best job possible taking care of our bodies. That is our job not only as athletes, but as humans! I mean, I want a strong, healthy body so that when I am a grandma, I can ski with my grandkids! And for that to happen, i have to take care of it NOW.

But there are so many things you can do, and so many things you can do wrong, that when we get totally tied to HAVING to do it right, sometimes we can't do it at all. And that just doesn't make any sense!

So here is my challenge to all of you out there (including myself):

When you find yourself NOT doing something, because you can't do it perfectly, challenge yourself to do it anyway, and do it to the best of your ability with the tools and information you have now.

So, Lisa: Dairy? Take em anyway! Kate: Missing one? Take what you have! Beth: No time to commit to a real workout schedule? Park further away and walk, take the stairs, and go around the block once a week.

But all of us: try to look at all we are doing that is POSITIVE and live there. Good for you for doing the reading and knowing about how your body uses the vitamins. Good job! Take that win. Then let yourself be human, and do the best you can with the tools and time you have avalible.

Oh, and by the way: we all wish we could comment as pithily as Catharine. But don't let it get you down! Instead, visit her blog for a good laugh at the Catharine Chronicles.

You Were Saying?

Push, Push, Push. This used to be my mantra. There HAS to be a way to get it done. And that can be true, you can force things through. But I think, too, that there have to be days when you say, "Wow, things are just HARD today." and take that subtle hint from the universe and back off.

Today was supposed to be another glorious day:

6:00am meditation with Tom
6:30am breakfast and coffee with Tom
7:30am Tom goes to work, I clean the house
8:45am Abs class
9:00am Back workout
9:50am Yoga
11:00am home

This is what really happened:
Slept in, did not do meditation, breakfast or Abs. Got the kids to the Ridge at 9:30, where Liat had been waiting for me all morning. Got my act together, just in time for the world's crappiest, shortest yoga class.

Spent some time talking with Liat, the time talking superseded our ability to get in the back workout we wanted, and thus we ended up talking about THAT rather than working out.

Went back to the Ridge kids to pick up Ethan and Bodhi, only to find out that Bodhi had had an accident (???) up in the big climbing structure, and had just sliced his foot open and was laying on the floor screaming and wouldn't let anyone help him.

Right. Like I said, I guess it comes and it goes, and we are going to BREATHE and let it go, and be okay, and try again tonight, or tomorrow, or the next day.

How to Make It Work

I have been thinking about the differences between training now, at 36, with a family and a mortgage, vs. training when I was 18, single and at a training center. When I was younger, I lived at the Ice Castles International Training center for a while, pursuing Ice Skating. While I was there, my life was prescribed for me in a very concrete way.

Our schedules were given to us, and they looked something like this:

5:00 am Patch Practice
6:30 am Stroking
7:15 am Breakfast
8:30 am Morning Freestyle
11:30 am Karate
12:30 pm lunch
1:30 pm Ballet
3:00 pm Afternoon Freestyle
6:30 pm dinner
7:30 pm Weight Training
9:00 pm Cardio
10:30 pm lights out

Our meals were designed for us according to what our trainers agreed we needed to do, loose fat and build muscle, mostly. We kept detailed diaries of what we ate, and our cardio was adjusted accordingly.

It was kind of a no-brainer situation. Show up, eat what was put in front of you, no more, no less, do your work, get your rest. We did this six days a week, and took Sundays off. (During which time we usually did lift practice in the pool).

We all lived on campus together, my "class" included Chen Lu, Michelle and her sister Karen Kwan, Surya Bonaly, and a bunch of other great skaters. (Michelle was 13 at the time.) Because of this, when we ran into each other on the way up or down from the rink, as we stopped to chat, we'd do calf raises on the stairs. There was never a moment when we weren't training, and it wasn't hard to live in that mentality.

Today, life is a bit different for me. I assumed going into this, that I would have the work ethic, tools, and sheer will power to make a massive training effort easy for me. Alas, those tools, while very helpful, are not the things that will make or break me here in my desire to be healthy, have great balance, strength and stamina.

Today, my life doesn't have a schedule that stay constant for more than two days. I have to think hard about what I eat, how often I eat it, and of course, i have to prepare it myself, while feeding my kids as well. Yes, I know, everyone has to do this. But it has been interesting to try and figure out just exactly how many calories i am burning on a given day, so I can make sure that my calorie deficit (while I am still in the fat-loss stage of my program) is not more than 500 calories a day. More importantly, that the meals I eat are maximised to carry enough Protein to build the muscle I am demanding, that I get as many vitamins and minerals directly from food sources as possible, so they are efficient, and easy to metabolize and therefore build strong connective tissues, minimizing the chance of injury and maximizing my ability to heal should I hurt myself.

Both my little sister and I are certified Nutrition Technitons through Intrafitt, a program that was built for body builders and endurance athletes to treat their food as highly efficient fuel. But times and research have changed, and Liat and I (okay, mostly Liat) are finding ourselves slogging through books and articles to constantly update and refine what we believe about food, and how to make it most beneficial to our training. It was easier to show up at the cafeteria and pick up the tray marked "Kate".

So I have this mental image of what a great training program looks like, and what I would do with my day if I could, if I got paid to train, and it would look like this:

Daily:
5-10 mile hike or 3 mile swim
"Epic" cardio once a week (26 miles or more)
Yoga
Vipassana
Weight Training
Balance Work
Six meals a day (complete, no bars or red bull!)
A gallon of water a day
Vitamins 3x/daily
Film viewing/technical reading

Clinics and Camps monthly until Bridger opens.

Obviously, to pull this off, I'd need to be single, independently wealthy and 18!

So the question became, how do I do this? How do I balance my desire to do it to the very best of my ability with the real life situation? I want to be with my kids, take them to their swimming lessons, hang out with them, teach them, hike with them, spend time with my husband, work on my blog (s!), make my art, clean my house, pay my bills...

And the answer, I think, has evolved over the last three months. It used to be that when I "blew it" (ala Trainwrecks)I would get really down on myself. "Come on, Kate, you know how to do this. If you can't commit now, how will you ever make it?" "How bad do you want this? Obviously not enough to get your shit together to get to the gym at 5am every day."

And what has evolved here is the fact that life will happen. And it helps to have a (very) flexible training partner who is just as dedicated as you are (THANKS, LIAT!), and it helps to just keep trying.

There is this old Evian ad that I think I wrote about once before: Every day is a new chance to do something healthy. So I decided that part of my training mantra needs to be that if it doesn't happen today, I'll do everything I can to make it happen tomorrow. Meanwhile (and this is key, here...) I am going to enjoy the curveball that life has thrown me today.

In this last five weeks, this has meant letting it be okay if I go four or five days with NOTHING as far as training, but sticking with what I can and not getting discouraged (This was a MUCH bigger feat than I thought it would be). Cooking good meals anyway, taking vitamins anyway, not letting the lack of exercise snowball into other areas where I was doing well.

This also means allowing myself to eat ice cream occasionally!

This is definitely a work in progress, but it has become interesting as in the last two weeks, suddenly, things have come into balance, time with family, time in training, and I have really learned that everything comes and goes, my ability to make the kinds of food I should be eating, my ability to bring all my vitamins with me, my ability to get on the balnace board twice a day, my ability to get to the gym every day, my ability to remember to stand on one foot while i am doing the dishes, my ability to let go and focus on what is happening now, my dedication to my meditation practice...

and its okay that these things come and go. The trick seems to be KEEPING them coming and going, and in the big picture, it balances out to time in training and time with family. The last two weeks have been a spectacular success in this vein, less time with babysitters, more time in training... lets see if we can keep it up!

And if we can't, lets be patient, and loving and wait for the time when we can start again.

The Team Grows

I've started therapy! So excited! I have procured the services of Dr. Marvin Backer, PhD, PA, Hypnotherapist, Psychologist... this should be interesting! I thought and thought about weather to share this stuff on my blog or not, and I decided that whilst my peers read this site, many others do as well, and I'd like to present an honest picture of what it takes to try and break into the elite in a sport.

I had an obstacle to my success, a tendency to sabotage myself when I am close to success, and I want to make sure that I do every thing I can to remove obstacles in my path.

When I first started this endeavor back in March, Shannon and I wrote up a list that looked like this:

Game Plan to the D Team:
1. Define Obstacles and Impediments

(and then we listed them all, for me they were things like: health, age, injury, etc)

2. Remove each obstacle or impediment to clear the path to success.

So as new impediments come to light, my job is to figure out how to remove them, making my path to success easier and easier. In this way, the one or two impediments that I can't remove become less of a factor, as I am stronger in every other sense. For instance, I can't help the fact that I am 36. But I can help how lean, strong, fit, happy, healthy I am. And this reduces the age issue by a significant amount (we hope!!)

So we arrive at the fact that I am tripping myself up, currently using food as a sabotaging element, but sometimes doing other things. I don't want to get close and have this negative behavior stand in my way. Enter Dr. Marvin Backer, PhD.

We are going to begin excavating Kate to figure out why I do the things that don't help. I am so excited!

I asked Michael what he wanted me to come back with in the fall, and he said first and foremost he wanted me healthy.

Healthy, Great Balance, Strong, In Shape. In that order. Healthy has to be in the head, too, so Dr. Backer, welcome to the team, and GOOD LUCK!

Where in we scream in frustration and go swimming instead...

Hi, everyone! Well, I have about a dozen posts for you, from thoughts on training and staying with it, to a week's worth of training logs and some more gear reveiws. I was taking my time, enjoying the week of the 4th of July, and letting it stack up... and today I sat down to post 'em all... and AARRRRRGGGGHHH!


My lovely and trusted Photobucket added some "functionality" to their site that I missed, and I spent the last four hours banging my head against my desk because my photos werent posting to my blog.

Seriously. Two Red Bulls and a giant coffee later, I still didn't have any progress made and the kids are going "moooooooom I'm Hoooooottttt and I wanna go Swimmmmmmiiiiinnngggg and he took my transformerrrrrrr"

I fixed it. I got it to work. I'm going to the pooooolllll to chilll ooooooouuut before I loose my mind. Stay tuned this weekend, we'll catch up!

Thanks for reading, and hope you had a happy fourth!

Do you know... where the Kate has gone...?

I'm here! Sorry I haven't posted in a week. We had a bit of family time, and a bit of an accidental (but needed) training break. This used to freak me out... oh my god, its been two day since I went to the gym, that's dangerous, what if it becomes three? Then five??? Then it will be a week and i will be OUT OF TRAINING! Which means... all kinds of horrible things.

But I had a chat with Mike, and we talked about staying sane, staying in it for the long haul, and then I let these couple of days sort of stretch out... and its good.

My plans for the weekend, epic hike on Saturday, epic ski on Sunday got derailed, and this time, rather than panicking, and getting down, and lashing myself for being less than perfect, I took care of some things around the house (Tom did a bit of demolition, we took down the wall between the office and the kitchen, which is SO cool...), I wrote a bunch of sculptural proposals, (I worked on one for our Bozeman Library, and one for Red Bull!), and got them in, and I went to the movies with my hubby. (Knocked Up, excellent, go see it, Ocean's 13... well, they are pretty, so its worth the drool factor, but aside from that... It's fun, not nearly the movie Oceans 11 was.)

I did do two hikes, one on Sourdough trail with our kids and my great friend Jen and her brood, and one with them today (with Duke in his Batman Cape) up Leverich Canyon to the old mine. The kids did great, its not quite what you'd call a workout, but it beats sitting at home!

See you on the snow this week!

Okay, so that was the happy, upbeat, positive side. Let me also say that I ate peanut butter cookies this week, drank 3 RedBulls, and gained 2 pounds. So while it was a nice vacation, (although I still did my Balance 360 drills, its time to GET OFF MY EVER SPREADING ASS and get the H E double Hockey Sticks out there!

In which we get our Sh*t together...

Alright. It happens. So I got a bit out of the training swing of things, and heres how it goes: Day 1, well, I was swimming in an ice cold river, spent a lot of calories, and brought good food with me. Day 2, same thing, also brought good food. Day 3, no work out because it was a classroom day, and probably ate too much.

Stop: here is lesson #1 (by the way, if you haven't read Mindless Eating yet, you should. One of the things Liat tells me all the time is that you have to make rules for your food, and you have to pay attention to what rules work and which ones don't so you can make small adjustments over time.)

As the illustrious Megan Harvey says... Practice makes PERMANENT, not PERFECT. And suddenly I am practicing breaking my training and eating rules... oh no...

Right, so lesson #1: I need my Calorie King! (If you don't know what this is, scroll down on the sidebar and click on the Calorie King link.) This was the first of my daily habits to go, and its because we spilled water on my keyboard. So it was out of commission. When I don't log my food and exercise, I don't know where my calorie deficit stands, and consequently, I spend the day feeling bad for anything I eat, feeling sure it will put me into "suddenly and surprisingly fat" mode.

Okay, we solved that one, I have an external keyboard now, so no excuses. Back on Calorie King. Good.

Day #4, on the Yellowstone, did not pack well with the food, running out of food, no time to shop.

Stop! Lesson #2... know how many days in a row you are going to be busy for, and pack ahead. In fact, a NEW FOOD RULE for me is: Never EVER run out of Luna bars. Because I can eat one of those every 2 hours and NOT gain weight and not feel deprived, even if I am not exercising that day.

Okay, going to the store tonight to solve that problem. Check.

By the way, this is how Liat and I solve my food issues. She really is like a food therapist for me, and we talk or email all the time about what is happening, and how to solve it. She is highly organized, and likes to tackle and solve problems, with an incredibly positive, "Okay, how can we fix that" attitude, which makes life a lot easier.

She also keeps me from making too many rules or habits at once. Which is good, because I like to REDO and I get myself in trouble that way.

Okay, onward. Day #5. Well, its been a few days now... and it was nice to be home with the kids... and today I weighed 155 lbs (my lowest so far), so obviously the pancakes I had this morning aren't affecting me, so I can have a cookie at the recital this afternoon (are any of you screaming NO NO DON'T DO IT!! just like in a horror movie? Don't split up! Don't go into the basement by yourself! Ahhhh!! yeah, me too, actually, inside, but I turned the volume down on that little voice...)

And Liat tells me to treat myself occasionally, so I don't feel deprived, so I thought.. you know, okay...

Day 6, I did fine during the day, and then I had, uh, like 3 cups of nuts at night... Oh god... here we go...

Day 7. Chocolate. I stopped taking my vitamins. (Always a bad sign). I stopped doing my balance board workout. I ate like crap.

I called Liat in a panic. "I NEED TO HIKE! NOW!"

Okay. This morning, we did the Kirk Hill to Leverich Canyon loop and added the Hodgeman Canyon spur in so I could show her the deer skeleton (which was all gnarly now after snow and rain, and had all kinds of beasties crawling on it, too cool...)

We had some amazing talks about food and falling out of habit and why it happens. I had gone to my bad place where I like to say "Big, Fat, Ugly, Girl" in cadence with my footfalls (Hey, I never said I had a healthy relationship with food! But you can watch me struggle through it if it helps... that's the goal...)

And that was because I have gained 3 lbs in the last 7 days. Grrrrrr.

Okay. Here are the things that help: Every day is a chance to do something healthy. Talk to someone who understands and can help you turn it around NOW. Get off your ass and get SOMETHING back on track.

My next post will be about why dieting and money management are the same thing. This is the brilliant theory that my amazing Ms. Liat came up with on the hike today.

SO. I did my hike. I am still mad at myself. But I am doing something positive about it. I made a good lunch, I am going to enter it into Calorie King right now. Tom found my old white board, and I put up my daily routine on it.

Liat came over and looked at it and asked me how realistic I thought it was (she's so wise...) and then suggested that I use the calender next to it to track how many things I check off every day, and go for getting the most checks I can, rather than not completing something and feeling like I've failed. See? She's a smarty.

So that's the pic up top. And as I climb back on the horse, I'll let you know how it goes. It took 3 days to begin the train wreck, which has lasted for 7 days. Lets see how long it takes to get it back on track.