When all you see is feet, flags, wall. Feet, flags, wall.
And all you feel is suffocation and burning.
And all you taste is lactic acid and chlorine.
It doesnt really matter where your pool is located. Does it?

This morning, I told Erin that I felt like my jogging outfit for the day matched almost “too well.” She died laughing…maybe I didn’t match. I don’t see very many colors, except for pink. Which is probably why I love pink so much, I can see it. When I was 9 my family moved from Grand Island to Lincoln for the second time (don’t ask), and my mother gave my father and I the job of going to Lincoln and buying a new house. At some point during that road trip, my dad handed the job over to me. You can only imagine my delight when we walked into a house that donned pink carpet! The living room carpet was an especially cute shade of Pepto Bismal! Loved it!!! (I was 9…remember? I told you that at the beginning of this blog) and so we bought the house. My mom walked in and threatened to die on the spot. We ended up moving down the street pretty soon thereafter.
So anyway, I was wearing a jogging outfit this morning, because I was going jogging, which is a pretty exciting turn of events. I have been sick with mono for a while now, which isn’t quite as fun as it sounds. I get asked at least once a day how I got mono…from kissing too many boys, duh- every one knows thats how a person gets mono! No, just kidding, that’s not how I got it. I learned a pretty valuable lesson over the summer about energy expenditure. All energy is drawn from the same well. When it comes to the energy that our body provides, there is no differentiation between work stress, training stress, I drank too much last night stress, relationship stress, getting ready to run a marathon stress, travel stress, etc. Simply put, I got too tired. And then I got mono. And then I rested. And now I am wearing a jogging outfit that may or may not match. Things are looking up….

I started working at NEWTON Running shoe company a couple months ago, and it has been quite the lifestyle change. I am a 9 to 5er, actually, I normally work until 6- because business is booming. Long gone are the days of riding my bike all morning, or going for an afternoon swim. To be honest, I have never been happier. I spend my days with some of the most inspiring people I have ever met, and we are creating something that the shoe industry has never seen. As much as I love what I am doing (I am the North American Retail Sales Coordinator), I have learned the importance of “emergency shoes.” Emergency shoes?! Yes, emergency shoes. They are the running shoes that sit by my desk.

I run in the morning, before going into work, which is the only way that it is possible for my ADD self to sit in an office all day, and then I go to work, and put my pink shoes under my computer. They sit there as a reminder that no matter what happens between 9 and 6, I get to end my day the same way I started it- with a run. Where I am immune to phone calls, emails, lost shoes, disgruntled retailers, the lost shoes that get found in the wrong state, and my boss’s very old dog who lies by my desk, threatening to die on a daily basis. Needless to say, there has been a lot of running going on lately. With that in mind, I signed up for the New York City Marathon with Timex, one of the race’s sponsors. I have no idea what caused me to open my mouth (oh, maybe the fact I can never keep it closed), but I started doing what I do best…talking smack. Normally this is reserved for the swimming pool, where I threaten to swim people’s faces off on a pretty regular basis, but this time, my target was NEWTON’s COO, Stephen, who is also running NYC. So, we put a $1 bet on who would run faster, and then doubled the bet, and then doubled the bet. At this rate, I will have to sell my car if I have a bad in the Big Apple. When the time came to officially register, I listed my predicted time as 1 minute faster than what Stephen told me his goal time is. And with that, I have something that has been missing for the last 3 years of triathlon. I have a goal. And a full time job. And a pair of emergency shoes. I have some satisfaction in a well balanced life.

Last fall I was sitting in my dad’s forest, talking to him about getting away this winter. I was feeling a little restless, like I had been in one spot for a little too long. God has a funny way of working. The next day, the Byrns asked me if I wanted to go to Hawaii with them in January. With a two year old, and a man camp planned, they needed an extra set of hands. I could never thank them enough for this experience.

So here I am, in Hawaii. We have a pretty good morning routine worked out. I usually drive the 5 miles to the pool, swim, and then run or ride home. Then Monica runs to the pool, swims and drives home. As I took off down Palani to start my run this morning, my pants started to fall down. Maybe they are a little stretched out. Or maybe my butt is a bit smaller. On a related, unrelated note, I have learned an enormous amount about nutrition since I have been here. Gordo probably doesn’t realize how much he has taught me, because I haven’t asked many questions about his eating style. It has been by way of observation, how meals are timed, what meals consist of….you might be thinking, “she has been watching him eat for the past two weeks. That’s kinda creepy.” Why yes, I have, and I am. What have I learned? If I eat enough fat during the day, I will not wake up in the middle of the night starving. Go figure.

So anyway, my pants don’t have a drawstring, which has never been an issue, until I had to run down Palani and Alii holding my pants up this morning. A mile and a half in, I started to sweat. So, I did what any normal person would do and wiped the sweat from my face and tried to use it to stick my pants to me. Normal people do that…right?! Shockingly (ha) that didn’t work. And I decided I didn’t care. I know 3 people on the island, and I decided I was okay with strangers seeing my butt crack. So I carried on. Streaking down Alii. Until the men on scooters would speed past me, and then slow down, looking in their rearview mirrors, so they could put a face with the crack. Not a good look. I then got brilliant idea to use a hair tie to cinch the waist band. It worked. I pretty much did a celebratory dance down the final mile of Alii while congratulating myself on my MacGyver like abilities. After returning home, and recounting the story to Monica, I realized it would not take MacGyver 4 miles to figure out how to keep his pants on.

One of my earliest memories was being 6 years old, at swim practice, and watching the head coach launch a folding chair into the pool because one of the older swimmers was pulling on the lane rope during a backstroke set. At that moment, I, Laura C. Helen Tingle, vowed to never EVER pull on the lane rope during backstroke.
I stuck to that vow for the next 15 years of competetive swimming. Until I finished my college swimming career, and began my life as a triathlete, I never cheated during a swim workout. At some point I became, um, hmm, lazy, for lack of a better word. I went from swimming 4000 meters of butterfly a day to zero meters of fly a year. With the exception of the occasional swim off with Gordo, or Matty Reed. At which point, if I am not winning, I will literally pretend to drown. Seriously.
For the last 5 years, my swimming repertoire has consisted of two strokes: freestyle, and lane rope pull on my back.
So, I am at a masters swim practice yesterday, and this happened:
Jane (the coach): 10 x 200
LT (that’s me): I.M.? (kidding, of course)
Jane: yes
LT: huh?
Whitney (my lane mate): yes
LT: huh?
Whitney: yes
LT (apparently pretending to be deaf): huh?
Jane: YES

And so it was. 10 x 200 IM.
I think it is important to occasionally take inventory in life. My health is good. My head is good. My personal life is good..ish. For the life of me I could not come up with an excuse for faking drowning. I have learned, if nothing is holding you back, than start sprinting forward. I swam my butterfly with all of my arms (2), instead of cheating with one arm. I didn’t pull on the lane rope at all, and with a little encouragement from my lane mates, we got the work done.
So I guess all of this is to say, if you don’t have a valid reason to pretend to die during your workout today, go a little nuts, go a little “too hard,” try something new, or something old, or even try something scary.