Training for the North Shore Triathlon
Aloha my friends. Today, I am writing you from a beautiful home surrounded by lush gardens in Makawao, Hawaii. This land belongs to the Hawaiian indigenous peoples, and it ought to be theirs on paper, too. I am humbly grateful to be here, and committed to helping create a better future for all, where we dismantle racist systems and elevate indigenous voices, honoring human rights, the rights of Mother Earth, and sharing the earth in harmony. I name and honor the indigenous peoples on whose land I sit each time I write to you, as a small act of great love and intention.
Okay, so, now! The triathlon…
In my last entry, I paused my story on a Monday morning in early November, 2022. This was my first day at the gym. I remember hitting the pool and awkwardly splashing my way through about 500 meters (10 laps down and back in the olympic-sized lap pool at the gym). My neck was full of tension by the time I got out, but I felt refreshed. I signed up for an adult swim lesson with an experienced coach to help me correct my form. I’d had lessons as a 6-year-old, but 29 years is a long time to go without guidance. Before leaving that day, I took some pictures of myself in the locker room mirror, to track my physical progress throughout the journey. I’ll share them with you, here. It’s nice to witness the journey visually, I think.
I used this free triathlon training plan, as I had absolutely no experience and needed guidance. In case you’re out of the triathlon loop (as I was until very recently), a sprint triathlon is the shortest distance event of all the triathlon races, and consists of three parts: first, an eighth or quarter-mile swim (400 or 750 meters), followed by a 20-kilometer bike ride (12.4 miles), and finishing with a 5-kilometer run (3.1 miles).
Have you ever heard of Ironman? If not, check it out. It’s fascinating. Since completing the sprint, I like to describe it like this:
If Ironman is an Iron Man, then what I did was kind of like… an Iron Fetus.
But, hey! Fetuses work very hard to grow into fetuses. Before that, they are mere blastocysts and embryos. In fact, harkening back to my last post and the beginning of this journey, I can tell you this: when I let go of my baby in spring of 2022, she had just entered the embryonic stage. I say she, because it feels natural to me. I could not know the gender, of course. She was just the size of a poppy seed.
Perhaps there is some poetry here… that I let go of an embryo, and of a whole different life, and a few months later, as I neared what would have otherwise been my delivery date, I launched myself into training for what I now playfully refer to as an Iron Fetus.*
And train I did! I went to the gym at least five days a week. I played loud music in my headphones and ran the treadmill, staring through the glass windows of the gym out to the trees on the horizon, breathing through discomfort and gently pressing my edges to go a bit faster and longer each day. I got on a stationary bicycle for the first time and gave it hell until my quads burned and sweat dripped down my face like tears. Some days, I couldn’t tell which drops were which. Sweat and tears streamed alongside one another and mixed together, cleansing me, one drop at a time.**
There were mornings I woke up excited to drink coffee and hit the gym. There were mornings I was so anxious and exhausted it felt like an ordeal just to get dressed and organize my gym bag well enough to get out the door. There were mornings I drove all the way to the gym, realized I’d dressed wrong for that day’s workout, drove all the way back home, changed, and went again to the gym. I could have switched up the workouts and avoided the hassle, but I felt that the order of the training plan was important. There is a method to these things, you know. The experts teach us when to rest which muscle groups, how to find a steady rhythm for expansion in the body, increasing endurance and speed with restraint and wisdom for utmost efficiency. ***
There were mornings so haggard that they somehow turned into afternoons and then evenings before I made it to the gym, so that by the time I finished and left, I watched the sun setting from the blacktop parking lot, felt the cold air hit my freshly-showered skin and fill my lungs, and thought to myself, “Now, the day has really begun.”****
There were mornings I stayed in bed and cried. There were mornings I wished I could just close my eyes and live in dreams or dreamless sleep for a few more months, until the winter passed… until I could wake up smiling again.
I can say that there wasn’t a single morning (or evening) when I regretted having gone to the gym that day. Every single time, my mood improved, my body felt alive and invigorated (even if I felt exhausted), and my inner landscape gained another imprint of empowered action and self love. Training was something I did alone, but surrounded by community members who themselves were out to move, sweat, and heal. It was so, so very good for me.
After many different kinds of mornings, and many different trips to the gym, the time came to fly to Arizona for the race. I arranged to rent a road bike while there and flew in a few days before raceday with my boyfriend, Gene.*****
The night before the race, we drove to the bike shop and picked up my cherry red, Specialized brand road bike. It was beautiful. I road it around the parking a bit to get my bearings and was humbled at my lack of coordination. The extra-skinny tires makes a road bike very responsive, meaning those of us used to hybrid bikes with fat tires are wobbly and silly-looking on them. This is going to be interesting tomorrow, I thought to myself. Onward and Outward, eh? Nothing left to do but go for it.
Tired and ready for rest, we agreed to keep it simple and eat at the diner in the RV park in New River, Arizona where we were staying for the weekend. It was Fish Fry Friday, and I knew that wouldn’t settle well on my stomach the night before the race, but had seen earlier that day on the sandwich board outside the diner, the menu written and including an option for baked salmon as an alternate offering. We arrived after sunset and ordered our food. They were out of the salmon. Resigned to my fate, I ordered the fried fish with potato salad. It was delicious, and I laughed and said, “Well, let’s just see how this goes.”
And then, I saw how it went. I awoke at 1am with stabbing pains in my stomach and couldn’t sleep again until 5am, which is precisely when I should have been having a quick coffee and heading out the door for the race. I spent a miserable night: anxious, in pain, and battling negative thoughts about missing the race, about my life, my relationship with Gene, my career, my finances, and my relationship with myself. My, my, my. Do you ever notice how much more misery we are in, when we focus too intently on ourselves? I do.
I thought about my ex. I replayed anger at the abuse I endured. The lies. The insults. The way he ignored my requests for him to stop teasing that he’d “put a baby in me.” The way he held my body down when I pulled away and did, indeed, put a baby in me. I balled my fists in rage. I breathed through the anger and grief.
I tossed and turned and furrowed my brow for hours. Finally, as the sun rose, exhaustion took me, and carried me back into sleep.
Thank god, I thought. I didn’t care one bit about missing the race. I just wanted rest. I awoke a few hours later, drank water, ate oatmeal, and sat around awhile. Once I felt some strength return to my body, I decided I needed to go for a jog to clear my head. All that negative energy from the night before was still heavy in me, and I wanted it to lift. I pulled on my running shoes and headed out into the desert. As I began to jog on the nature trail that runs through the RV park, I was surrounded by beauty: tall saguaro cactus, little families of quail cooing and foraging, the bright blue morning sky, the burnt orange rock, the mountain peaks all around… the sacred, perfect nature of an Arizona morning. I felt my vitality increasing, and the music in my ears bringing joy, and I kept on running, past the nature trail, around the park, outside the park, back in the park, back along the nature trail… I completed a 5k! It took about forty five minutes. I thought to myself, I’m going to do this thing, even if it’s by myself and backwards.
I returned to our room, drank coconut water, cuddled Gene, let him know my plans, and then set out. I drove the bicycle to the Anthem Community Center where the race had been held earlier that morning, put on my helmet, and started riding. I passed grassy lawns, pools of water that seemed to glow and shimmer in the afternoon sun, and beautiful gardens as I worked my way along the park that runs behind the community center. I continued on into the city of Anthem and its residential neighborhoods, completing nearly fourteen miles on the bike over the course of an hour. Easy pace. It was a gentle ride, though invigorating and enlivening and fast, at times, as my energy peaked and waned.
I finished in the community center pool, swimming 400 meters, alone, in just under twelve minutes. I completed the triathlon my way, in less than two hours’ time. Now, if you factor in my transition times (the time it takes between each section of the race), I believe it took around 4 hours. I can hear my sister, Zoe, saying, “Of course it did,” and laughing. I am definitely the tortoise in the race of everyday life. She once said of me, “Brean is the kind of person who is almost running late, but still on time, ready to head out the door, and then spots something in the house that hasn’t been cleaned in eight months and decides she has to do it right then, and then is twenty minutes late.”
Perhaps there is a drug for this way of being that a psychiatrist would recommend. Perhaps if I took it, I’d be less scattered. For many reasons, I’ve decided to avoid these kinds of fixer-uppers and do my best to, let’s say, DIY myself. Exercise helps me practice focus and commitment, which is certainly a good thing.
I completed my Better than Nothin’ Triathlon on December 12th, 2022. I took this picture after a hot shower to send to Anne, my friend who’d inspired the journey in the first place and who’d completed her first race that morning, wondering where the hell I was. I told her I did it my way, and that I was complete. I was so proud of myself, and so happy, all alone there in the Anthem Community Center women’s locker room.
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After returning home to Missouri, I continued training. I set a New Year’s Resolution to complete a sprint triathlon, with the intention to do it sooner than later. I researched some events and didn’t commit to any particular one. I went to the gym. I spent quality time with family. I made plans to return to Hawaii. I went to Sundance film festival in Salt Lake City to celebrate my nephew’s debut as a Sundance Filmmaker. His short film, Parker, was selected out of thousands of applicants to be featured. It is amazing, and he is amazing! Check it out here.
In late February, I landed back on Maui. I began work as a nanny for a single father and a five month old baby who I’d met through an online service that connects families and caregivers. I immediately fell in love with the baby, and felt a real friendship and connection with the father and his sister, who was visiting from out of town and who helped me get settled in the role as nanny. At some point in the first few weeks, I realized that this baby was the age mine would have been, had I chosen differently the year before. Life has a funny way of placing things in your arms to love, if you only keep opening them.
I threw myself into the work of being a full-time caregiver for an infant. My body, heart, and mind responded with harmony. I felt instinctively in tune with his needs, deeply connected to his heart, healed by our tender, quiet moments together, uplifted by the pure joy in his smile and his laughter, soothed by his cooing and gurgling, empowered by my intuitive ability to meet all his needs with minimal effort, and quite simply, in love with my life and my work. I choose to believe that the universe placed me with this baby and his father, because we all needed each other dearly. I continue to be in awe of this gift every day that I work for this precious family.
In addition to caring for the little one, I started attending Ashtanga Yoga Primary Series classes three times a week at a studio owned by a friend in Wailuku, just a short walk away from the home where I nanny. ******
My first day of work, I walked there to get to know the neighborhood. On the way, I noticed a flyer in the window of a local restaurant for a latin dance night. The following night, after work, I went to check it out. It was a Bachata dance night, and I fell in love. The music, the rhythms, the sensual nature of the dance, the playfulness, the challenge, the connection with other dancers as we swap partners in practice and during the social dances… it made me smile, giggle, and play like a child. This, I knew, was something I had to keep doing.
But, wait, didn’t I have something I was doing? A goal I was working toward? Ah, yes. That whole triathlon thing. I googled it one day, and found an upcoming race on a neighboring island: Oahu. No races on Maui to speak of, but this could work. It required minimal travel and was taking place in less than a month. I decided to go for it. Now, I had to figure out how to train outside the gym. Winter in Missouri makes gym-going easy. It’s warm in there. That’s really all you need to know. But frittering away hours of precious time inside a gym while living in one of the most beautiful places on earth with perfect weather year-round? That was not going to happen.
Okay, so I’ll run a 5k outside after work a couple times a week to start. I did that. It wore me out, and it felt good.
I’ll buy a bike and ride it to the beach. I did that. I took my second week’s wages from work and bought a Trek road bike with a carbon fiber frame, cherry red like the one I’d rented in Arizona, from a nice retired couple who’d been living on Maui for decades. I found it on Craigslist, met them in a public place, took it for a spin, and prayed I was getting a good deal. They seemed nice and honest. I trusted my gut and handed them hundreds of dollars. They dropped it at Maui Cyclery in Paia on the north shore of Maui, where the kind and caring employees gave it a tune-up and a “new” set of used wheels in better condition than the originals it came with. I bought a helmet and a bike lock, and I was ready to go.
My next day off work, I packed a backpack with beach day supplies (sunscreen, swimsuit, goggles, towel, nuts and fruit for snacking, portable phone charger), and hopped on the bike. I wobbled at first, adjusting to the newness, but quickly hit my stride. I rode gently from my home to the trailhead of the Mokuele Bike Path, a paved trail that runs alongside one of the main highways in Maui from north to south. Once there, I let it rip. I blasted the kind of music that makes my spirit soar, pushed hard, rode through wind alongside traffic, felt my inner warrior come to play, and explored how fast I could go while staying safe. There were occasional seed pods and other debris to dodge, cross streets to yield at, and little potholes to navigate. I couldn’t just fly at top speed, but I could really let myself feel very free with a stern focus on the 5 feet in front of me at all times to watch for obstacles. This forced me to be fully present, aware, giving all my focus and energy to the ride. This snapped my mind away from worry, away from planning the future or analyzing the past. This healed me.
I rode about thirteen miles and ended at Kamaole 1, a popular beach in Kihei, south Maui. I stopped at the grocery store, Hawaiian Moons, just across the street, for a smoothie and left the bike locked to the racks there. I crossed the street, sat on the rocks at the west end of the beach, and watched the water. I noticed swimmers doing lap-style swim strokes aways off shore, and realized I had accidentally landed exactly where I wanted to: a safe place to swim. I applied copious amounts of reefsafe sunscreen, waited for it to sink in, and got in the water. I swam out past the snorkelers, and then swam the length of the beach, from the east end to the west, at an easy pace. I was learning how to breathe and navigate the waves without swallowing water, learning how to pause to check for my orientation and re-direct my course, learning how to survive with just my body and the whole ocean holding it, and to get from point A to point B this way. It was about a half mile, end to end. Very different from the pool at the gym back in Missouri. *******
I exited the water and walked my way back to my towel, passing the happy families, and the tourists playing, sunning, talking, dancing, and resting all along the busy beach. I rested a long while there and then in the shade of a big, beautiful tree in the grassy area of the beach park, known as Kam 1, for short. After awhile, I attempted to bike the rest of the way to my favorite beach, called Secrets Beach, a few miles south. The afternoon heat (south Maui is sunnier and hotter than where I live, near the cool mountains of Iao Valley), and the rolling hills of Wailea proved too much for me. I knew I could push through it, but I also knew that I would be very cranky if I did. I ordered an Uber, threw my bike in the back, and cheated my way to Secrets Beach. I locked my bike, crossed the rocky path to the east of Chang’s Beach, and walked toward the sound of the drums. Every Sunday at Secrets Beach, there is an African drum circle and dance. This beach is clothing optional, and you’ll find all types of people and bodies, lounging, playing in the ocean, drumming, dancing, socializing, and blissing out in the pristine beauty of Maui.
It was whale season, and every time I dipped my head under the water, I could hear them singing. A mysterious, almost haunting, howling wail at times, and a sweet lullaby others… whale song heard in person is a spiritual experience. I played in the water, danced to the drums, and poured gratitude from my heart, mind, and body into the earth, the sea, the sky, and the other humans on the beach. I celebrated life.
Later, my housemate, Bethany, who I’ve mentioned to you before, met me at the beach in my car. The drum circle winds down at dusk, moves down to neighboring Changs beach, and becomes a fire circle. I met a friend from Bachata class near the end of the drumming and we danced bachata along the beach as the sunset painted its final colors along the horizon and the whales kept on singing their songs in the sea. We walked to Changs, watched the fire spinners, met new friends, and danced, and danced, and danced. It was a perfect evening.
Between full-time nannying, ashtanga yoga, bachata dance, and training for a triathlon, I was giving my body a run for its money. I slept well. I ate well. I kept doing what enlivened and excited me, and taking space for rest when I needed it. I’ve found, through many years of mostly error and a bit of trial, that moving my energy is what heals me. Resting will come naturally, as it needs to. My job, especially when I am lethargic and feeling sorry for myself, is to find a way to move. The more I move, the more I want to move. It is the best kind of rabbit hole, and the further I journey into it, the more I realize that anything is possible. We can do, and be, much more than we allow ourselves to believe.
Onward and Outward, my friends. My next entry will be about the race. Thank you for reading. I love you. :)
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*Please, do not mistake my play for a lack of grief. I will share that as it comes, naturally, in my storytelling. Grief and play intermingle and lead us to our healing. If you doubt this, just watch how children do it. They can help us remember how to be human.
**I’m thinking of a favorite quote of mine, now… someday, I’ll tell you the story of how I found it, and how it changed the course of my life. For now, just enjoy:
"To sweat is to pray, to make an offering of your innermost self. Sweat is holy water, prayer beads, pearls of liquid that release your past. . . . Sweat is an ancient and universal form of self healing, whether done in the gym, the sauna, or the sweatlodge. I do it on the dance floor. The more you dance, the more you sweat. The more you sweat, the more you pray. The more you pray, the closer you come to ecstasy."
—Gabrielle Roth
***I’m having some background thoughts… a friend of mine who had a very successful blog years ago told me recently, “Write like you speak.” I think that today, I’m writing like I write, not like I speak. One day, I’ll tell a story into a voice memo and transcribe it and share it with you, and then you can see how I write when I write like I speak. And today, you’re seeing how I write when I write like I write. And nothing is wrong and everything is right.
****Another poem, one of my favorites from my angst-filled early twenties reading Charles Bukowski’s novels and poetry. Blue Beads and Bones. Find it here.
*****One day, I’ll interview Gene here and you’ll know him. For now, I’d like to share that he changed my life with his love, that he is the best friend I could ask for, and that without his encouragement and financial support, I would not have completed this triathlon. I may have realized the dream for myself somewhere down the line, but I do not think I would have had the gumption to do it all on my own at the time I did, which I believe was precisely when I needed it. Gene, if you’re reading this, you deserve all the credit in the world and all the best things in life. I am forever profoundly grateful for your presence in my life. Thank you for all you do and all you are.
******Ashtanga yoga is a very ancient and pure form of yogic movement practice that is said to purify and tone the body. It is rigorous and challenging, in the best possible way. My teacher, David, reminds us to smile. He cracks jokes and makes us laugh. He calls us toward our excellence and patiently guides us through movement, guided by breath. He is amazing, and the people I practice with are amazing, and I love this class. It also helps that the jet lag means 6am feels like 10am back home in Missouri. So, I’d say, if you have trouble waking up early, just move to a place with a time zone a few hours ahead of yours, and continue on about your business as usual. Then, you can feel proud of yourself with minimal effort. ;)
*******Open water swimming, as it’s called, is very different from swimming in a lap pool, which has marked lanes and lines drawn on the bottom to keep you going in a straight line. As you may have noticed, I tend to wander off course. I am, in fact, by nature, a wanderer. I tend to think the best stuff happens when we stray from our carefully laid plans. Straight lines are not my forté. When I try to draw them, I get nervous and my hand wiggles. In a pool, with lanes and lines, I can manage. But left to my own devices in the wide ocean, things go a bit sideways. So, I did some wandering out there. Which is to say, I almost smacked into several snorkelers and found myself pointed toward the beach instead of parallel to it about a dozen times in the course of the journey. It was fun! If I’d have been in a bad mood, it would have been maddening. But remember, I’d just done a big bike ride, which means good-mood endorphins, and I was in friggin' Maui. It’s so hard to be in a bad mood here. They never last long. :)