This road leads to Kona

I love running in the streets, no matter how the weather goes I rather run outdoors than face the treadmill and the endless noise of the gin. But this weekend made me have second thoughts about my passion. I have always dealt with all those holes and “obstacles”, I could even pretend that I didn´t notice the “real and immediate” danger of being robbed, kidnapped or event raped – the urban violence is getting harder to ignore day by day. But what about all shose barking dogs? I have a dog myself and I must admit that – for the first time of my life – I didn´t choose it because I liked, but for safey purposes. I don´t believe in guns, but I do believe in barking dogs. Yesterday I was bitten by a dog, per acident, but it ended with an aching knee and some sort of frustration. It should´t but I must confess it was a big hit in my motivation – last week I performed quite well, but things at work still so snnoying that sometimes I just need to fight very hard to find a source of motivation to get through the day and hope for better days to come.

The butterfly effect
Friday I bought a pinget in a butterfly shape. It’s supposed to remind me that there is order in the middle of chaos. But also that Im going through a period of intense changig.. well, maybe not so intense as I wanted to be, but Im on my way. My trainning regim is developing quite well, and now I could figure out the reasn to my high hearts rates – lack of hydration. But the most interesting find of the week was an article from the journal of sports medicine about discipline. It’s called “The road to success goes thorugh detemination, hard work and personal sacrifices”. I have been wondering about the need of mental focus, the importance of a positive mental attitude and so on, maybe that’s the all point when it comes to my life.

PS. Today I saw Notting Hill once again, I just tunerd on the TV after a 5 miles run and it was exactly in the point where Anna says that’s she is just a girl standing in front of a boy asking him to love her. It made me think a lot, there were lots of memories and so on… I cried a bit, but felt renewed a couple of minutes later, when I started re-reading a book from Leo Buscaglia called Living, loving and learning and his mention to Saint Exupery’s quote on love.

last days I have felt like being alice in the wonderland rabit: always in a hurry. My level of anxiety has been quite high and this means not sleeping well, lack of patiente on spinning classes and so on. My heart rate still high, even so, I still not getting tired or short of breath. I´ve tried some research on the subject but couldn´t find any hint. I don´t think it´s a matter of trainning, I think it´s a matter of psichology - I´m just in that moment in life when all you want is a big change and despite of all efforts this just doesn´t happen. I always thought about sports as being quite mental and now Im pretty sure that I was right! :-)

Today my trainning regim had a smal setback, nothing to worry about. As usually I was awake at 4a.m. and didn´t got out of bed - BIG MISTAKE. I lost sight of the time and when I realized it was just 6:02.. not 6 as I would like - don´t even ask. A bit late I considered stay in beg a bit longer... dull.. despite of the cold weather I could overcame the lazyness and wet to the gin for another one hour and a half spinning class.. (think I~m becoming adicted), but the teacher just didn~t show up and I managed to do some weight lifts. I hate this. People keep telling me how important it is, but I just don´t like. After giving a shot I realized that it just wouldn´t work and gave up - what I think was a wise decision once I´m feeling really stiff. I´m not paying the right attention to stretching and have just started feeling the consequences. I´m not suposed to do anything besides working tonight but right now Im just considering a treadmil running after my course.
PS. Today Im happy, but a bit bored... my job still sucks!

Today I decided to take the day off, but I couldn’t kept my decision. Once and again I woke up around 4 a.m. and stayed in bed as long as I could. I managed to come sleeping but my mother called around 8 a.m. and a few minutes later Frederico woke up, so I had no choice but getting out of bed and have breakfast. I had planned to go to my Marcelo’s brithday party but ended just gone jogging – thhis word sounds so oldfashioned. Again my heart rate was sky high, but not for the very beginning. At the first moment it just didn’t work, and then reached 75%… for about 10 min and just reached 102%, I was wondering if I was due to havbe a heart attack, but I wasn’t even tired. I kept running for 5 minutes more and the rate just didn’t move from it… I was feeling well, then I realized it must be a problem at the monitor… at this moment I was just thinking about my clothes – my cangaroo jacket and black legging. Dear God, I was trying to get some “disguise”, but it ended to be a funny uniform. I couldn’t help myself but thinking about Rocky Balboa… I was singing gonna fly now and just keeping n mind that I just cannot sing it aloud – I have find myself singing, I mean sreaming songs around when running or riding and became a bi famous ‘cause of it… My heart seemed to slowed down and the monitor was showing a 159 bpm, not nice but less worrysome. I decided to shorten the run for an ez 45 minutes… The rain started I my “inner radio” changed the tune… I started thinking about the weather and altouhght we are not in december, started wispering “was a cold and wet december day when we touched down the JFK”… I still love U2 (someone told me they are about to release their new album on november 23rd )… The ez 45 run took about 50 min to end up – as anyone used to run at streets knows, when you go, you must come back… I was fine, ready for more one hour, or even more… Before I went back to street I maneged to do some shoppings, take a bath and go to the church – it was enough for the day and I still need to figure out why my rpe and my hr monitor just don’t match.. I know there’s an artcile by Matt Fitzgerald about it and maybe it can give me a hunch… or not… Tomorrow I’m planning a small research on the subject – and 1n hour and half morning ride.

PS - For those that love Julia Roberts – today I saw Nothing Hill and My Best friend’s Wedding – actually just “sipped some of it” – there are two scenes on them (one in each other) that makes me wonder about my all life… I love it… And started a new book – Pen Pals from Olivia Goldsmith, a romance (the sort of book I usually dislike) that seems to be interesting… I’ll tell you about my progress on it.And more about changing lifes- today I heard an interesting hint… when you need to hea your soul you should dedicate your time to a personal project… well, I’m trying let’s if it really works.

The day started with a tsunami of emotions. After yesterday’s trainning I was quite tired, but had many things to do. Im trying to get a bit more sleep – more than the usual 3/4 hours per night. I wetn to bed around midnight and woke up at 4a.m., althought I have tried, I just couldn’t fel asleep again, so I just decided to stay in bed thinking. Bad decision. I’m in such a tough phase, wndering about things that just won’t take me anywhere – I couldn’t help myself thinking if it would be right to say that if behind every great man there is a strong woman, behind all great woman, there is a love dellusion. Sounds like women are cursed… no, it sounds like Bridget Jones Diary, but not in a funny way.
This is not a subject for a post about triathlon.
Once my heart rate has been sky high those days, I took for granted and stayed in bed till 8 a.m. I was planning to start trainning early in the mornning but some personal affairs prevented me. I had a school meeting – this kind of stuff can sound boring, but it is great to me a mother – and went straight to the park for an ez run. The run was ez, but once again my heart rate reached 92% easily. I tried to run slow, to cool down, but it didn’t worked. The same happened yesterday. I have been fighting this problem for about 1 month, and it startgin to get worrysome. I quited drinking coffee and Im really trying to get more sleep. The first one was easy, the second one, almost impossible. I kept praying for a bit rain to cool me down, but it didn’t come. After a bored 5 miles, I quited and decided to go to the gin. Actually I was planing to go for a ride, but the rain started – exactly when I fininshed my run, so I headed to a spinning class. Back home, my heart rate stills high, but I have now figured out what’s the problem – Im just to excited and worried with personnal issues. Running ez demands focus, stillness of heart. I found an interesting article about mental focus on sportsm there are a few exercises and I’ll try some – perhaps they will help me. Next week, I’ll have my first session with a personnal trainner, and maybe she (my first time coached by a girl, so…) will have some advice.PS. I’m reading Michael J. Fox’s biography, it’s very funny and interesting. I could barely believe that he hadn’t use a ghostwriter. It worths the time spent reading.

There are some moments in life when we need inspiration – and with that I mean more than motivation, but something for you to live for, until you can find tagain the path to yourself. If my life was a movie, maybe at this moment I would be packing my stuff and moving to LA, or maybe not, I was just arriving in a small city near Kansas. But my life is real, and I have tried a lot, I have read all those self healing books, lots of deepak Chopras and Bob Proctors texts, but although I found that they are great guys, there is still something missing. I always believed that when you need a breakthrough you must set big, hairy and ambitious goals, and that's mine - I'm going to Kona, to the IM Hawai. Is can sound quite simple, specially for someone who has already faced an IM, but I have my motives, and the first one is - I AM REALLY SCARED. really, only thinking about swimming at Hawaii makes me shrill. So that's my first step - conquer the fear. I'm not sure how long it will take, maybe one, maybe 2, maybe ten yrs, but Im pretty sure, tnat one day I will cross that line and Im also sure that in that moment I will just recall all Iwil have accomplished to be there. There are many thing that I must do to make this dream even a possibilitie, starting with my job. For now one, I hope that all those bad days will have a meaning, and at the end of it all, my goal will be accomplished.