tl;dr I'm heading to the North Atlantic for the summer! I bought my first adult bike when I was 22 because although I loved walking I just didn’t have the time to walk everywhere. It was February in DC and in order to get to my yoga teacher training class I either needed to walk an hour and a half in the cold slush, take public transit for roughly half an…
The sirens’ song rang in my ears. I had resisted their call for weeks, keeping myself at work and away from the coast. As the nights shortened so did my ability to resist, and on the solstice I found myself on my Siren rendezvousing with the Pacific. I pedaled along the bay, sun in my eyes, wind in my face. I followed the traffic then the tourists angling for the best…
It’s evening rush hour, traffic is gridlocked, happy hours are full and noisy, street lights create odd shadows on the street; a typical Tuesday evening in the city. Sometimes the city breathes life into you, to be amongst other people sharing this uniquely human experience. For those other days, when it makes you feel alone, powerless, overwhelmed, or claustrophobic, there is the night swim. It's dark when I step out from…
I have been a swimmer for as long as I can remember. I have always savored the freedom of pulling off your clothes and jumping in the water, enjoyed the escape into a different world. I belonged in that world even if I couldn’t stay underwater as long or swim as fast as the other creatures. Diving down to hide before launching a surprise attack on my unsuspecting sister, fighting my…
After Sears I knew I needed a break. I kept seeing the ICC looming on my calendar but decided that a break was more necessary than trying to sharpen up for this race. I gained some weight and only did zone 2 workouts and I simply hoped that it wouldn't really work against me come 7 December. I left San Francisco Thursday night, slept for awhile, and woke up Saturday morning…
What's Been Going on Since Aon LA? After Aon LA I decided to go kind of nuts on the bike. I put in some crazy high mileage weeks (for me), intentionally rode dirt for the first time, and always took the high road to take advantage of those stair climbing muscles. I kept saying that I wanted to lose some weight but I know I have trouble dropping weight while primarily riding,…
For the past few weeks I kept thinking about my Aon climb back in January. I had spent the previous few weeks regenerating all the muscle that I lost while running, moving, and traveling and had felt dead legged for weeks. I didn't feel great going to the start line that day, and five floors in my legs confirmed it as they turned to lead; at floor ten it felt like…
Heading to Peru, I was particularly concerned about the altitude. The only time I had ever really spent at altitude was a weekend in Denver while I was already sick. I knew that the primary issue at altitude is lack of oxygen and I had been doing a lot of hypoxic training this spring and summer, but I really didn't know how it would translate.While most athletes are familiar with the…
As I wrap up my first stint in the corporate world, I've been doing a lot of meditating on what my next steps are and what I envision my life to be. When I left for the winter, I could feel myself physically rejecting my job. I was getting sick, lethargic yet had trouble sleeping, and gaining weight. As soon as I left, I immediately felt better and lost the weight.…
via aviaforum.ru Back in 2010, JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater made headlines with his dramatic exit from a twenty year career. This incident came just a few months after I graduated from college and a month after I started my first full time job. It got me thinking about how a person could be driven to do something so dramatic and what the consequences for those actions are. I was raised…