That's gonna hurt

Today is a tender day.

That I can't straighten my arms due to a ridiculous amount of team pull-ups on Tuesday doesn't help. During the 30 minutes it takes me to pull on my sports bra (complete hilarity to a fly-on-the-wall-observer) I have time to consider and feel that my inner me is aching today, too.

This is not me! 

The last two weeks have afforded lively and intense workouts with some of the best people on planet earth.  My weary body is reaping the wages of conquered hills and miles of trails on bike and foot. Blue collar muscles are on strike, demanding better working conditions and more vacation time.  But I'd do it all again a hundred times over (and will next week, get ready!).

My absurd soreness indicates more than consecutive and challenging physical workouts.  It points me immediately to the people I was racing, timing, pushing, coaching and enjoying.

Screamingly sore arms bring to mind poignant stories, good natured teasing and shared belly laughs.  I wince and groan with the effort of flossing my teeth, but it makes me recall yesterday's biking bravery on the hill, way too much silliness by Martin during 200 lunges, the moon on the golf course during the quiet flashlight run...

Fun and memories in spades.

While the tender muscles point me to hard athletic work, they point me in a hundred ways to the hearts of my athletes, the character of my coaches and the love of my friends.

My insides are hurting because, of course, it's time to leave this sweetness for a season.  Our family is about to embark on an adventure I am sure we won't quickly forget.  On most days I think Awesome! Adventure!  Bring it!  But on a tender day like today I get teary and picture myself slumped over,  shuffling down a forlorn, freezing, farm road, in the rain, all alone.

All Alone Athlete  (I can be pretty dramatic when the time calls for it).

I realize I am feeling a little raw, inside and out, because I believe what I coach.  Good workouts bring out the most remarkable, the unexpected and the truly beautiful in people.  Good coaches will push you beyond your comfort and ask for more, because that's where the beauty is, where the growth and fruit becomes visible.

I have been witness to much remarkable, unexpected beauty in the last five years and I will miss it, no matter what amazing adventure awaits on the other side. I am ripping away from life as I like it, the people and place I love.  But it is a truth that I am getting pressed beyond my own comfort and I'm being asked for more.  I know that's where the beauty is, where the growth and fruit becomes visible.

It's hard work and it's heart work.

I'm going to be sore.

Elbow-to-elbow (Part 1)

This week we started 5:30am flashlight runs. 

If you had told me two years ago that I would consider a 5:30am run or anything at that hour fun... well...I'd have snorted milk out my nose laughing so hard.


Sleep is really important to me.  I cherish it and guard it closely.  When I get too little zzzz's I turn into a grumpy, gnarly gourd (pumpkin sounds too cute for what I actually turn into).  David, my special-agent "I-only-need-5-hours-of-sleep-to-operate-at-excellent-and-cheerful-capacity" husband, says sleeping is one of my spiritual gifts.  Knowing that about me, you can understand that rising and actually shining when it's early has never been my thing.


But, it has been dawning on me recently that while the sun is up, my life moves at a pace that waits for no woman. So, I have stumbled into a new world that many of you already know and enjoy...the early calm, the starry stillness, the moments before the dew falls is like no other time in the day.  To share it with friends and a run is my new version of a significant and stellar social life.  Stride-for-stride, elbow-to-elbow, breath-to-breath we listen to each others burdens, laugh and sigh at our yesterdays and trade stories and lessons from our youth.

My friend, Patti, sent me a note today...


"So, getting up at 5:00 two mornings this week is not something I count as one of my favorite things to do. However, in looking back over my week, those were two of my favorite things I did this week. Not just because it took dedication and discipline to get me out of bed to put my running shoes on; not just because I ran faster than I intended on running; not just because it has to help in getting me back in a swim suit . . . but because I got to know you better this week.  I loved hearing your stories and experiences from elephants to mean girls.....".


My sentiments exactly.  Grab a flashlight, dear ones and get ready for a good story!  See you this week!


Kim

Tie-Breaker

Today I was stopped in an Austin store by a precious, septuagenerian stranger who needed my expert shopping opinion.  "Excuse me?" she waved me over.  "Which plates do you think would be best for an Easter dinner with my sister's family?  I've been asked to bring the plates (she lost me a little here).  She lives in Chicago."


She needed a tie-breaker.


This lovely woman had been staring at the dishes (purple iris's or ruby pomegranates?) spread out in the aisle floor for an eternity.  She needed advice from a nearby stranger (me) who possessed not the slightest idea if such plates would be used for a swanky soiree on Michigan Avenue or a picnic in the suburbs.

We all need help breaking ties.

While strangers are fine in a pinch, good counsel from friends who know us well (and love us anyway) can help us look at things through different eyes and we discover that our muddied waters become more clear.

All About Athlete gets this, I think.

Our athletes become friends and our various roads intersect and merge often.  This week alone, I ran stairs, biked trails and swam laps side-by-side a team of athletes every day for an hour or more.  This frequency and intensity of our regular interaction grants a certain amount of respect for the individual and the road each is traveling.

This may come as a shock, but we are all unique.  One size does not fit all even (and especially) in fitness.

Our hope is that AAA can be a trusted tie-breaker when it comes to the daily decisions we must make about our health, nutrition and understanding of fitness.  Trusted, not only because we have coached thousands of athletes over the years, but because we see you as more than just a body that needs to lose some weight.  We really see you.

Our mission is to develop mature and complete athletes whose lives will benefit and serve others.  It's impossible to attain the mastery of my body, lifestyle and mind that allows me to love others well when I am in a perpetual pursuit of getting skinny.  I really can't benefit and serve others well when I am completely preoccupied with myself.

As our conversation wound down, I declared that I loved the pomegranate plates.  My new friend decided that "...you know, I actually like the iris's better....".   It seems she didn't really want the answer, she just needed to work through it with someone.  I was glad to be there to help.

In the same manner,  AAA won't ever tell you the answer, the trick or the quick solution to getting skinny and fit.  We are here with different and experienced eyes to help you work it through it over the long haul.  We respect your journey, your person, your season, and we have a great deal of faith in you.

We're glad to be here to help!

What a rush!

I have a friend who is a slight adrenaline junkie. Slight, in the same way that Austin gets slightly hot in August.  I am convinced that there is not a physical endeavor that would ever beat her in a stare down.  She is audacious, and I love that about her.

I, on the other hand, am not a thrill-seeker, truth be told.  I like a physical challenge as much as the next person, but when it comes down to it, I’m a closet wussie.  I don’t like to hurt, bleed, be extraordinarily filthy, or face imminent death.  Despite any outward bravado, I am a certified scaredy-cat. 

So this week, I am skidding down a trail on a borrowed mountain bike behind my aforementioned friend, and when I hear her whoop and yell "what a rush!” at the bottom of a hill, I almost pee my pants.

Three of us are biking together on a lonely and breathtakingly rugged trail together.  We alternate between fits of bawdy laughter and respectful silence.  


Hawks circle above us, the air smells rich and sweet, and Texas wildflowers are springing out of every rock and crevice on the path, which I note immediately, are quite large and prolific (the rocks and crevices, not the flowers).  

My third biking amigo is no shrinking violet, either.  Somewhere in her remarkable DNA, she has an extra gene that she uses to enjoy all of life’s adventures and physical activities to the absolute fullest. She inspires me.  I am in great company.

So, white-knuckled and with my quads screaming, I skid and stumble on over the 14 mile course.  Has anyone in the history of mountain biking ever clamped the brake for 2 straight hours?  I think probably not.  


I fall repeatedly.  I look ridiculous. I opt out of the saddle and carry my bike for embarrassingly long stretches of terrain, and I realize that at each hairpin turn or steep descent that I am scared.

And I love it.

Being scared makes me talk to myself in a way that being perfectly comfortable and confident cannot.  When I admit “I’m scared”, it starts an inner conversation that is worth paying attention to. Why am out here?  Why is it important to me?  


This week, I felt fearful for my body, but my soul was full to bursting.  Creation speaks to me, friends fortify me, sport strengthens me.  A little scared brings out the important.

What a rush!

True Grit

I have three exquisite and unique friends, all my own age, who have cancer.

These friends aren't friends-of-friends.  They are my friends.

I define a friend as someone that has invited me into their life and decided to keep me, in spite of myself.   Conversations with such a friend can move from hilarity and glee to tender and teary at the speed of sound.

How lucky to have empathy, companionship, joy, and even suffering, walking hand in hand on the same road together.  It is difficult to untangle the salt and sweet of good friends, a delicious jumble of soul food.

My friends are currently fighting Ovarian, Cervical and Breast cancers.  It is unimaginable that the very female anatomy that creates, brings forth and nourishes new life can be assaulted so suddenly and irreverently.

Each of these women are a force to be reckoned with in their own right.  They embody True Grit, without all the Hollywood.  Now that I think of it, all these women could rock the red carpet, the stage, or any news stand magazine, but I digress...

While each fights her battle in different ways and for varying amounts of time, there is one notable and compelling similarity between the three.  They have let go of the useless and the insignificant, and are pressing on to what is good, right and true.  Their clarity on the essential things of life is honed and razor sharp.

I have much to learn from each of them.

A personal fight with cancer insists that you lighten your load in order to pursue the things that hold real weight.  Issues that were important once, and caused all manner of anxiety, insecurity and bitterness, are seen for what they were, fool's gold.

Instead, loved ones are scooped up and snuggled.  Emails, laundry and phone calls can wait.  Children are cheered for and given much grace.  Sunsets, rainbows and crescent moons are gifts better than a year-end bonus, and family and simple pleasures are treasured like diamonds.

I do not despair for my friends.  I worry and ache and rejoice and pray and wait impatiently with them, but never despair.

They are safe in the hands of their loving Creator in all ways and as always.

To the contrary, I marvel at these women whose lights shine brighter and stronger with each new day.  Sure, they are often scared and exhausted and totally human.  Yet they are brimming over, overflowing, letting go of the useless and hugging tight to what is right.

And the LORD will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. (Isaiah 58:11)

Trash and Treasure (Fried Chicken: Part 2)

Meet my sweet friend, Gift.

Gift was born to a mother with HIV and was found severely underweight, sick and malnourished.  As an infant, his young mother took him to the resident witch doctor whose treatment included cutting Gift's fontanel (the soft spot on top of a baby's head) and rubbing a mixture of cow dung and herbs into the open wound.  The resulting infection left Gift blind in one eye.  

Gift lives in a rural township in South Africa where, among other community issues,  there is no trash collection.  Imagine your neighborhood and town with no formal way of picking up all the trash on your streets each week?  The neighbors have small yards and gardens that are tidy and cared for, but the children must run to school on roads and paths littered with broken glass and mounds of refuse and rubbish.   This depresses me as much as anything, sometimes.

Our team was in Gift's neighborhood, working at a community center that provides daily meals and emotional care for school-aged children.  We were taking a late lunch break, eating a bucket of (can you believe it?) KFC fried chicken.

As I finished munching on my wing, I was hunting in vain for a trash can to dispose of my bones. 

"Throw them down." our gracious host instructed us.

I didn't understand and tried to explain that "It's OK.  I have this bag, here, and we can all just put our bones in...."

"Throw them down on the ground, Kim" she insisted, kindly.

I still was so concerned about littering that it was like a slap when our host explained "...these bones will not go to waste."

It's moments like these that shape your mind-set about nutrition and food.  I will forever be the exact wrong person to talk to if you are interested in "getting skinny by summer".  I will not be your cheerleader when you go on your 3 week starvation de-tox diet.  I've seen too much and I will never be the same.  

Americans have a real and weighty problem of plenty and abundance.  Having so many abundant blessings available to us each day can also be a heavy burden that requires our full attention.  It is a challenge to navigate these precious waters of freedom and choice, both for ourselves and with our children.  We need heightened awareness, trusted champions, and reminders to live a life of thankfulness and restraint in our wonderful country.

All About Athlete hopes we can help with that!

Yet, communities with deep poverty have a real problem of scarcity and dearth (old fashioned word for "not enough to go around").  There's not enough food, not enough medical care, not enough education, not enough trash collection for goodness sake!

We hope we can help with this, too.

What is our response? 

Want to come to Africa with me and see?