They Call Me Seashell

I had a phone call with my coach, Coach P over at Endurance Nation last October and we set forth a POA to get me back on track. Patrick is the tri-whisperer and as far as I am concerned the best there is.  He gets it on such a deep level, a psychological level not just the physical. He get how to COACH not just preach or plan. While my goals are many for the coming year, the real achievement will not rest on a timing mat at the end of some long day of self-propelled motion. The real achievement lies in having the courage to even start.  In my discussion with Coach we discussed milestones for this first phase of the plan. I have literally never started a year of training with such pure motivation.  I feel like having my sister-in-law, husband, and brother-in-law training for the same races it helps that my whole family gets me and I can do this without sacraficing time with them because we are in it together. This especially rings true for time with my husband....

The making of a habit, they say, is about 30 days.  I have been waking up early (between 5am and 5:30am) and meeting a friend at the gym nearly every day for the past month plus, and I must say it is now just sort of habit that I wake up in the 5am hour.  Was it easy?  Nope.  Did it happen over night?  Not even close.  It has taken and still takes every single one of those days.   I have struggled with being a morning workout person for years, but it is key for my consistency.  Once I find myself back in the habit, things just sort of gel.  The struggle has been that I would stay up too late and not be prepared to get out the door so I end up falling behind schedule and just saying to heck with it, hit snooze and wake up in a rush to make it to work. Forget the after work workout - that never happens either due to mental fatigue or physical fatigue.  I know that morning workouts sound like a dream for some and a nightmare for ...

Starting over is something that I literally seem to do all the time.  Basically, starting over looks like me... every single day.  Re-learning how to get up in the morning to swim/bike/run, re-learning how to go to bed at a reasonable hour, re-learning how to fuel and prep and plan.  Starting over looks very similar in triathlon to anything else in life.  There is a period of awkwardness, doubt, and then the realization that we can do it because, hello, we have done it before. But why did we do it before?  And what has changed? Sometimes when we attempt to start over, we ignore that the starting point may have moved on us.  Can we ever really start over?  Do we even want to?  I am thinking less about starting over and more about reinvention.  I had a good run as Jenniferlyn v1.0.  Now it is time for the much anticipated release of the upgrade - Jenniferlyn v2.0. I have set my race schedule, recruited my family to race with ...

I am returning from a long hiatus in the sport and I sit here thinking... wow. This is so much more difficult that I remember it being. And I do not mean it in a sarcastic funny way.. I mean that the struggle for me is real. This is going to be a hard fought return. However, I have the opportunity to see this as a re-do. When I left the sport to focus on my personal development I was at an all time high for me. Happy Ironman finisher, 2015 TeamUSA Long Course World Championship Qualifier (declined my spot due to school), and overall having the time of my life feeling fit and fabulous setting PRs all over the place. I felt and operated like some form of well oiled machine. I was in the zone and figured that I could keep doing something while in school, only that never happened. I decided to reach for the stars instead of digging myself a hole. My healthy lifestyle came to a screeching halt. Now here I sit, tired, out of shape and overweight looking at how far I have slipp...

Today I hit 'send' on my race season form with my coaching team.  I decided to do a 2-part season, one in focusing on my return to racing, the other on focus on prepping for the work ahead of me in 2018.  We will see what coach says about my part 2, however for now I have a solid race schedule for my grand re-entrance into triathlon! Triceratops Tri - June 21st Motor City Sprint - June 25th Pterodactyl Tri - July 19th Ironman70.3 Ohio (Relay) - July 30th The Bavarian Inn Experience - August 5th Swim to the Moon 5k  (Open Water Swim) - August 20th T-Rex Tri - August 23rd Detroit Marathon - October 15th It feels good to have something on the radar now, some goal to work for. The hardest part of coming back from a long time off is taking that first step knowing that it is going to hurt, that it is not going to feel the same as it once did, that it will be something I have to work at and that it is not going to be easy.  Nothing worth working for...

Thanks to Groupon I was able to grab a 10 session membership to a new Yoga studio that has been catching my eye ever since they started reno on the old Mother Fletcher's location in Ferndale. What really caught my eye on this studio from the outward appearance was the name and logo itself.  I was surprised to see the idea of plugging in when I have always heard to unplug, however I really dug on the idea of tuning in to yourself rather than tuning out the world.    I went for my first class - the Soulful class - and I was beyond impressed.  From the moment I walked into the space I felt at home and like I found a practice that resonated within myself.  The studio space, the overall vibe of Caren Paskel -  the instructor for the class and owner of EnSoul -  as well as the message conveyed and the delivery of the message all made for a very deep and meaningful experience.  I am looking forward to trying out the many different cl...

Do you remember being a child and having your parent tell you to clean your room?  Were you the child jumping up, so excited to get it clean or were you like me and would go up to your room only to sit there and play with toys or look through every single thing that you find in an effort to protest, to push back against parental control?  Some days I feel like that stubborn child but know that I cannot really get away with throwing a tantrum over the inevitable.  In order to be healthy one must adopt healthy habits and work each day on their health.  In order to be fit one must adopt the habits that lead to a state of fitness and work each day on fitness.  In order to have a clean room one must clean the room.  I also know that if I were to just jump right back into hard core training I would quit in a heartbeat.  I have been gone for so long that who I was no longer exists... I need to re-start as who I am. I need to embrace TODAY and not be re...