Category: Uncategorized

Welcoming & Wanting

I’ve felt so very alone for years and I felt like I didn’t know how to be friends with people or that no one was my friend, acquaintances but not friends.

The other day I was really thinking on why, what I thought would make someone a friend in my brain and I was able to separate my friends into two categories. This really is helping me to understand and break through my negative perceptive filter (seeing everyone else’s actions as being about me and thus an active rejection of me at all times rather than mostly having nothing to do with me and being neutral).

My two categories are Wanted and Welcome.

There are hundreds and hundreds of people who Welcome me. If I called they would answer, if I said “Let’s hang out!” and then set a date they would joyfully welcome me and love being with me. If they see me somewhere we will totally spend some time. But they aren’t calling me, they aren’t pressing for my time, they aren’t pushing to be an active and frequent part of my life. (AND THAT’S OK! People have their own things happening and their lives don’t need to be about me!) These people Welcome me.

Then there is Wanted – I can think of very few people (less than five) people who are friends who Want me. People who reach out without my having to reach out first, people who ask for my time, ask for my energy (this is reciprocal – no energy vampires here – I do the same to them, we Want each other). People who send me links and pictures and memes because they are thinking of me. People who are actively asking for my time, my energy, my presence.

When I was expecting everyone that I applied the word “friend” to to fulfill the Wanted criteria, there was practically no one. I was basically friendless and totally alone. When I gave myself these categories and permission to think of people as “Welcome” friends that really opened my perception of how many friends I do have. Just because they aren’t beating down the door doesn’t have to disqualify them or me from friendship.


How do you like it?

I took a love languages quiz today.

I was really paying attention and what I saw was that words of affirmation mean absolutely fuck all to me. Not that they are not good, but when given the choice I will almost never choose them. Words are the easiest thing to dismiss, for the brain weasels to either erase, deflate, or turn into something bad.

I’m Acts of Service, all day, every day. Then touch, then gifts. Tangible things are inured to the brain weasels. They can’t tell me the garbage didn’t get taken out, they can’t interpret that someone made me coffee into something other than that. With the bonus of if someone does me an act of service they save me energy and the more energy I have, the easier it is to properly recognize the brain weasel thoughts and put then “over there in the corner with their crazy friends.” It’s a virtuous cycle.

What’s your love language? If you had your druthers, how would others give you affection?

Hi Hi!

My left knee has been quite unhappy so I took a few weeks off of running. In that time I took a lovely trip to Yosemite and walked a lot. I’ve also been keeping up with strength training.

Last week I went for two short runs, which both went well e.g. no pain. I had that thing when, you have had an injury to something and so you are hyper aware of every bit of sensory information from that area. I don’t know if the joint was stiff or if I was just super aware of it.

I’m going to put in a couple of miles today. Last week’s runs were both less than two miles. I’ll let you know how it goes!

Lake San Antonio Update 2/19/2016

The numbers as of 2/19/16

Current level is 3.5% – 11,775

To Go to Swim at Lynch – 55,225

Increase since 1/24/16 – 1,420

Days until Wildflower – 71

Average increase in acre feet required per day to meet 20% by race day – 777.82

Next rainfall forecast -TBD

(All Data from the Monterey County Water Resources Agency here.)

Got my motor running!

I got back to the whole working out reality on January 1 (how trite)!

I started back with Rubber Glove – to set my cycling FTP and LTHR for the Tour of Sufferlandria, which is coming on February 6-14.

All done!
All done!

Then on Saturday, January 2, I went to the gym and lifted the things. It was quite wonderful. I go to the Downtown Oakland YMCA. They have child watch, which is $2 an hour for child care while you are in the Y, so Pip gets to go to “Y School” and I can get a workout in.

The lifting was fun. I bought a program that I’m going to be using, if not following, as it’s not triathlon specific but I really like the instructions and the sets/progressions.

For the record, I squatted 20 pounds. 20. Sigh, big ass with no muscles. I am the poster child for glute amnesia. BUT I’m not gonna jack my hips like I did back in 2010-11, I’ve been keeping my issues at bay with yoga and increased strength is gonna help me start to get ahead of the curve.

20 pounds means that for all the running I do, my poor quads are doing just about all the work, all the climbing, all the cycling. Poor quads! The great news about having suck weak glutes and hammies is that progressing them is probably gonna go quite nicely! Stronger ass = faster run splits!!

Now, other things, I did much better than I expected at. I can do a cable row like a boss, so the old lats are still present and accounted for.

Onward!

-fh

There has to be a why

I had a job and was playing the lottery regularly with my co-workers. We were pretty miserable and it was a nice piece of escapism.  We would “friv” or talk about the frivolous purchases we would make if we won the jackpot.  One friv topic was “what will you do with your time?” I said that I would spend a year with a triathlon coach to see how fast I could get.

Last month I had a chance to go to the Clif Bar Headquarters and attend a talk by four professional triathletes. I went down, I didn’t really know anybody. I didn’t have the courage to go up and talk to the athletes before their on stage time, which was silly because they were there to talk to people like me. I saw a guy there who looked very familiar but I decided he wasn’t who I thought he was.

Then at the start of the program they announced that Mark Allen was there, not on the program, to tell us about his new book. You probably don’t know who this guy is so let’s say it’s kind of like Joe Montana just showing up to talk about his book and shake hands.

The programmed athletes went on after Allen and they were all very cool. What was even cooler was they way they treated me when I went up to get autographs. Clif Bar had provided copies of Triathlete magazine with each of the athletes on the cover. I grabbed one of each and got in line, except there was no line. Triathlon isn’t a big sport and here were four pretty big names, not huge names, but known names, with nobody engaging with them.  I could barely look them in the face but I got my autographs and had a chat.

The big thing is that they chatted back. They were all really, really nice and seemed genuinely interested in talking to me as a person and a triathlete. Which is something to remember on the low days when I disown the things that I’ve done in favor of thinking less of myself.

Then I was shaking hands and Mark Allen jumped up on stage. So I reached out and taught him a handshake. He smiled and threw me a shaka. My face nearly broke in half with the smile I walked out of there with.

As I walked to my car I gave myself permission to stop waiting for a thing that was never gonna happen to go after what I want. I don’t need the lottery to get fast, to train hard, and put something I love high up on my priority list. I don’t know how fast I can get but I’m very excited to find out!

P.S. The lesser lights of the evening were Terenzo Bozzone, Tim O’Donnell, Linsey Corbin, and Ben Hoffman