Chapter 1 : BACKGROUND

I haven't even started this blog and already I've killed one idea for what I'd like to be when I grow up... "person who synopsizes movie plots on the box so you will want to watch them".  Maybe painful images of Marissa Winokur in Beautiful Girl flashed before people's eyes in reading about a chubby girl attempting to rediscover her zest for life and they clicked exit to leave me alone on my little piece of the net.

By starting this blog, I'm procrastinating on a homework assignment I need to finish for a class I'm taking for work.  This assignment will take me all afternoon and evening - which will prevent me from getting started on the goals I'm about to set forth in this blog pertaining to fitness and "lifezest".  I find myself doing this a lot... if I can't dive full in to what I really want to do, I focus on getting the tasks done that don't really play into my overarching goal, telling myself that once I get them out of the way, then I will have time to focus on my priorities.  It sounds dumb... but I bet I'm not the only one!

Before I get started on that assignment though, I'm going to stop thinking about what I'm going to write about and just get it down and worry about being a good blogger later

BACKGROUND: I used to be a pretty good mountain biker and competed in cycling, cross country skiing, triathlon... you name it... then I got hooked on rock climbing.  Outdoor sports were my life and fitness was a huge part of my identity and I met most of my friends through my athletic endeavors.

Mary Climbing at the Red River Gorge in Kentucky 2006

Erica, Wing, Nancy, Angus, Ruffy and Mary climbing
in Arizona (right before Ruffy found a huge pile of human poo to roll in)

Ruffy, Erica, Mary, Wing and Nancy all cleaned up

I met my husband, Adam, at a Country Western Bar in South Korea in 2007.  He is not a thrillseeker.  I had hoped that my love of adrenaline sports would wear off on him.  Unfortunately, his love of beer, cheese, and "relaxing" wore off on me, especially after we moved from Korea to Colorado Springs, away from all the pre-Adam athletic friends I already had.  When you are in a relationship, the motivation to go out and make new friends outside of your little "couple world" is sometimes hard to find, especially when you barely have time for eachother.  I just lost the will to try and cajole him into participating in the sports I loved and it broke my spirit to not have a partner as excited as I was to go out and conquer the world, so I just gave up.  I had just started to get back into climbing and meeting a new group of adventure buddies towards the end of our stay in Colorado Springs (late 2009) while he was deployed to Iraq for a year, but it was hard to not be at the top of my game . For some reason I couldn't see all the microholds to get me up the cliffs at Shelf Road, the most popular climbing destination around the Springs, where it is essential that you be able to climb harder than most of the yuppie punks from the Denver climbing gyms and old grouches with stick-clips up their butts if you want to have any sort of good time, and I was so climbing so badly that I was stuck on the wait in line ez climbs dealing with the crowds.  Eventually, I learned that I needed glasses pretty badly, which helped explain why my rock climbing skills had gone downhill so badly because I never saw the key footholds all my friends were able to find so easily. I really wish I would have known that sooner, since that was another blow to my motivation. but then we moved to Arlington, VA, a suburb of Washington DC, which is where we are now, and after recently buying a house (a few days before we got a notice in the mail that the landlords planned to raise our rent by $800 a month from $1300 to $2100 after our lease was up!), I think we will be here for a while.  This blog is hopefully going to document my making the best of living here vs. how I have previously been thinking in terms of "life can start again after we move back West". 

Mary and Adam and Ruffy hiking on Pike's Peak

After moving to DC, I was unemployed for about 5 months.  I thought that would be the perfect opportunity to recharge my batteries and get in the best shape of my life, but for some reason, that didn't happen.  I never found the motivation to train for an event and just when I started to make some kick-butt friends to adventure with, I started working again.  I briefly got into the sport of "Crossfit", competing in weightlifting and feats of strength in the gym, and having some success at that, but it hurt my knees, I tore a rotator cuff, I sprained my ankle in the rock climbing gym right before an important Crossfit competition... and I continued to gain weight.  FAIL.  I also joined the Air Force Reserve to keep my military benefits and earn some extra money, but after making my time committment expectations very clear to my first commander and making sure we were on the same page before committing to anything, we got a new boss who seemed to think that after I went home from a drill weekend I didn't have a family or real paying job and that I would enjoy spending my personal time doing pesky BS for the Reserve unit without getting paid for it.  FAIL.  I joined another unit that will hopefully have more reasonable expectations, and that I will be able to contribute what I've signed up to do without being squeezed for more and more.  We will see how that pans out.  When I was in the Air Force, there was a lot of garbage you had to do, but a lot of great opportunities and people that made it largely worthwhile... I wanted to stay in the Air Force part-time to weed out the garbage from my life but hold on to what I loved about it... but it turned out, at least in that first unit, that all the Reserves did was take all the garbage you had to deal with over an entire year while you were Active duty and compress it into a weekend a month... without ever really doing any of the "cool" stuff.  In addition, whenever I found an event that looked like it might give me something to look forward to, it always happened to be the same weekend I would have to go drill! Again, FAIL.



Fatty McCouchpotatoe probably too stuffed with inhumane
quantities of microwave popcorn or chips and queso to move!

Now I have eliminated that baggage.  I have a good job that I'm enjoying and although I have a pretty heinous commute (more on the commute later!), I have good bosses who understand the importance of a work life balance.  I just have to hope that I don't get another bad new boss!  I just did a half marathon a couple of weeks ago, and although it was slow (2:07), I did it.  Adam can't understand why I have to pay $100 to ride the same trails or run on the same roads as you could do for free any other weekend... but I did appreciate my darling husband waking up early to go with me, meet me at the finish line and drive me home after I wrecked my legs.  I am looking forward to identifying a few more events to prepare for to motivate myself to achieve my former level of fitness... and truth be told, I am hoping to achieve an even higher level than ever... but baby steps first.  I have identified a couple of local mountain bike events... the Greenbrier challenge and the Transylvania Epic Stage Race that might just be the ticket.

More to come on racing, goals, fitness and lifestyle changes, my attempt to get fit and still enjoy food - possible???, our NEW HOUSE, car-free vs car DC commuting and more in the future... but for now, I have to write a paper on Federal Acquisition Regulation Subpart 18.1!!!