Until I find a new adventure, this will be the final post for a while.  

The photo CD arrived in the mail today. These are some of the mandatory poses each contestant is required to do. Mine still have many weaknesses, but the fact that I even know the difference between a good front lat spread and a poor one is amusing. This time last year I couldn't have predicted that I'd desire that knowledge. Makes me wonder what will be of interest in May 2010.  

A couple of weeks have passed between the competition and "once again real life." The days have created a solid beaver dam between then and now; there is no flow of reality between the two--Yesterday never really happened, but Today is screaming for attention like a restless toddler on a long road trip. 

I guess that is why we keep photos. They are proof our life existed yesterday even though our footprints crumble away as soon as we leave them.

Some photos...

The photo CD is on order, but here are a few shots taken by friends in the audience. More to follow.


The pose down.











The end of the journey.



Parting shot.

left to right: Jennifer, me, Tina, and Jorge (Tina's Sweetie).

"Take the picture and take us to In-N-Out!"

Epilogue: If a gal binges in the forest does anybody see?

Eek, it is Tuesday, three days after the competition. And I have not stopped eating since Saturday night. This phase of training may be the hardest one yet: turning the dial past "I'm done" and back to moderation.

By Saturday I had: starved myself down to 121 pounds, painted my body to look like an orange Oompaloompa, then oiled it; sat in a dressing room behind stage and listened to women discuss how to keep their tiny posing suits from slipping off their ample breasts (with a perfectly sober tone, one gal recommended a type of tile adhesive sold at Home Depot); taken first place in the masters class only because I was the sole participant in my age group. The day was, in a nutshell, surreal.

But now that it is over, I seem to be in locked in an eating frenzy that is beginning to unnerve me. I allowed it to take its course on Sunday. It was the day after and I had no intention of holding back on anything. My shrunken stomach did its best to process the pizza, chocolate, cereal, peanut butter, and pretzels I tossed down my gullet all day, and by the evening, my belly looked about 5 months pregnant.

I thought of the I Love Lucy episode, when Lucy cannot keep up with the candy wrapping at her new job and begins stuffing her cheeks with balls of chocolate to hide her ineptness. My stomach looked like Lucy's cheeks. I had to sit up and read a book until well after midnight waiting to digest enough food to finally get horizontal.

Yesterday I started the day off with oatmeal, and ate clean right up until 3 PM when a bag of brightly colored Easter candies, saved for post-competition started it all again. This morning, I didn't even try to pretend the day would go well. I ate the last Poptart with my morning coffee, and have plowed through anything savory or sweet that gets in my path.

This post-event state is an interesting place. My pumpkin-dyed skin is fading in streaks that makes my skin look plagued with scales and stretch marks, and my belly is bloated and drum tight.

Attractive.

And working out? Are you kidding? I would have scheduled a pap smear and a root canal this week just to get a break from the iron.

The only goal I have for the week is to crawl my way back into some balance.

I gave the welcome tour to a couple new gym members today, and I could see thier wheels turning: wow, must be hard, having a baby at her age... wonder if it was a planned pregnancy...

Apparently, I am not on this crash course alone though. This morning at the bus stop I pulled up next to the van containing my fellow bodybuilding buddy. We hadn't seen one another since Saturday night, when we parted ways at the end of the competition. She sat behind the wheel of her car and we both rolled down our windows and sported a cat-that-ate-the canary grin at one another. We didn't need to even recount the endless list of comestibles that we'd repectively consumed since our last meeting.

"Have you weighed yourself yet?" She asked.

"No way. You?"

"Yep."

"And?"

"Twelve pounds."

Bodybuilding: it is a world of extremes.

The Homestretch

Thursday is winding down. I am in a small state of triumph this evening, two days away from the competition, because I have just consumed my last serving of tuna for a good long time. Today’s last meal today ended the fish-centric protein blitz I have been on for the past several weeks. Tomorrow I get to eat oatmeal for breakfast, and then, every 1.5 to 2 hours I eat bit of granola mixed with strawberry preserves.

The idea is to carb load at the very end in order to bring loft back into the muscles. The carbohydrates pump the muscles and veins and make them more showy. Whatever. All I know is that I hit the grocery store this week and bought three kinds of granola in anticipation.

Earlier in the week as I swept the gym floor and daydreamed about Friday’s menu, I found myself humming It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, at the prospect of all that sugary goodness.

However, Tina raised that damn eyebrow at my elation and said, “Just remember, no water to wash all that down.”

“Oh, right.” I responded. Water Shmater, I thought, just bring on the granola and dump that stinking tuna.

That was then, this is Thursday. I have tapered my water intake each day, and tomorrow I get a mere six ounces for the whole day. Saturday, I don’t drink a drop until after prejudging, somewhere around 2 PM. The granola has lost some of its appeal. I am not certain how it is going to make it past my epiglottis.

And so my new obsession is water—a tall glass in real glass, not plastic, with ice cubes up to the top. I have resisted the urge to drink the abandoned glasses from dinner that sit on the table long after the rest of the dishes are cleared. I have also resisted licking the juice that dripped down my arm as I sliced a kiwi for Audrey’s lunch tomorrow. Each green oval glistened juicy sweet. I quickly put them in a plastic container, in the lunch box, in the fridge. There are now fortress layers between us. It is not that one drop of kiwi fruit or one extra sip of water will change the outcome of the competition, it is simply that once I start—one, sip, one lick, one taste—I will not stop. It has to be all or nothing. If I blow it now, months of work will unravel.

Not everything is torture in this home stretch. I was required to bath in citrus and Epsom salt tonight. The purpose is to, coupled with the dehydration, get the skin to lie flat against the carb-filled muscle. To take it one step further, as bodybuilding tends to do, I completed the bathing and then slathered hemorrhoid cream on like lotion to further shrink the skin. I am trying not to focus so much on that part of the experience this evening, though it is tough not to think about it—I am currently dressed in an old robe and am as sticky as flypaper.

Returning to the positive, it was the first time in YEARS I sat down in my own bathtub. Typically, my showering is done in record time, with a kid pounding on the door, or perched on the toilet stinking up the joint. Tonight I brought in a book to read and sat down in a steamy, lemon-scented heaven. I still ended up with a kid on the toilet stinking up the place, and I didn’t get to crack open the book, but spent the better part of the bath answering questions about fourth-grade homework through the closed bathroom door. It was a decadent experience none-the-less, and in the future, I plan on scheduling in a relaxing bath more often than once every 8 years.

As I wind down this evening, and get ready to lay my sticky body down next to my patient husband, I have a solid feeling of contentment. It may have been the bath, or the act of tossing the last empty tuna can into the recycle bin, or it may simply be the delirium of dehydration altering my mental clarity, but it feels like the journey is complete. It is all essentially over tonight. On Saturday the competition may trump me; the judges may squint in search of my muscles, and the audience may laugh me out onto the sidewalk, but when I reflect on this experience, it is bigger than Saturday’s outcome.

All my labels, the ones I have given myself: the quitter, the pudgy, middle-aged mom, the side-liner, they washed down the drain with the bath water tonight. When I get up on that stage, I will have finished something really hard. Next week I will go back to being a mom, a gardener, a reader, a business owner, a daughter, a wife…And I will like each of those roles a little better, because I am getting along with myself a little better tonight. Hemorrhoid cream and all.

Take that inspirational quote and stick it in your ear; better yet, eat it.

It is coming up on midnight, and when the clock strikes twelve I'll be facing the beginning of the last two weeks of preparation. For all the bodybuilders in the world whose pictures I have studied in glossy photos and web pages let me apologize for ever underestimating the mental walls you had to climb in the last weeks before a competition. There is nothing harder than the food battle that comes into play at the end. 

My current diet consists mainly of egg whites, tuna, and green apples now. I have been on this regimen for so long it has had phases: since I cannot salt anything, I have dressed the egg whites in experiments like Stevia and cinnamon. It was palatable the first few times but rapidly lost its appeal. I now just cook the damn eggs and eat them plain. Then there is the no sodium canned tuna. At first, I was so turned off by plain, unadorned tuna chunks that I gulped each serving down as quickly as possible and then got the hiccups a few minutes later. Tuna hiccups did not help me in my growth as a person, let alone as a tuna lover. 

Now I have a ritual. I get 1/2 a can every three hours with 1/2 a green apple. I slice the green apple thinly, sprinkle seven slices with cinnamon and cut the last two up into tiny chunks and toss it with the plain tuna. I eat the tuna as my meal and the cinnamon apples as my dessert. I is not bad, in fact it borders on pleasant. 

But don't get me wrong. I think about food all the time. I plan what I will eat once these days are ticked off. In two weeks I will pour a cup of coffee with a cascade of real cream that will come up to the rim of the mug in a soft brown swirl. I will sit at a Mexican restaurant and eat chips and guacamole. I will eat chocolate cake, and peanut m&m's. I will make two peanut butter sandwiches, one with jelly and the other with raisins, both with a tall glass of milk. 

That's my short list.  

Earlier this week I dreamt I was standing at a take out window on the receiving end of a mounding plate of french fries. In my dreamy thoughts I was rationalizing that if I sprinkled no salt seasoning on them, I might not bloat so badly, and I might just get away with eating them. Sadly, as I sat down to take bite, my daughter's voice pulled me from the dream.

"Mom, I can't sleep." Poof the plate of wonderful, greasy fries was gone. I trudged upstairs to rub her back. And for the rest of that next day I harbored a smidgeon of bitterness about my dream's interruption. 

The big problem with dieting is that when it comes to food in this nation, we are in a constant game of Space Invaders, whacking away images of Cold Stone Creamery ice cream cupcakes as they fly toward us in increasing numbers. When the temptations are incessant, our ammunition eventually dries up.  

Being so restricted in my consumption at the moment has made me acutely aware of the volume of food temptations we have to swat away. We don't just encounter a box of chocolate chip cookies in the grocery aisle, we get their cousins and second cousins, aunts and uncles, the ones with sprinkles and dipping sauce on the side. 

I think it is time for a new game plan.

The more enlightened cultures of our planet have menstrual huts for their women where they can retreat into a more meditative state during sensitive times in the hormonal cycle. I propose we develop dieting huts where earnest folks seeking better health can have a reprieve from the smell of Cinnabons, the sight of a Carl's Jr. commercial, and the chocolate impulse purchases at the checkout stand. Then we might stand a chance.

Yep, I need a dieting hut, I thought tonight as I sliced crusty bread and spread it with butter, handed it over to my child and watched her eat it. The crust she abandoned was torturous, it taunted me from the edge of the plate, a small smear of butter on one side and some soft inner still left on the crust. I silently repeated an Emerson quote: What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. 

Shove it man, was my next thought, what lies within me is a whole lotta nothing! 

But Friday morning has officially arrived now, one more day I can tick off that brings me closer to the end and that cup of coffee with real cream. 

Up for the countdown

Today ended Spring Break, that glorious week when schools close in order to take a deep breath and prepare for the final push to summer vacation. It is the week that, despite the inevitable fog that rolls in and keeps us impatiently bundled in our fleece, presents daffodils as evidence that easier seasons are coming. 

The close of this week also marks the start of the four week countdown to May 9th. It is a time I have simultaneously feared and anticipated. Since November Tina has shared tales of the four week competition countdown where your caloric intake is measured and timed scientifically while your already overtrained body is asked to push even harder. You stop being able to interact socially. You become an anorexic with muscles.

The four week countdown of hollowed out hunger includes bathing in citrus baths and slathering on hemorrhoid cream to help shrink and tighten the skin. This phase of insanity also includes painting on layers of bottled tanning lotion, tapering water intake, and posing through muscle cramps and light-headedness. These are the details that get doled out to you in small increments. If presented too early, they are the tidbits that would make a person choose to pass on bodybuilding competitions as an acceptable hobby.

"You won't be yourself," Tina warns. "You'll be forgetful from lack of carbs. You won't trust your own decisions." 

"I lose my car keys several times a week as it is," I reply as I hear her horrific forecast. 

"You'll be even worse."

At this remark I conjure up an image of people gathering in the parking lot of the grocery store to observe me as I dump the contents of my purse on the pavement in search of my car keys. As I squat down on the pavement to thumb through my assorted lip balms, tampons, gum wrappers, and paper clips, they tsk and shake their heads, "Poor dear, she is carb deprived," and they chase the spare change that rolls out in every direction from the tangled mound I am fingering.  

I blink away the image but what loiters is the feeling that I am completely unprepared for the mental challenge, the extreme dieting, and the hours of workouts that lie ahead. An odd realization because, since the first of November it has been dieting and hours of workouts. I have not had a single day without muscle soreness. You'd think I would be used to it all by now. I have lower body workouts so intense on a Tuesday, that my glutes are still cramping on Thursday--while doing  biceps curls no less. Since last fall, each body part has barely had time to recover before screaming for mercy again.

Never-the-less, this is where I am. It feels a bit like going into labor, where the fear of impending pain is mixed with the elation that, after such an arduous and long journey, the last leg of the trip will be like a Roman candle: explosive, intense, and then simply over. 

It is the place in every story where the weary warrior summons up one last bundle of strength and says, "Bring it on."

Earlier in this week, my ten year-old daughter and I had one of those days--the kind that turns instantly into a golden memory. After browsing thrift stores and snipping sweet peas from a hillside, we drove dreamily back up the mountain, and along the way we passed a group of tourists taking photos of themselves on the edge of a turnout. 

My daughter asked, "Why do people always take pictures of themselves in that turnout?"

"We all like to show we've been somewhere I suppose."

After a few moments she said, "But we're all somewhere. No one is no where."

I have reflected on her comment all week. If that is the truth, then as fearful as this place is, and as unqualified as I feel, it is somewhere. Even if I don't prove to be the weary warrior with one last bundle of strength.

And as scared as I am, it feels good to be here. 

All Bodies Great and Small

For a woman weeks away from turning forty-four, whose Irish heritage shows in glowing white skin, whose battle wounds include scars, stretch marks, and roadmaps of varicose veins, there is one thing more terrifying than opening the credit card statement, and the first mammogram combined: getting fitted for the competition posing suit. 

Yesterday, was that day.

First some backstory: competing in this bodybuilding competition with me is a 33 year-old, blonde beauty, who even after four children has the body of, well, a bodybuilder. She is lean, and muscled in that beautiful feminine way that, coupled with a smooth olive skin, makes me kick myself for encouring her to hop onto this train with me. Being ten years my junior, I knew we'd compete in different classes, but I did not anticipate how, once we trained together, my confidence would shrink like 100% cotton socks in a hot dryer. 

Yesterday we planned to meet Tina at the gym, lock ourselves in the heavily mirrored yoga room, and put together our posing routines. Later we were to meet at Fresh Peaches, a swimsuit mecca specializing in custom made posing suits. 

For our posing practice, Tina said, "I need to see your lower body too, so wear shorts or a bathing suit." 

Posing is an art. It is choreographed like a dance, and can be as exhausting as a full workout. The trick is to flex as hard as you can, position yourself in such a way that all that hard earned muscle actually shows, and then hold it for 30 seconds, all the while remembering to keep the rest of your body as tight as the lid on a jar of pickles. Seems simple enough.

What I tend to do is this: face the mirror, pull arms overhead into a double biceps pose, tuck thumbs into hands, bend wrists in toward forearms, lift elbows, glance and my lower body and realize I am not flexing my stomach, which is hanging flacid, like Homer Simpson's. 

I tighten my mid section, squeeze my quads, look back at my biceps which have since sagged, put them back in position, and then glance at my countenance. I am grimacing, and my tongue is sticking out to the side like a kid who is learning to use scissors for the first time. 

Thirty seconds is suddenly over and it is time to move into a side chest pose. The impression I have made on my imaginary judges is that I stumbled onto stage by accident while trying to locate the snack bar. 

Posing practice is important. It requires a sense of strength, confidence, and rote coordination. You can put your heart and soul into your diet and workout, but if your posing stinks, none of your efforts will show. 

So though I am not entirely prepared, Saturday morning arrives.

My young companion and I enter the gym. She is clad in cute camouflage short shorts, legs tanned and smooth, which confirms  my decision to wear bike shorts as a bad one. My winter white legs look like toothpaste squeezing out of a freshly opened tube.

I reflect on my three year-old's comment after I dressed and emerged from my bedroom this morning:

"Mommy, you look funny."

Indeed.

Posing practice is a small disaster. I mentally shrink into my self every time I look in the mirror, searching for all that muscle I have worked to grow. Instead I see the betrayal of age, the refusal of my lower body to response to countless miles of cardio, countless pounds of lifting, of endless walking lunges up and down the gym parking lot in all kinds of weather. The awkwardness of posing further shrivels my confidence, and when I finally leave the gym to go pick up the kids, I am certain I cannot face getting fitted for a bikini today. 

I cancel plans to go to Fresh Peaches and instead go home. I open the doors and windows for the first time since last year. I turn the stereo speakers toward the open window, crank up the Gourds and spend the rest of the day tidying the yard and hanging out with my girls. 

The yard, buried and frozen for the past several months, is finally becoming exposed again. The melting snow reveals the ravages of winter: a collapsed patio chair, two torn Chinese lanterns that didn't make it into the shed last fall, a Cabbage patch doll abandoned last November next to the swing set. I make a pile of debris to load into the truck and haul away. About 4 pm my phone rings, and I see it is Jennifer, my fellow competitor. I pull myself out of my cleaning zen.

She has just completed her fitting. "It was a great experience, and the people were really nice," she sounds upbeat. "But they're closed tomorrow, and she needs at least 6 weeks to make the suit."

I quickly calculate that I may have missed my window. Well, I guess I'm off the hook. There just isn't enough time for me to get a suit made then. I pull my mouth into a half-smile. There is a brownie with sprinkles on it calling my name. 

Score!

"Good news is that they are open until 7 pm. So you could still make it today."

"Oh." 

I thank my friend for her call, and mentally put down the brownie.  Then I look down at myself. I am unshowered, my jeans are covered in dirt and dog slobber, one child is napping with peanut butter on her forehead and a rat's nest of hair I intended to wash before we went public again. The other child has a friend over and they are playing Twister, content and happy where they are. 

I imagine loading my motley crew in the car and hurriedly entering Fresh Peaches. My vision includes being greeted by a tanned, toned 30 year-old sporting a bikini and a belly ring. She has a tape measure around her neck is and holding a clipboard. Our conversation would likely go like this:

"Hello, I need to get fitted for a posing suit for a bodybuilding competition."

"For bodybuilding?"

"YES."

"Bodybuilding??"

"Yes."

"Bodybuilding???"

"yes."

I look at the clock again. It is 4:20. Fresh Peaches is an hour away. I do what any one in my position would do, I call my mom. She offers to come with me (all women understand strength in numbers when facing combat situations) or to watch the kids. I change my clothes, take her babysitting offer, and on the way out of the neighborhood, stop by my friend's house. She is getting ready to sit down for her happy hour, but she throws on a new shirt and jumps in the car. Again, women understand strength in numbers.

An hour later, I pull into Fresh Peaches and take my sweaty palms off the steering wheel. We enter the building and are struck by a warehouse full of bright colors, endless polka dots, and tropical patterns. String bikinis hang upside down in long rows like festive bats, resting, wings folded. Behind a simple desk at the entrance a white-haired older woman greets us with a genuine smile. 

"Hello, I need to get fitted for a posing suit for a bodybuilding competition."

"Well, my daughter Carrie Ann can do that for you." She smiles. "Carrie Ann...you around?"

My eyes scan the rows and rounders until a figure emerges with a tape measure around her neck. Carrie Ann is beautiful, apple-cheeked, twinkling, and all of about 25. She is also big. Not just plump, but big in a way that makes her seem out of place among the string bikinis that frame the background. 

She is also confident, poised and gentle in her mannerisms. I am instantly put at ease by this woman nearly young enough to be my daughter. 

Carrie Ann is an artist and began making posing suits for bodybuilders when she was still in high school. I stand inside a fitting room, holding up a small pice of fabric, trying to decide if belongs on my chest or my rear, and she stands on the other side of the door offering calming advice about colors, fit, and style. I eventually emerge from the fitting room shivering and goose-pimpled in a sample suit, and she measures my backside and shows me how to adjust the straps.  

She senses my discomfort and tells me stories of other gals' first competitions, how worried they were that they would not be ready, and how much they transformed physically during the last four weeks of training. 

"You are right where everyone is at this stage." She releases me to change back into myself, but continues talking like a sage from outside the dressing room. "I don't know anyone who hasn't done a second competition. It gets addicting."

Rather than just a deposit, I pay for the suit in full.  The experience has been surprisingly positive, but I know myself and that brownie still have battles to come. 

I sit down in the car and my friend and I look at one another. "What a great human being! What a great place!" We drive back home awash in a discussion of how Carrie Ann's attitude AND her physique make her a success. 

My friend plans to return with me for my next fitting and pick out a suit for herself. Summer is coming and it is time to welcome the sun. It is time to see the magic in bodies, not just the perfect ones, but all of them and the amazing souls they house. 

 

 

After 13 years, I finally walked around in Pete's shoes...

It may be a stretch to say this, but I think weight training might be a substitute for marriage counseling. Well, at least in my case. Let me explain. 

My food meltdown of last week culminated one evening when, after locking the gym I walked across the street to the market,  grabbed a Chunky bar, paid for it and exited like an armed robber. I ate it on the drive home, furtively, under the glow of the dashboard lights. Then, with the stain of chocolate still on my fingers, I walked into the house, sat down on the couch, and I consumed an entire box of Teddy Grahams.

I woke up the next morning feeling strangely content. But the memory of the previous night's eating spree suddenly popped in my head like an instant message from a smug Satan, and I squinted and groaned. The night would have been a caloric nightmare in a normal situation, but with less than 8 weeks of wiggle room for my competition, it was like death. I pulled myself upright and climbed the stairs. 

My husband eyed me as I poured a cup of coffee. He nodded at the empty box of Teddy Grahams, lying on its side on the kitchen counter, "Was that you?"

"Shit! Yes." I grabbed my head with both hands to emphasize my hysteria. "I am totally out of control. I think I have lost my mind."

"It happens." He said this calmly, lacking any judgement, and I actually felt a burst of love for him that 13 years of marriage had dulled. 

"It does?" I wanted to hear more. 

As a veteran wrestler, who spent his teen years trying to make weight for countless tournaments, my husband understands hunger. 

"I used to get up in the middle of the night and make muffins," he said.  "Once my dad heard me banging around and got up to see what I was doing, so I hid the batter under my bed. I pulled it out from under there three days later and still baked it. "

I laughed so hard I spilled my coffee. And I suddenly felt lighter.

It is important to understand that one tired old complaint in our marriage is that my husband either doesn't speak, or he speaks about wrestling. 

Ask him what our phone number is and he will pause before he can answer. Ask him to rattle off the weight each of his team members in 1978, and he can do it, with ease. I suspect that when we are both old and Alzheimer's has ravaged our minds, that this man may not remember my name--the woman who slept beside him for most of his adult life--but he will still be telling stories about his first coach, Sam, the man who introduced him to wrestling. 

And I have grown to understand that for him, wrestling and breathing are kin. For over a decade, I have pretended to listen to his wrestling stories, and he has kept telling them. It works for us. 

But this morning I begged to hear more. 

"How did you make weight after you lost control of your eating?"

"You run." He said. "You sweat if back off. You get really good and sweating it off again."

I nodded, my own hope returning as he shared his secrets about his struggles with cutting weight. I imagined him as a hungry, high school kid sitting in a garlic induced coma at the table of his New Jersey home, surrounded by mounds of pasta and "gravy" night after night. 

I listened to him talk until the light rose in the windows and carried away the moment. He expressed his empathy for the kids on the wrestling team at our high school who have to carry bags of candy bars during fundraising season. Sometimes they eat the whole bag themselves, and who could blame them? 

Later in the day, when we'd both gone our separate, busy ways, it dawned on me that wrestling is in that man's blood because he worked so utterly hard at it. It struck me how excruciating it must have been to have that kind of discipline at that time in his life--as a seventeen year-old boy he probably dreamt more about cannolis than canoodling. The power of food. I now understand his journey.

Despite our breakthrough, I've not become a wrestling fan; this is a marriage, not a Disney movie. But I have become a bigger fan of my husband. That morning conversation filled me with hope and put my head back in the game.

And I am understanding more and more that while you are responsible for much of your own success, it is important to listen to your people: family, friends, mentors. Words and stories sink in--and matter. They just might have the power to keep you from quitting when it feels too hard.

No wonder he still talks about that old coach, Sam. 

I eat, therefore I am...(weak)

There is a stray cat who lives in our neighborhood. Each night, when we've gone to bed, he comes to our house and sits under the kitchen window in the darkness, meowing in a deep, lonely voice, calling to our two cats who lie curled up on our quilt-covered legs. Our cats have no interest in befriending the rogue. They either ignore him or climb into the windowsill and hiss at him with an air of superiority. Yet every night he returns. He will not relent. His sad, guttural meow unnerves me, reminds me of the suffering in the world, and it makes me tuck deeper into the covers.

With 8 weeks to go until this competition, that stray cat has come to symbolize my hunger.

 

Until very recently, my ability to place my mind and my body in sync has been difficult yet exhilarating, but when my weeks' countdown reached single digits, some cog in my confidence came loose, shattering the whole mechanism. Lately, every single day, as soon as I am alone, hunger comes crying, moaning to me, begging me. And for some mystifying reason, I open the window allowing it to wander in. 

Peanut butter sandwiches, graham crackers dipped in milk, the first bite of a slice of cheese pizza--the comfort foods associated with childhood become my targets, and I consume in an altered mental state until the wave passes. 

If I am cleaning the gym, talking with people, or training, I feel strong-willed and confident, but the moment I am alone, the hunger comes back to my window, crying, needing, starving for companionship, and demanding attention. It is hounding me, and it is eroding my power. I give in and eat. Then I wallow in guilt--a food slut--that easy girl who can be talked into anything. 

Five weeks ago I would not let a bite of pasta pass my lips, but tonight I stabbed at the last bits on my daughter's plate. Girl Scout cookies that I resisted for weeks on end now have more power than heroin. I have not had one truly clean day of eating in...well, I've stopped counting. I sneak in a chip here, a morsel of cake there...until the day's digressions turn into an avalanche. I am slowly committing suicide to my bodybuilding goal and to the person I'd hoped to become. 

There is no cramming for this deadline, no making up for lost time, and if I don't get a handle on it soon, if I don't squash this monster, I will run out of time. 

I confide in close friends, feeling a bit stupid that with all the world's problems, I am bemoaning by lack of will power to diet. But they take me seriously, and like the wonders they are, offer solutions:

"Create a timeline so you can see your journey and how little you have left to go."

"Give those Girl Scout cookies the finger!"

This helps, and I end these conversations with the ability to shrink this problem back down to a manageable size. Yet even with corrected perspective generated from an outside voice, the hunger returns and perches under the window. It calls out so desperately that my heart grows heavy. I know I will respond to it again. 

If in the end, my destination is wiped out by the power of food, my identity, my definition of myself will be altered just enough. I will become that stray cat--that zombie--that wishful moan of despair and longing.

Tonight, as I retire for the night, I've asked my husband to leave the garage door open just a crack. I hope that cat finds its way into a cozy box, tucked safely up high on a shelf among the Christmas ornaments and camping equipment. 

It needs to take an 8 week-long nap.

.

Thinking like a duck, not a pitbull...

Learning about yourself is painful. It leaves you feeling duped by your own self perception. My latest lesson came this last week through a set of broken windshield wipers. 

I have an old, battered Toyota pickup. I picked it up last spring off a friend who was retiring it after 215,000 miles. The paint is oxidized, and its history is told in dents and scrapes on every panel. I have studied the bumper on more than one occasion and wondered what must have happened to create the odd shape it has assumed. It sounds like the flubber mobile when I drive it. 

Yet I love that darn truck like one would a loyal family dog. When it snows, I mean really snows, I can put the beast in 4 wheel low, throw a shovel in the bed just to be safe, and venture out when the rest of the mountain has retreated back to the fireplace. Not very "green" of me, but there are bits of my psyche that are proving slow to evolve.

And to be honest, since I was small I have envisioned myself living on some acreage (orange grove in Redlands, meadowy plot under Mt. Shasta, Australian sheep station) tending to four-legged creatures and pulling my muddy boots off on the porch at twilight while surveying the fruits of my labor. A utilitarian vehicle is a prop in that play. Got the truck, just waiting for the rest to materialize. 

So to be fair to my husband, I am a bit over attached to this dumb old truck. 

In the last storm the passenger side wiper quit working. I continued to drive around like a cyclops because the important blade was still functioning, and heck, if I am going to own an Australian sheep station some day, I'd better not let something so small as peripheral vision stop me from doing my work. Eventually my husband stepped in. He was sure he could fix it and relegated me to the family Subaru while he worked on it. 

But a week later, with forecasts of another storm in our corridor, my wipers still weren't fixed, and my patience was gone. When I started the truck this morning, I fumed. There was nothing on the windshield at all--no blades, no arms--my husband had performed a double amputation of my windshield wipers and the carnage was sitting in the back of the cab: a pile of giant insect-like metal wings and legs, and various other bolts and parts. 

We are going backwards on this wiper thing! I thought in frustration, and because I also possess a small concentration of pettiness and spite, I rolled down the window and said, "I hope all the parts are in the cab, because I am taking the truck into the shop."

This evoked our predictable argument that included MONEY and FINISHING WHAT YOU START. In his defense, my husband had tended to every snow berm in the neighborhood last week, and there really is only so much time in each day. In my defense, my husband has a gene that compels him to, out of pure curiosity, disassemble things that never become whole again. This time he was messing with my beloved truck.

 

I drove off in my denigrated truck to open the gym, stewing in self-righteousness and indignation. Immediately I began poisoning the gym it with my presence, subjecting the early morning crowd to my mutterings about men as I scrubbed muddy boot prints off the floor. When they all fled and left me alone, holding a bottle of Pine Sol and a scrub brush, Tina walked through the door to start our training session. In between  sets, I explained to her the injustices done to my wiper blades.

As we transitioned from one-armed rows to reverse flys, she stopped me and said, "I don't know how to say this any other way than to just say it."

I swallowed hard in the pause between her next words, and wondered if she'd employed a spy who'd seen me reach into the chip bowl at the Mexican restaurant a couple days ago. 

"You need to learn to let things go."

In my mind, I began to protest: Me?!?! I do let things go....I mean,  I am waaaay better than I used to be...

"If you are this upset about such small things now, wait until you are four weeks away from the competition and you are dieting and working out even harder. You will explode. You'd better learn to let things roll off you. I mean really, you are upset about a set of windshield wipers."

"Okay." I said looking at her and nodding. 

"You hang on to your anger and you will hang on to fat. Stress will do that. You will not be able to build the muscle you need for this."

"Okay." I managed to say the same word aloud again. 

We finished our session and parted ways. Tina said her last words, "Think like a duck." With a motion of her hand illustrating her burdens slipping off her back, she said goodbye. 

I had just been put in my place, something painful when you are eight and you have just finished throwing a temper tantrum in front of a roomful of relatives at a family party. In the stunned silence and unblinking eyes upon you, you know you're about to catch hell. You even understand that you've earned it. But as an adult, your ego bruises more deeply, and you find yourself dusting off  your collection of Wayne Dyer books. 

I spent the rest of the day doing laundry, grocery shopping, playing princess with one child and Guitar Hero with the other. But I kept bumping against the same bruise: I am too intense. This has been the barrier to godknowswhat in my life. I have indulged this behavior with words like stressed, harried, broke, put upon...when the only appropriate word for my behavior has been ugly.  

When you get a dose of clarity about yourself, it leaves you feeling small for a while. You say silly unrealistic things like, That's it, I am never going to complain again, and Nothing is ever going to upset me again. Your ego tosses and turns uncomfortably in the cradle you lovingly made for it over the years. When finally, you look up and make eye contact with the people in your life again, you get struck by their capacity to forgive you even before you forgive yourself.

The very people who regularly endure the wrath of my ego, helped me find my mojo again:

When I picked up the kids after my workout, my mom offered me air-popped popcorn and her attention.

A close friend invited me out for lunch despite my earlier whinings to her. 

My older daughter asked me to sit on the couch and watch a movie with her. 

My three year-old, dressed in thermals and a gauzy pink princess gown, wondered if I would be her prince and dance with her at the living room ball she was attending. 

And later that evening, after fixing my wiper blades, my husband stood by me at the kitchen sink with a Band Aid when I cut myself on a broken glass. 

While I spent the day repulsed by myself, my peeps were continuing to invite me into their world, even though they already knew about my capacity to overreact, to explode, to be petty. It was a humbling realization. 

Learning to live like a duck may be the biggest challenge I face in this journey. I bloom late, learn hard, and grip fiercely to the belief that I am right in every conflict. Yet the day's honesty brought me a bit closer to understanding that while I am strong arming those who have to live with me, I am also crippling myself, because you cannot experience growth without breathing deeply, without letting go. And you cannot fake these things. You either get it or you don't.  

 

Facing the fear of failure...

Outside, the snow has fallen all day and left the landscape mounded and muted in white, now glowing under the light of a full moon. In the yard, a string of Tibetan prayer flags decorates two snow forts my daughters have abandoned for the night. 

It is silent; the snow plows have forgotten us. Three foot drifts in our street sit untouched. School's been called off for tomorrow already. My husband is shoveling the driveway again anyway, hoping he can get out to ski tomorrow. 

Inside, my daughters are sitting around me. My three year-old's face, smeared with chocolate pudding and red glitter, is intently focused on her drawing. She has recently learned how to make a smiley face. It is a happy miracle to her each time she successfully creates two circles over a crooked crescent. 

My ten year-old is sitting on the arm of my chair, braiding her American Girl's hair. The dinner dishes are washed, and even the dog is laid out on the carpet snoring, enjoying our warm house. 

I am a fortunate woman. So what is wrong with me? 

I made it into the gym, did an abdominal workout, took my run. But several conversations I had over the course of the day made a strange impact that I've yet to shake off. And spending the rest of the day in the house made me come of of my skin with food cravings. My drive and my resolve sits deep in the snow drifts under the soil, with the daffodils.

Today, as the snow piled higher, my mood sank lower. Be productive, I said to myself, find a distraction. So I reunited a mound of unpaired socks. Then I cleaned up my work desk. Unfortunately, my tidying unearthed a composition notebook titled, "Training Log 2003." I had set out to run a marathon that year. In it were only three entries before I sputtered and failed. 

Digging in the fridge for dinner possibilities, I discovered the "best by" date on the cream cheese read 05/09/09. My chest tightened as I realized this competition was actually close enough now to show up on the expiration date of my dairy products.

I spent most of the day steeped in evidence that failure is a distinct possibility. And the problem is that I know failure all too well.

The dark voice inside me reminds me that I have never been pugilistic. Even as a young child I was always relieved to finally get caught during a game of hide and seek. Becoming "it" meant I would no longer be chased. And during my youth, I often chose to sidestep down a daunting ski hill after watching my brothers disappear into the moguls. I could peer over the precipice, but I rarely jumped off it. I spent my first year of college at UC Santa Barbara hoping to get work as a writer, and when the school paper miraculously offered me a position for the following year, I transferred schools and moved to UC Riverside. 

Fear of failure has always had me by the tail. When something good comes my way, I encourage it towards me with my arms outstretched, yet when it toddles close enough to reach my fingertips, I step away and let it fall.  The truth is, it is safer to quit early and make excuses than to hang in until the end and risk making myself look really foolish. Right now I want to retreat from my current challenge like one would pull back from the end of a knife.

My three year-old repeats her summons until I come out of my brooding cloud, "Mama, look! It is you."

I look at the paper she is holding up. A cock-eyed set of eyes with thin-lined mouth. "That's so great! You are getting so good at that."

She returns to her work, talking to herself, "Now I will draw Gwama."

I watch the back of her head as she sits on the carpet in front of me. Why am I doing this competition? Will my kids really care if I spend a Saturday this spring on a stage flexing in a bikini? I am already a hero to my three year-old because I didn't get upset when she scraped my car windows with metal salad tongs, and my ten year-old loves me because I let her pour green Jello over her chocolate birthday cake. It is that simple. 

May 9th matters to me alone, because at one point in my life, for the sake of me, my own self, I want to make it all the way. That is a small a matter in the big scheme of this universe. But it counts. Like learning to draw smiley faces.  

Poached, scrambled, or fried?

It is a frustrating flaw of mine that when I decide to take on a new hobby, I get a little too excited and, well, over invest. Rock climbing class equaled expensive shoes that you really can't wear casually; photography class resulted in a top of the line 35 mm camera, vintage now. Years later both shoes and camera are embarrassingly like new.

 

I see this trait in my ten year-old daughter who gets an idea and turns it into plans that rival the building of the Great Wall of China. 

"Well the school ran out flowers for the Valentine grams so I am going to make my own."

"That's nice honey."

"Yea, and I am going to sell them at the gym. I am going to stand outside, you know, kind of make a booth, and sell them to the people who walk in."

"Umhumm."

"They will get a card, and a flower, and some candy. Oh, and I am going to need a place to store them, so can I use your office?"

"Okay."

"Yea, I and I am going to need some money for supplies so can I work around the gym, and you pay me?"

"Sure."

And the plan continues to grow. I smile and nod in agreement with everything, because I am certain that along with Girl Scout cookie sales that have already fizzled, piano practice I have to badger her into, and an abandoned quilting project from the last inclement weather day, that this too will take its place in the bone yard of past excitements. 

And I smile too, because she got every ounce of short-lived over-zealousness from me. 

A perfect example is currently sitting in a brown cardboard box on top of my pantry. Last month I found an online store that sold powered egg whites, in bulk. When I read that a cup egg whites contains nearly eighty grams of protein, I decided they were a perfect addition to my food program. So I ordered five pounds. Yes, five full pounds.  

I had them delivered to the gym and when they arrived, I was so excited, I opened the package right outside my office. I peered into the box at a large blue trash bag containing a fine, white powder. When I opened the bag, a small puff of dusty powder billowed over my hands and face. I coughed. 

The guy on the nearest treadmill glanced over, "What is that??" he said suspiciously. 

"Egg whites." The dust on my cheeks hid my blush as I tried to contain the cloud of powder that had escaped. I folded the bag down, closed the flaps on the box and hauled it out to my car. 

When I got home, I peered into the blue trash bag again. Five pounds really was quite a bit. It really wasn't as appetizing as I'd expected either. In fact I wasn't convinced this substance was edible at all. But when my husband got home and helped me haul the box up to the top of the pantry, I faked enthusiasm.

"This stuff is great. I can put it in everything and beef up the protein content."

"Umhummm." My husband has long since stopped questioning my sanity. 

My "egg white phase", as it will undoubtedly be called around the dinner table twenty years from now, is now about a month old. In that time, I have turned every dish, every casserole, every formerly finger-licking meal into a meringue. Worst yet, my mess ups have gone public. 

While my cousins were visiting recently, I made chicken and dumplings, usually a slam dunk: gravy-thick soup bottom topped with a salty sweet biscuit. This time, though, I added a scoop of egg white powder and turned the dumplings into thirsty cement. Upon chiseling under the tenacious disc of dumpling, I discovered carrots, celery and chicken bits lying brothless, like dead fish, on the bottom of the Crockpot. We went out that night and left the kids to forage the fridge for leftovers.

Even though I have modified recipes, cajoled neighbors into taking a bag of the white stuff (show up with hot banana bread and you get a very different reception than you do holding out a baggie of powdered egg whites), snuck it into the kids' oatmeal, I still have nearly five full pounds of this damn stuff left.   

This last week I made my last valiant attempt at being creative with this massive blue bag of egg whites, and I started inventing things that would not blow my diet.  First, I tried "chocolate covered cherries." I envisioned myself a featured contributer in the Weight Watchers All Time Best Recipes book with this little number:

1 box sugar-free jello (cherry flavored)

1 T unsweetened cocoa 

1/2 c. powdered egg whites.

Mix all dry ingredients together. Stir in one cup boiling water, then one cup cold water. Mix well, and let set up in the refrigerator for several hours.

What did I discover? Egg whites cook very quickly when you add boiling water. I ended up with mini omelets in a frothy, red paste. I made myself take a bite, gagged a little, and tossed it all in the trash. Elmo, the dog who has been known to eat ornaments off the Christmas tree, did not beg for a bite. 

Last night was my last ditch attempt. I started with egg white power, added some (cold) water, and had my daughter hold the beaters on high while I slowly poured in another box of cherry sugar-free jello. Beautiful florescent pink peaks formed and we scooped out spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet and baked them into cherry meringues. They emerged from the oven in such a gorgeous state that my culinary optimism returned. We left them to cool and went to bed. 

However, hope faded. By the morning they had lost their loft, and sat collapsed and sighing into themselves. They reminded me of when, as an eight year-old, I had tried to chew a whole pack of watermelon Bubble Yum. When my jaw gave up and I spit it into the street, it looked like a huge pink slug, slowly dying on the pavement. 

Out of curiosity, my daughter and I did try one of our "cherry meringue cookies," but promptly spit them out in the trash. Oddly, Elmo liked them. But because I cannot afford to replace my carpet, I have limited his consumption. 

Leave it to my kid to have a plan for all those lumps of meringue, though. I came home late tonight after locking up the gym. Even though it was dark when I got out of the car, I could clearly see a glowing pink "HI" written in the concrete at our doorstep. Apparently, she'd used our cherry meringues as sidewalk chalk. 

Right on. 

(nearly) Five pounds of egg whites. Maybe Ebay. 

 

 

 

I may be forty-three, but my ego is still in seventh grade...

Three times this week I have been reminded that my body and mind are evolving, but my ego is still about twelve.

It began last Sunday. I'd been feeling invincible during a 5-mile run up Greenspot Road: my strides were strong, cadence in sync with my iPod...but suddenly, over the beat of the Spice Girls (oh, please, what do you have secretly loaded on your exercise playlist?), I heard the shout of a teenage boy, mouth wide open, head hanging out the back window of his friend's car as he passed me: FAT ASS! 

My immediate thought was: Still!? 

Was my rear still big enough to provoke insults from rotten mobs of teenagers?

I slowed my pace and looked behind me--I was the only person in the bike lane; there was no doubt--his shot was aimed at me. I stopped running for a moment, kicked angrily at a plastic bottle in the dirt, and then resumed my pace. But my legs felt heavier, and I found myself forwarding past that stupid Spice Girls song; the music had turned sour and so had my mood. 

Having taught public high school for many years, I am not unaccustomed to the rudeness of brazen kids and adults alike. But somehow, this insignificant punk with his two well-timed words had stolen my verve. Deep-seated beliefs about the connection of one's self-worth to one's physical being came flooding back, and I was a pudgy middle schooler in gym shorts waiting to be picked for a team.

My run was listless for a few hundred yards, until I shook it off and found my turbo power again. I am forty-three, not fourteen, and I would not be tackled by two words tossed into the air by a boy whose pants probably hung down under his butt cheeks. 

But the next blow came the very next day. 

In an attempt to incorporate cross-training into my routine, I found myself in my very first kick-boxing class, led by a wild-haired woman with double jointed hips. The class was a blast, but I had to really concentrate on the instructor's movements in order to keep up. About fifteen minutes into the class I broke my fixed stare at the instructor and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. To my horror, I was not emulating the fluid movements of my well-lubricated leader. I was Elaine Benes in the Seinfeld episode when she dances--head jerking backward, thumbs out like an epileptic hitchhiker. I was Steve Martin in The Jerk. I was embarrassed. 

The smile I'd been wearing slipped off my face, and I lost track of the movements of the class. The mirror told me I was a jiggling, middle-aged woman with absolutely no rhythm. 

Then I looked around. Everyone in the class looked ridiculous too. I definitely took first place in lameness, but there were many gals in close second place--cousins to Elaine Benes-- and they weren't paralyzed by their lack of talent. So in my mind I yelled, TOWANDA! I let the grin return to my pink sweaty face and I jumped back into step. 

By the middle of the week I had one more, uh, incident. 

Wednesday's scheduled training was bookended by morning and afternoon insanity. To fit everything into the day, I was dressing, eating, and driving simultaneously. During my session with Tina, I was restless and negative, complaining, "I am gaining weight...no really, my pants are tighter, I am sure of it." 

Tina flashed a sideways glance at me, and I detected an exasperation in her eyes that said, I've spent way too much time with this chick. 

I tried to convince her it wasn't just in my head; I pointed at my hips and grabbed at my belly fat, but she wouldn't engage, so I let it drop, and finished my session. At the end of our workout, I thanked her, and hurried off to my next obligation. But I couldn't shake my discomfort, and as I travelled in and out of the rest of my day, I continued to tug at the rear end of my workout pants.

At the end of my frenetic day, I was unshowered, and frazzled. I sat down at my desk, clicked the mouse, and absentmindedly pulled at the waistband in my pants. The tag was in the front. For the last six hours, I had been wearing my pants backwards. No wonder I'd felt so uncomfortable.

Pretty hard to feel confidence in yourself when you're walking around in public with your pants on backwards.

And so I have learned a few things lessons in the last week I feel are necessary to pass on to anyone else with fragile ego syndrome:

1. Keep your iPod turned up, way up. Go deaf if you must, but let the Spice Girls, not ill-mannered adolescents, tell you how to feel when you are out there in the world being your bad self. 

2. If dancing like an idiot makes you feel young and vivacious, go with it. And don't look in the mirror.

3. Before you spread your bad mood to the world, check your tags. Sometimes your whole outlook can be salvaged just by checking that you put your clothes on correctly.

Lastly, and most important, when dealing with your childish ego, remember...

...it's all in your head.

Dear Diary, Today I ate...

I rallied this week. Skepticism is still alive and active, but my courage and attitude fell back into place. Oddly enough it came from having to do what I despise doing--keeping a food diary.

As May moves quietly closer, Tina is having me add to the rigor of my program. Monday I began charting caloric intake, including the breakdown of protein, sodium, sugar, and fat in my food choices. I have been keeping a clean diet since November, when all this silliness started, but recording my eating still turned up some surprises. I discovered I eat about 400 calories a day in walnuts alone. Passing by the bag and grabbing a handful of those suckers four times a day adds up quickly. 

I am usually the type of person who, when mandated to put a microscope on my consumption, will succumb to every temptation and then some, eventually blowing the whole experiment. It doesn't make me more honest; it makes me more obsessed with what I can't have. Trying hard to be good has always had a reverse effect on me, and I end up being bad(er). This applies to food, exercise, love, spending--you name it.

So being directed to record my food came with a dread that only a seasoned self-saboteur might understand.  

Monday came, and I squinted at the label on the oatmeal canister, shocked that 1/2 cup of plain oats--the days of brown sugar or even maple syrup are long gone--could have 150 calories. And the thin, grayish nonfat milk poured over the top has 12 grams of sugar. What a stinking crock!!

I tallied my intake on a chart, taking precious morning minutes when I might have been brushing my own hair and teeth, and I barked at my needy children that I needed to concentrate for a minute, and I offered gentle urgings like: for god's sake go find your shoes so we won't miss the bus again!  My two-year old, bewildered at my fixation with the oatmeal canister,  located her shoes, put them on the wrong feet and stood like a duck at the front door.

I loaded the kids in the car, turned over the engine, and...my stomach growled. I had already consumed a quarter of my calories for the day, and the dread of failure began to envelope me. 

In short, Monday was brutal.  

However, Tuesday was easier, and by Wednesday, I'd gotten into that groove where the mind accepts what you are asking of it, and it engages the heart. That is not to say that I have begun to enjoy recording every morsel of food that passes my lips, but I have accepted the task. It is fine for now. It has gotten easier, and I have time again to get my daughter's shoes on the right feet. 

So far the food diary has had the intended effect: I pass by the pantry, open it, stare at the bag of walnuts and most of the time decide not to grab a few. When I do grab a handful and eat them, my shoulders sag like a kid who let that grounder go right through his mitt, and I open my food log and write it down. My hope is that someday I might pass by the pantry and not even open the door, and if I have any luck at all, I might even pass by the pantry without thinking about the pantry, although I'd better just stay realistic. For now, I am writing it all down.

Fell off the horse for a spell. I've continued to train since my last post, but my writing ceased for a while. 

I think I'll blame the moon.

As that orb grew fuller, each day got more frenetic. Conflicts, accidents, missing keys, Elvis sightings--you name it. By the time biceps day came around (Thursday) my attitude was suffering and I was dreaming of throwing in that infamous towel, of giving in to a vision of napping on the couch in a pair of baggy sweats with the tv blaring and potato chip crumbs on my chest. I mean really. I already have a side job, oh, and another side job, plus a business that keeps running only because I clean the toilets, balance the books, and greet the customers myself. I've got a couple of cute girls who still like to see me walk in the front door, and a husband who still tolerates me too. Why do I need to become a bodybuilder too?

I am burned out--a soggy cigar butt floating in a rain-filled gutter. 

And I want cake--chocolate with buttercream frosting.

How flip and impulsive I was to sign up for this journey to May 9th. Even if I had one job, no kids, no one needing me, this is still a far-fetched goal--forty-three is forty-three. And I am not a seasoned athlete. What I am is tired. Make that tired and hungry.

So why stay in the game? First, Tina's time. She's invested in me. I have not revealed to her that I am burnt toast, and I owe her my effort in exchange for hers. And hope. I just think I will ride this defeated feeling out for a while and see if it passes, changes like the moon's phases. 

Might could happen.

Full Steam Ahead

The house is suddenly quiet and empty. Ribbons, wreaths, and glitz are packed away until next year, and the only trace of relatives is a forgotten sock that lays crumpled in the corner of one of the kid's rooms. It is all over. December came in fast and furious, and left before I could catch my breath, write those cards, make enough memories with the kids. 

On January 2nd, with the dishes tucked in the cupboard, the kids tucked in the bed, and the vacuum marks across the carpet, it is a finally time to reflect, to write a little and re-calibrate timelines and goals...except the phone keeps ringing...and my older daughter is calling from her bed for a glass of water...and I have hours left on a project I have neglected for the last several weeks...

Oh for the love of God!

Why is it so hard to stay on track and achieve our heart's desires? When I focus intently ahead on a goal, the universe constantly lobs interruptions at me in order to see if I will take my eyes off the ball. 

I choose to ignore the phone, get the water, and blow off the project for one more night, so I can look critically at December. I dodged a lot of bullets this past month, but I caught a few too. I over indulged, skipped a workout for one reason or another, but overall I managed to remain on the path to May 9th. No doubt this was the hardest month to navigate (although I may retract that statement in April, when I am at the hard core end of this training). 

In the eight weeks of focused training with Tina I have doubled the number of push ups per set, increased my max on the bench press by 20 pounds, and importantly, embraced the scale going up rather than down. I have discovered and felt the distinct difference between the medial and the lateral part of the calf muscles, and I continue to learn to trust that it will all fall into place.

Full steam ahead.