Reinvention Again

0 CommentsSunday • October 11, 2015 • by Imei

Hips for Hire is going through yet another reinvention.

The long and short of it is this:   Celiac Disease and 300+ food allergies are complicated. Rather than try to conquer them the way that others have (and haven’t been entirely successful at it), I did the research, and radically changed my lifestyle.

In the process of radical change, my priorities about how I spend my time have changed. It’s been nearly one year since I stopped accepting or seeking dance performances, due to poor health in the form of extreme fatigue, dizziness, and uncontrolled weight loss.

I used minimally processed and no-process single ingredient foods to help heal my body and my immune system, and the payoffs have been great! Combined with moderate, long-endurance exercise, I have never been stronger.

Doing triathlon for a good cause: crowdfunding for Celiac Disease research and treatment

However, the time has come to decide what to do with “all of this”, since I am one person with more passions than time. I have made the decision to dedicate time to training for an Ironman in August 2016, which means that 15-20 hours a week will be spent physically training myself for a single race that will last longer than fourteen hours at my safe pace.

All of this does not leave much room, if any, for dancing other than social dancing here and there, and the possibility of an occasional stage show. However, I am not sad, in the sense that Hips for Hire’s mission was to match performance artists with social causes, and now I’ve found a cause that will probably take the rest of my life to see to fruition: a cure for Celiac Disease, and better treatment options to manage the life-threatening symptoms of complications of CD. 

Seth Godin gave a compelling statement in an interview that has haunted me: “why wouldn’t you choose yourself?” Oftentimes, we look to others to step up, to speak up, or to lead the charge. Yet every time I have told myself that someone else will do the things that I want to see in this world, I keep reminding myself of Godin asking, “Why wouldn’t you choose yourself?”

And so, I’ve chosen myself. Check out my freshly pressed blog, My Allergy Advocate.

Piece by piece, I’ll be taking down Hips for Hire as its been known, and shuttering it. It’s just me. And now, I’ll be dancing in the form of swimming, cycling, and running, just over 2.4 miles, 112 miles, and 26.2 miles. It’s all dance. It’s all movement of the body and soul. It’s still all the mental fortitude. And it’s definitely for a good cause.

If you see this post and wish to give a response, please place a comment below. I promise I’ll receive it.

My apologies for neglecting the space for so long. I was sick, but now I’m not. I hope you’ll choose to join me in my next journey, and dance dance dance.

Season Highlights Triathlon 2014

0 CommentsFriday • September 19, 2014 • by Imei

Prelude This post has been a long time coming, delayed by illness, fatigue, and series of setbacks. Yet while I’m writing this, I feel a deep sense of satisfaction, of compassion, and renewed enthusiasm, enough to take some time to write and share about this season’s race highlights.

You know, this was supposed to be fun.

Famous last words uttered before the last half of a marathon in Vancouver BC this May. This year’s triathlon season had quite a few twists and turns in it for me, starting out with feeling like I broke half my body with a marathon, and then experiencing a not-so-fun Olympic Distance swim in Victoria BC as a part of relay team. It was super fun to participate in this triathlon as a relay with Michael and Rosie; it was not super fun to swim with a head cold and have an asthma attack [no no no].

Being allergic to a lot of foods and having Celiac Disease is an entire lifestyle. Careful research is necessary to stay safe.

I’ve been watching the highlights of Apollo Ono’s training for the Kona Championship in October 2014. One of the things that he keeps repeating is this: you can only train as hard as you can recover. Having Celiac Disease and multiple food allergies has changed things a bit: expectations, recovery time, fatigue level, and even the way I socialize. It’s a whole new way of life for me. It’s also some new appliances dedicated to gluten-free food, since I live with someone who can eat everything. Nutrition is one of five events of triathlon: swim, bike, run, nutrition, rest/recovery. Mess up nutrition, and the race is often over for me before it has begun. What happened to me this summer is a clear example I am not likely to forget anytime soon.

On July 4th, I received a gluten exposure from a local restaurant where I have eaten many times before, likely through cross contamination in the preparation phase. Initially, I only experienced some GI mild discomfort, cramping, and the usual things that set off my system. Because we were about to travel to Victoria BC for Michael’s Xterra race, I took some OTC medicine to stop the cramping. By the following Tuesday, my symptoms began to worsen, along with muscle cramping from diarrhea, extreme fatigue, and dehydration. Seven days later from the exposure, I had my first visits to the ER, with a fever, chills on an evening with outside temps in the 80’s, endless vomiting and diarrhea, muscle weakness, and hypotension. The ER doc discharged me out of the hospital when my blood pressure reached 60/39, that happening only after they put two and half bags of fluid in me to help replace what I had lost. I won myself a nice ride through a scanner, only to hear what I already knew: profuse inflammation of my entire gut. They piggybacked some serious meds by IV to get everything to calm down.  About $8000 later, I was thoughtful about the triage nurse’s recommendation that I try “toughing it out” overnight by drinking some soda and dry crackers!   I remember going in and out of consciousness, wanting so badly to transplant my brain into a robot and abandon my body by the side of the road.

I wrote the race organizer for Seafair Triathon and requested a medical withdrawal from the race the following weekend, which they graciously granted and allowed me to change my race to next year. But there went my goal of doing my first Oly Distance in July, ho hum!

“Panda eating” helped me get back on my feet in two weeks.

The following ten days, I wasn’t able to tolerate much food, so I started doing what I call “panda eating”, which is sipping on broth with white rice every so often, and laying on my back while resting in bed. Pandas consume about 40kg of bamboo and a few bugs a day, which pretty much takes up most of their waking hours. I watched my body weight fall off the deep end, and I was referred to a GI specialist. Even walking about the house hurt. I was often breathless, dizzy, and easily fatigued. I seriously thought this was the end of my racing season. There is nothing quite like walking three steps and feeling dizzy to make you question whether you can balance on a bike or swim straight, let alone run with your body upright.

Slowly but surely, I made some recovery by the end of July, and I was back in the pool and on the bike by early August. My GI doc cleared me for two races: Lake Tye Sprint and Lake Sammamish Sprint,  if 1) I had no more new incidents of inflammation in my gut, 2) I had stopped losing weight, and 3) I agreed to keep my race distance to Sprints until I had made a more full recovery overall.

In asking more about the recovery process for a gluten exposure, my doc’s suggestion was to wait three to six months. Can you hear me sniffing at that?!?  The wheels were turning: that meant Lake Stevens race was going to be an automatic Sprint, no question. But it did open up the possibility that I could later participate in another local triathlon if everything stayed on a good recovery trajectory, if the stars aligned, if I trained well without overtraining, and if I could find foods that would work for me. That’s a lot of ifs.

I’m not sure what it is about me, about triathlon, or about dance and the many other things I’ve put my hand to. I don’t give up easily. It took me many years of piano practice before I could take a song and play by ear. Nowhere in the process of learning an instrument did it occur to me that I should quit playing just because I encountered difficulty or had a poor performance. Same with dance.  I do pay attention to medical advice, and yet I also know that there is some latitude with that advice. My former podiatrist told me I would probably never run again. That was a 5K race, a 10K race, two half marathons, one marathon, and six sprints ago. Yet sure, with that comment came some solid advice about the kind of running I could do, and to change my expectations around the timing and recovery.

Challenges can provide learning opportunities to craft the way to customize how you engage your activities. You strategize. You wait. You strike when you’re good and ready.

Other than running the wrong run course section of Lake Tye, all three Sprint distance races occurred without incident: good swims without panic, solid bike performances without mechanical failure, and solid runs without pain or poor recovery.  All times were improved, transition times shortened, and I had a lot of fun. I really couldn’t have asked for more.

Or could I? I think this is where racing is really as much about physical preparation and training as it is mental strategy and fortitude. Do you know what you want? Are you willing to put in the time to get it? Are you listening to all the data coming back at you to make good choices? Do you know when to say, “Yes, go harder, ” and “No, it’s time to ease up”?

From Lake Sammamish Sprint. Photo credit: Ross Comer.

Once I got my race results back from Lake Stevens Tri, it made it easier to decide if I was ready to try the Olympic Distance I set my heart on doing at the beginning of the season. Had my body recovered enough? Would my guts be OK with it? Would I be OK with taking the extra time in transition to do things to make myself more comfortable, such as taking two extra minutes to eat some real food (no gels), and spin easy? Could I find the right balance of water and electrolytes to balance the hot weather and prevent hyponatremia, a condition that occurs because I can’t sweat well in warm weather and I have medullary sponge kidney (a risk factor for hyponatremia)?

After taking an easy swim in Deep Lake at Nolte State Park the week before the race, the water temperature near 70F just seemed to be the clincher: it wasn’t going to get any sweeter than this. And with that, I signed up.

Concerto: A Composition in Three Movements with a Bonus

Black Diamond Triathlon. Pictured: Rosie, Kenny, and I before the swim.

Strangely, just knowing that I was not “racing” this event for time but just to finish well and cover the distance, I went into the morning fairly relaxed. Rosie and her husband Kenny were racing the Sprint as a relay, and they agreed to meet me at a location nearby and commute together to Cumberland. The weather prediction was for water temperatures of 71F and air temps around 82F by noon. I get uncomfortable in temps around 75F with my hypohydrosis, so I brought extra water to splash on my head before the run portion of the race, so I wouldn’t guzzle water.

As I was setting up in transition, I realized I had forgotten my GPS watch. Then I laughed out loud! Perfect! I had subconsciously released myself from the data, from the checking and checking and checking some more, and from my expectations of finishing in a time of 3hours 45minutes (my goal time in a warm weather race for my first attempt). I would complete this race completely by feel — if it feels good, go a little harder, if I can’t catch my breath or feel badly, go a little slower. Phew!

Black Diamond’s events have five races running at the same time, and for this reason, the Sprint and Tri-It’s actually go first instead of the Olympic Distance. Therefore, the women’s Olympic Distance was the final wave, and we didn’t leave the shore until just after 9:26am. Around 9:20, my throat went completely dry and I choked. That was the adrenaline doing its thing. I have learned that this kind of race anxiety is a good thing: it’s a kind of fear energy that can be harnessed, shaped, and made to do your bidding. Or it can make you jittery and vomit. Fortunately for me, it wasn’t the latter.

What it was telling me in that moment is that I was surrounded by a few females who were talking about how they were using this race to prepare for Kona! They were going to swim strong and fast, and it was my job NOT to go out fast, but to do what I do: go out slow, and increase my speed when I am ready. My goal: to catch the slowest Olympic Distance male in the burnt umber-colored swim cap and pass him; then to pick off as many pink caps in the Oly females that I can, and make sure I wasn’t the last person out of the water.

Soon enough, the pink caps were in the water, and I was swimming along, thinking about Prancercise and “Bollywood arms” (high elbows, executing the pull at the right spot), focusing on getting as much catch and pull as I could, and gliding along behind the majority of pink caps.

Rounding the first buoy, I saw at least ten pink caps behind me, and I began swimming towards the second buoy of the diamond-shaped configuration. By the time I reached the second buoy, the pink caps were fairly spread out, as the fastest pink cap would later finish her swim in less than 22 minutes. Rounding the third buoy, I finally began to feel more comfortable; by the fourth buoy (closest to the start point), I had passed the last Olympic distance male swimmer.

On the second lap, I felt surprisingly good, and started in on bilateral breathing every 4th or 5th breath. It seemed like the next two buoys were just a blink of the eye; nothing really memorable. Rounding the second buoy on the second lap, I came upon another swimmer who was matching me stroke for stroke except she was a tiny bit faster, and she constantly crossed in front of me, zigzagging back and forth. For a while, her swimming was pushing me further away from my sight line, so after awhile, I stopped giving way to her to prevent swimming the extra distance it would have caused. Eventually, she started to adjust, which was a good thing for both of us, and as we rounded the third buoy and headed for the swim finish, I made a beeline for shore in one of the most comfortable race swims I have had in a long time.

Kenny would later tell me that when I left the water, there were at least 30 people behind me. I had met goal one: to not be the last one out of the water.

Swim Time: 39mins 51 seconds (12 minutes faster than my Oly swim in Victoria)

T1: 5:15 minutes. I had planned my T1 to be long so I could eat some real food (white rice, bacon bits with scrambled egg, maple syrup), load up some water, and make sure my tummy was good to go. While I didn’t sit down and strip off the wet suit, I also wasn’t hurrying. By far, this was the longest T1 I have ever taken.

Allegro The course for the Oly Distance for Black Diamond has double turn-around points and several turns that required police officers directing traffic to give racers the right of way. By the time I got on the bike course, I was immediately aware that the majority of Oly females were a good 15-20 minutes ahead of me, and my strategy would be to decrease that distance by giving a solid performance on the bike.

When in transition, it’s hard not to notice the sweet rides my competitors have. Out of the two racks nearest to me, my Snappy Dragon was the only steel construction bike; all others had tri bikes or very nice road bikes. There were quite a few aero helmets too. I sometimes forget that when it comes down to it, you can still race hard and perform well because we still all have to deal with the same factors: bumps in the road, heat, head winds on the way back, bike failure,  etc. I cannot recall seeing so many cyclists on the side of the road during a race. One of them was an uninjured male, gathering up the pieces of his Cervelo, which were scattered across the side of the road in at least twenty five pieces. His race was over. Another female was walking her bike back to the nearest police officer and intersection. I counted more than ten individuals who were unable to finish the bike course for a mechanical failure. And so, for all $375 worth of Snappy Dragon, we pressed on together until I caught the end of the bike wave ahead of me. Eventually, I was able to pass some of those riders on the rollers, telling myself, “This ain’t no Winery Hill, ha ha ha!” Josh Fitchitt, who accompanied me on  my first 7 Hills of Kirkland ride (my first and longest ride of the summer), can tell you how grateful I was that our training ride was so much harder than my race ride at Black Diamond.

Just as I was pulling into the last couple of miles before Nolte State Park, I felt my right gluteal muscle grumping a bit (oh hello! I am an grumpy gluteal, you hoo!), and made a note to drink a bit more water and take an electrolyte tablet before the run.

Bike Time: 1 hour 31 minutes (that’s 1 minute longer than my goal time).

T2: 2mins (and I thoroughly enjoyed pouring cool water over my head). I selected road shoes, as the majority of the run was road with a short trail run around the state park.

Presto:  Despite having felt like I broke my body on that marathon earlier in the year, the 10K wasn’t something I was really worried about. I wrapped my mind around the idea of running without my GPS watch. Now there was no pressure to do anything but run comfortably in the heat and pay attention to the mile markers to see if I wanted to try negative splitting the second half by feel, including the short trail run section. My plan was to increase my speed at the turn-around point and feel it out by listening to my breath. I often play songs in my head and simply increase the speed like a metronome to increase my cadence. Who needs an iPod?

I took half a gel with gulps of water before heading out of transition on the run. What surprised me was how many runners were also starting on the run at the same time. Some were already walking, and a few were succumbing to the heat. I saw a few leaned over by the side of the road, and one sitting down with his head between his legs. Before you get the wrong idea, these athletes were in shape and had the chiseled appearance of seasoned athletes. Having only completed Sprints, I hadn’t seen this kind of reaction to the heat except the time I watched an Ironman. Dehydration is real. Bonking is real. But it was this moment of realizing that this time, it wasn’t me on the side of the road. I was feeling great!

The grumpy gluteal muscle relaxed and opened up, and I was putting in a solid trot, which turned into a decent gallop before the one and only water station on the run, which I stopped at both out and back. I ran easy, and I was aware that I could have gone faster if I wanted. I don’t remember much about the run, other than witnessing at least one person cheating the run by shorting the distance (there was no timing mat at the turn around). Whatever, right? I grabbed some more water from the solo water station and headed back towards the park, passing whatever runners I could. I had that sensation that the race was almost over, and there was nothing left between myself and the finish line except a couple of easy miles and the beauty of the woods.

Prestissimo: the Bonus round

There is a reason why I never have good pictures of me on the run of a triathlon. The last couple of miles, while short, often feel much longer. It is always this moment when I assess how much I have left in the gas tank, and pour out what I have left. I can complain or moan after I have crossed the finish line. I get into the “race zone”, and for me, there is no antidote. Without a watch, I really had no clue how fast or slow I was going as I entered the trail portion of the run. I saw a few runners in front of me and made a mental note to do my best to catch and pass them.

At the first pink sign marking the course trail, I heard a sound by my left ear: bbbBBBZZZzzzz! Then my right ear: bbbbbbbBBBBBZZZZZZzzzz! Again and again, buzzing. It was a hornet, and it was mad! It kept buzzing me as I ran, so I decided to run faster. And the hornet flew faster. I ran even faster: battle speed! It flew faster. OK, ramming speed! It flew faster.

The next pink race course sign indicated another mile. The hornet kept attacking my head, buzzing and bouncing off my race cap. I resisted my desire to swat the hornet away, as I am deathly allergic to bee and hornet stings, having been attacked by a number of them at one time and landing myself in the hospital a few years back.

Running like a crazy woman, I bent down towards the ground and broke off a piece of fern plant. Like a Dominatrix with a riding crop, I swished the fern left and right over my head. “Hornet!” I yelled as I passed another runner. “Horneeeetttt!” I shrieked as I passed a couple of racers who were blocking the path. They moved aside and said, “Way to finish strong!” and clapped.

I blew past five runners on a short climb, and I didn’t even feel the climb under my legs. I wish every hill felt like this! I have no idea what woman was running, and without mindfulness, the last part of the race is a bit of a blur. I didn’t want to die, and this hornet probably made me run a 7:15 to a 7:30 pace through the forest. Who needs imagined clown zombies to make you run faster? I had Death in the form of a hornet on my tail!

Off in the distance, I could hear the race announcer’s voice over the loudspeaker, and before I knew it, the timing mat was in front of me and I heard the most welcome chime that means one thing: you’re done! You can stop now! Because I ran by the finish line as fast I possibly could, I didn’t get to see the one digital clock on the course. I assumed my finish time was well beyond 4 hours.

It wasn’t until later that evening that I received my official results. Run time: 1 hour 1 minute (four minutes faster than my stand alone run time)

Overall time: 3 hours 20 minutes 

Black Diamond Triathlon gives you one of the heaviest medals for a finisher’s award.

So, I finished last in my Age Group (7th out of 7). It is what it is. This race taught me quite a few things:

1. I really like the Oly Distance! I would absolutely do this again. Race was organized, the volunteers were really helpful, and the course is pretty.

2. It was important to me to be able to look up on the bike ride and see Mt. Rainier in all its brilliance. Wow! For as much as I love the Pro Club environment, getting out on the open road is amazing! I am sad the season of riding outside is coming to a close soon. Back to running.

3. Hyponatremia sucks. Big time. After I got home, I weighed myself to see how much weight gain occurred. I weighed five pounds more than I did the morning of the race, and by Day 3, the water weight wasn’t shifting. Even with all the extra salt intake, this probably means I’ll need to draw labs at some point to get a more precise measurement on how much water I need. I can’t “drink to thirst” because of the risk of water intoxication. So while it was smart thinking to dump more water over my head to keep cool than to drink it, I’ll need to use tests and measurements to keep me safer and healthier, especially when I decide to increase my race distances and intensities.

4. This race will always stand out as the one that put my water anxiety in better perspective. I have changed the language of how I see myself in the water. And how we see ourselves shapes what is possible. I now know it is entirely possible for me to enjoy the swim event versus seeing the event as, “I have to get this out of the way”.  I’m looking forward to flying to Hawaii in December to support Michael’s Xterra half-marathon trail race, and taking some time to learn to swim in the ocean, a concept that was entirely foreign to me two years ago. I even have a Blue Seventy swim skin, a gift from Cindy Peters.

As I drop back into some dance gigs this Fall, I can’t help but notice how triathlon racing has given me a stronger sense of confidence, energy, and enthusiasm. I know I’ll want to write about the connections between these two activities, and the grace and power it takes to do both well. As I continue to recover and gain some weight back, I’ll definitely be taking notes on what I want to see in 2015 (she says, with a glint in her eye).

My deep thanks to Coach Michael Covey of the Pro Club and his support to help me reach my goals, my two Amigas Margie Metzger and Eliza Catalina Arango-Vargas, the support of the Pro Club Triathlon Team,  Amina Saify for grabbing my ankles during a swim nearly a year ago, Rosie Sgrosso for motivating me on our death-march hiking speed, and my dear Man-Geek, for either hiding any eye-rolling responses to my lengthy list of challenges and foibles, or for disguising them well enough to encourage me to press on anyways. I believed you. Thank you for your belief in me.

Onwards and upwards!