May
2008
"We can't
all be heroes because someone has to sit on the curb and clap as
they go by."- Will Rogers
I saw the acupuncturist
today. Not sure if my actual "chi" has improved, it may be the
30min of forced relaxation time. Either way, my feeling is it
can't hurt......or can it?! .... that was a joke.
My knee rehab has been going well. Like any other athlete, (or at
least that's how I rationalize it) I've had my fair share of
wrenches thrown in the mix, but each time I'm leveled out by a good
friend or maybe just reality. This is where I am, this is what
I can do today, and this is how I smile.
I found this comic in the newspaper the other day and tore it out
and put it in my back pants pocket. About four days later I
found it destroyed in the dryer. Guess how long it took me to
find it on the internet,....hold your hair down.....!!!about 2
minutes, that's right, as Mark C. says, "all those looks and a brain
too!".
It made me smile because it was randomly simple, and when I walked
into the quiet all too Zen, soft, sound of running water, no shoes
acupuncture office I thought of this comic and muffled a giggle
trying not to further instill the "blonde" stereotype.
One day at a time and I'm almost back on the bike, back on the roads.
One smile at time, one oddly placed humorous thought, and I'm closer
to the person I'd like to be. Bring on the porcupines!!
I'm published again at
F2R.com - Part 1 of What Motivates You? a
2 part series.
The Big Picture and Blown Speakers
by Lara Brown
April 2008
“….you don’t
get to choose how you’re going to die, or when.
You can only decide how you’re
going to live.
NOW!!”
- Joan
Baez
I recently spent the week
in the South Bay area with
Catalyst Training Systems and Stanford's
Director of Performance Phil Cutti this past week.
Unfortunately I didn't get to personally test because my knee is
still on the mend. But I did spend a good chunk of time
running blood lactate tests on other people and learning how to
interpret and apply the results with
endurance athletes.
The
Stanford Human Performance Lab is an amazing facility, with
force plates, high-speed treadmills and state of the art testing
equipment you feel like with that much help you could be #1 at
whatever sport you chose. Of course spending the week there on
crutches put things back in perspective. Amazingly the testing
facility is open to the public not just the collegiate athletes, so
check it out and take advantage of this place!
It was a great learning experience for me and I hope to transfer
those skills to testing more endurance athletes in the Northwest, so
look for me in Washington!
The week was a great time to reconnect with friends, but was also
overshadowed by the loss of two well known Bay Area athletes in a
terrible accident the weekend prior. More often than not most of us
need to be reminded that the people you love can be gone in an
instant. I spent some time writing an article for Fit2Race
about my perspective on the reality of life and endurance sports.
If you get the chance check it out on the F2R website:
The Sun Doesn't Go Down -
The World of Endurance Sports
by Lara Brown
March
2008
"The
best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time." -
Abraham Lincoln
Well my surgery went
well and now I'm in recovery mode. Still counting the minutes till I
can get in the water.
Thanks to Tom Oliver and Game Ready for being the biggest part of my
recovery to date. Dr. Engel was very impressed with my limited
swelling less than 2 days after surgery. And I can see my knee cap
and even muscle definition today, only a week out!
I spent 3 days on Pine Island in St James city for a Fanconi Anemia
fundraiser for our cousin Nikki's daughter Samantha. It was a great
success, unfortunately I was laid up on the couch and on pain
killers for a majority of the trip. But I made it to the fundraiser
for the 10 most important minutes of the day, seeing Sam play the
piano on stage!
Well I'll continue to update my recovery and hope to get back to
training in no time at all (well 5 weeks or so). I should be
some kind of fish w/ mad aqua jogging skills by then!
Till then!
February
2008
How important are your knees?
Apparently pretty dang
important! After attempting to train on an overused right knee for
the past year and a half, I've realized your knees aren't too
disposable. And finally with plenty of physical therapy,
strength work, rest and healthy amount of prodding from Paul
Lundgren (F2R) and Chris Chorak (PSM) I got an MRI done this month.
Things moved quickly from there and to spare you the boring details
I have a scope surgery scheduled in the next week. I'm banking
on the fact that this will get me back out there and able to build
up some running mileage. Something I haven't been able to do
since the summer of 2006.
The recovery time is
anywhere from 3 to 8 weeks, so for the next 2 months I'll be playing
it by ear, and erring on the conservative side. Easier said
than done, but I have a great support crew with my family nearby to
kick my butt back to the couch. That being said, as soon as
the wound heals (about a week) I will probably be spending an
unheard of amount of time at the Bellevue Club pool.
So my race season may
start a little bit later than I first expected, but I'm optimistic
and really excited about some fantastic performances in my future.
And as far as 2008 goes I'm thinking it's "Better Late than Never!".
January 2008
I’m sitting here thinking what would be interesting about me that
other people would want to read about? And then I figured, its not
me you are all really interested in, it’s my lifestyle, or the idea
of who Imight be.
My lifestyle for the
moment I think was summed up by a quote I read off of a left-over
workout board this past weekend at an indoor aquatics center in
Whistler BC, surrounded by huge picturesque mountains covered with
snow, on a beautiful sunny, clear, 10degree ski day. Most of me,
wanted desperately to be on Blackcomb “shredding the gnar” with Ben
and Joe Maffey for our second day of skiing at Whistler, but my legs
screamed quite the opposite after a destructive “Brandon Roy”
strength workout with my personal trainer on Friday followed by a
speedy distance run, and then a 8:30-3:00 hard day of skiing feeding
off the trail mix and slushy bottled water we carried around, or
rolled over all day Saturday. With a hard week of training coming
up, followed by a big weekend and then another hard week, big
weekend, hard week….. you get the point. There was only one option
left to me, swim. My legs felt like those fish sticks that get over
cooked. So when you try and peel them off the pan part it inevitable
decides to stick (not enough grease….?!) until the fishy part
slithers out of the battered casing stuck to the pan. So to the pool
I went. I was 1000 into my warm-up when I glanced up at the workout
board with the morning’s left over masters workout. At the bottom:
“There are no business hours for champions”. I’m sure a master
coaches attempt to motivate some middle aged swimmers at a
ridiculous 5:30am start time.
Hit me like a ton of
bricks. I hate that saying, who really knows what a ton of bricks
feels like when it hits you. Would you really even be relating that
to us if you did get hit by a ton of bricks? I’m thinking it would
probably leave you a little more than speechless or in deep thought.
So it hit me like catching what seems like a flimsy tree branch in
the helmet skiing through the trees on a powder day. But what it
actually turned out to be was a full on “build-a-tree-fort-on-me”
branch, picks you up off your skis landing you flat on your back,
wondering if your brother behind you might be a split second from
skiing over your buried helmet head in the snow.
So anyways, no business
hours. It was Sunday late morning, in British Columbia and I was
putting in a good $6.50 drop in fee 4000 meters.
Maybe I shouldn’t but
I’ll tell you, I’m up to day 18 on the ski slopes this year. My body
actually feels stronger and more stable than ever! I spent January
really focusing on my swim stroke, with help from Karen and Kim,
masters swim coaches at the Bellevue club, and a high school buddy
Flurry. For the first time I’m on my way to thinking and training
like a swimmer. I’m working with a personal trainer, Michael who has
done wonders for my strength in less than a month; this may have
included some tears during our latest arm day Monday. I’m back on
the bike and recently picked up my new E-motion rollers, my toy for
the year, which after being warned by Joanne and Larry at Inside
Ride I’ve learned I’ll have to schedule in time to get them away
from Ben. I only managed to fall off 3xs the first time I used them,
upstairs in the study of my parents’ house. Funny story, the first
two times I just fell over trying to get on. The third time I was
1:30 into a 2 hour ride and I just lost focus and drifted into the
side bumper. Not a big deal it just tips the bike over, almost in
slow motion, any normal person would have ample time to clip out and
step down, but I just rode it out. I set the rollers up to give
myself plenty of room to eat it on the carpeted floor, what I didn’t
plan on was the geriatrics of sticking my left arm out and grabbing
the wedding/bridesmaid dresses my mom had hanging from the nearby
cabinet. Unfortunately they weren’t just hanging from the cabinet;
they were hanging from a wire shelf on top of the cabinet which came
down with the dresses. By the time I hit the floor I was covered
with dresses, and to finish it off the wire shelf came down and beat
me in the temple, spreading sewing materials all over the room. It
hurt like a bitch, I managed to unclip from my bike (yep still
clipped in), and sat up holding my head. The only thing I could
think to do was laugh, while I waited to see my mom bounding up the
stairs. She never showed up, I guess we never needed to do all that
tiptoeing back in our younger years because apparently you could
parade an elephant around upstairs and no one seems bothered in the
least. Anyways (again), the rollers are fabulous, I’ve been riding
those, and computrainer classes with a fantastic group at the
Eastside Multisport center. I’ve been doing 1-2 outdoor rides a week
(brrrrr), which end up starting out well but finishing pretty
painful because my feet can’t seem to stay warm for more than an
hour and a half.
My running is currently
limited to the pool, as I’m dealing with knee problems and looking
at possibly getting a scope to clean up the cartilage under my right
knee cap. So I spend countless hours running (no belt of course) in
the pool. I’m actually really good at it. Started it in high school
with a fractured shin, and then in college with a broken ankle, my
form is superb I have to say, and with the new addition of
trampolining in the Olympics I’m looking forward to my aqua jogging
debut, 2012?! Of course there is the every now and then kids swim
practice sharing the pool with the fat 8 year old in a speedo who
feels the need to make fun of me because I’m running in the
water,…..dude you are 8, overweight and somehow thinking it’s a good
idea to wear a speedo, let’s see where you are at at 27. Sheesh.
Overall I’m very pleased
at where I am in January with my training and I say for two reasons,
I’m healthy and I’m settled in Washington with Ben. My health was a
huge battle in 2007 and since last August I’ve made huge
improvements getting my health issues under control. I plan on
racing Wildflower Long Course for my first 2008 race (after a
handful of swim meets and hopefully some 5Ks and ½ marathons) but of
course all depending on the state of my knee. I’m looking forward to
getting down to San Francisco to work with Phil Cutti, Catalyst
Training Systems and the Stanford lab. I guess after my first test
of the year I’ll actually have to go to work!! ;)
That’s it for my January
re-cap, onto February, bigger, better, faster and keep your fingers
crossed, … smarter (I wouldn’t hold your breath on that one).
15 December 2007
Back to the Northwest where I began!! I’ve just moved from San Francisco to Redmond Washington and I’m ready to start back into my second year as a professional triathlete.
Finishing up 2007:
2007 was a challenging year for me, a learning year. I take so much more away from this year than a handful of good performances. At the finish of this season a good friend and mentor of mine wrote me this: “ Character is the person nobody notices with a mix of mud and puke on their face, and who looks forward to doing it all over again”. And I’d say that about sums up 2007 for me.
