Hand is healed, summer is here

My hand is almost as good as new! I did a local mountain bike race Sunday, well, it was more like an hour long short track, lung and leg busting suffer fest. The hand was great but a little sore by the end because the course was super bumpy. Doug and I both ended up second in our races. We got beat by local legends the Hogans, yes they are older, 45ish, and super fast...they blew us both apart! It felt good to ride hard and beat my legs up again after my early season break I took while healing my hand.

And finally, after a relentless Spring, Summer seems to be here in Boulder! My veggie garden and wildflowers are sprouting, we had to sleep with the window cracked and I even wore shorts one day. I'm looking forward to lots of good Summer adventures...the Firecracker 50, our good friends wedding in Telluride, possibly a mountain bike adventure from Denver to Durango on the Colorado Trail and lots of good local racing! I won't be heading to anymore Xterra Cup races until Beaver Creek...it doesn't make financial sense for me right now. My plan of peaking in late Summer and Fall has proven successful the last two years, so I'm trying not to worry too much that I'm not feeling super fast or fit right now...it will come, especially now that there are races to do every weekend if I want, yeah Summer!

To Each His Own

Each day it becomes more clear to me that I am no good at being a full time athlete. I need and crave balance in my life and I have been lacking this since I became unemployed. I miss the days of getting up with the sun to do a workout before hurrying into a nice skirt, doing my hair and putting make-up on, eating on the go, endless meetings, court hearings, and driving all around to schools and homes to see clients. I think I have fixed my hair only a handful of times and maybe put makeup on twice in the last two months. I miss my bubbling coworkers and the view of the courtyard garden from my office window. I even sometimes miss those challenging days when clients were angry and said 'not so nice' things to me.

It is in my nature to give to others and help people work through their issues in order to achieve their goals. I have had many people tell me that this is a great chance for me to focus solely on Xterra or maybe even move into a different career. Truth is, I don't want to be just a professional triathlete and I really don't want to switch careers, I am passionate about what I do both as social worker and an athlete. I know that leaving the agency I was with was necessary for my professional growth and my mental well-being...things were going downhill in a hurry. Now the hard part...I have to have patience and wait until a new opportunity comes my way. It baffles me how I can be so calm and patient with clients but I struggle to be patient with myself. I am confident that something good will come out of all this but somedays the unknown simply drains me. I know many people (especially in the "Boulder Bubble") find it crazy that I actually want to work a stressful full-time job and don't understand how someone could be unhappy not working. Well, as my mother always said, "to each his own".