Never let fear decide your fate

I watched a video today that inspired me. You know, those YouTube videos or Oprah stories that, even though they are sad, they still make you wanna get up and do something. And I got to thinking, why do people steer away from the unfamiliar? From the dreams they had when they were kids? From trying to do something extraordinary? People don't do stuff because they are afraid. Mostly afraid to fail. Disappoint. But isn't it pitiful that fear holds us back from working towards our dreams and making them a reality? What's the worst case scenario, you don't achieve your ultimate goal? I don't consider trying a failure, because its not. It took a lot to get up and start from zero, and a legitimate effort deserves respect. And just because it might not work out the first time doesn't mean you're done. Remember that art degree you thought about and even took a few classes for? Go back. Take more classes. Hell, open up a station at your local Sunday market and sell some stuff. Don't be afraid. Ambition transfers out to other things in your life, too. Rarely does an athlete working towards a world record also eat a dozen donuts each morning for breakfast. And while everyone dreams of standing on top of the podium or being featured on the cover of a magazine, the peak moment of success or achievement isn't what people remember. Its the journey along the way, the things that you learn, and the person that you become. The early morning practices, the protein shakes instead of cocktails, the student-budget top ramen dinners, late nights in the library writer paper, and all the frustratingly wonderful memories along the way. Any more people are too afraid to step outside of the box and do what they truly want to do, when life really should be about that. Don't hold back or not do something just because it seems silly or ridiculous.

While the life you live might not always be wonderful and easy, it should definitely be worth living and always remembering.

So busy!

Life always gets in the way!

After getting back from Ecuador, I just haven't been able to get back into my routine. I had a lot going on with my left shoulder, decided to move out of my apartment, and trying to do as much as I can in the free time.

In regards to my shoulder, both are technically torn and would normally be operated on but given my history we have decided to not operate just yet. A 5th and 6th surgery? That just seems like way too much. I'm good with Aleve every 12 hours for now.

Moving sucks the living daylights out of me, I swear. If I could, I would do it in one swift move. Wake up, pack, move, clean, unpack, clean, sleep. But, nope. This was long and drawn out, and I have been packing and unpacking for two weeks now and still going strong! I see the light at the end of the tunnel. But all my free time after work has been consumed with moving. I cant wait to get back to running and biking and swimming!

I have also done a few trips, and am starting to get super pumped for this summer! Seems like there will be something going on every weekend! Megan and I have a triathlon coming up towards the end of June (yay) that I need to get ready for. Now that her marathon training is over, we are getting back into TRX twice a week and some awesome lunch time rides/runs. Not to mention occasional beer drinking in the sun.

 

 Can't wait for this weekend! This week has seemed so long!

And a final word:

Truth.

An Inspirational thought.

Sometimes, life gets tough. Things don't go the way we want them to. We fall down, we get frustrated, we get hurt. Things change, and sometimes we aren't able to immediately see that it might be for the better. Life is messy; nothing is clear cut. But one thing is for sure, no matter what, be grateful and smile because life, even when everything seems to be stacked up against you, is truly a beautiful thing. And remember...

Where there are scars, there are stars.

A surprise California getaway!

Last winter, I was beep bopping my way around South America (don’t worry, I will tell you all about it some other time) and headed back a little bit early to surprise my brother at Sectionals in Seattle where he was trying to make a second Olympic Trials qualifying time. My parents walked in to meet him at the pool lobby, and a few minutes later, I walked in. He told me later that he thought ‘that girl looks like Megan, but she’s not home yet.’ See, we have a pretty close sister-brother bond and we were both happy to see each other. We spent time together both at the pool and outside of the pool and had a great weekend. I was so happy to be able to cheer him on to his second Trials cut there!

Fast forward to this year. Ian has been training really hard down in California with my old coach Mark Schubert from USC. I have been totally miserable in cold and rainy Seattle since I got back from Ecuador, was craving a sunny vacation, and Joelybean’s dad lives in the LA area. The idea to surprise him for his big championship meet took hold.

It was a quick 3 day vacation (we couldn’t really take much more vacation than that). We flew down Thursday night, rented a Fiat named Guseppi to carry us around for the weekend and stayed on the beach.

 

Friday morning we went to breakfast with my room mate and best friend from my USC years, Rebecca Soni. It was the perfect sunny breakfast on the beach with great company! We then packed up and headed to the pool in East LA to surprise Ian for finals that day. We snuck onto the pool deck and just then he walked in. Joelybean caught the moment on camera.

Sucker. He’s so easy to surprise.

Mark followed closely behind and gave me a big hug. Mark was a huge supporter of everything I went to, and even went to doctor’s appointments with me and waited outside of surgery for me. While there wasn’t much time to catch up, it was really good to see Mark and see him working so closely with my brother.

Sitting in the stands, Joelybean and I watched Ian split a pretty incredibly race for the 200. It was a good swim, and afterwards we headed off for an evening in Laguna Beach and dinner right on the water.  We spent the next morning at the beach, but I was so bummed that it was so cold! We headed off in Guseppi and drove up the PCH until we happened up Joelybean’s favorite eatery of the whole trip: In-N-Out burger.

 

We then headed up to the pool for the last night of finals to watch Ian swim the mile. It was a much improved swim from last year, and it was great to watch him help the Golden West team win CCCAA’s!

 

Afterwards, Guseppi took us to dinner with Joel’s dad, and then on to Joel’s home town. I was loving the hot hot sun in the desert! We hiked around Devil’s Punchbowl on Sunday in the 90-something degree heat before Joelybean and I did a quick trail run. As it turns out, going from 60 degree weather to 90 degree weather can really take a toll! Thankfully, a milkshake helped cool me down.

 

We headed down to Huntington Beach later that day to go to dinner with my brother and walk on Seal Beach.

Joelybean and me on the pier on our last night.

 

It was a great getting to go on vacation with my Joelybean, get to meet his dad, and visit my little brother. I only wish I could do it more often, and for a bit longer. And maybe not try to fit so much stuff into a 72 hour period.

Happy Monday to everyone! I hope you all had a great weekend!

Ecuador? Oh, you mean Erkwerder

This is Part I of Caitlin and Megan do Ecuador.

It has taken me WAY too long to get this post together, but luckily I have an amazing memory to be able to recount everything. Before leaving, I was so busy at work and with life stuff that I barely had time to pack. I more threw things in bags and didn’t even organize; I didn't even really know what I had packed. My living room a day before I left looked like an explosion of clothes and gear had gone off. With all my stuff packed up and life wrapped up for my vacation, my Joelybean reluctantly drove me to the airport for my red eye leg to Miami. I used to sleep so well on flights when I was younger. You know those kids that you see with what seems to be a gumby-like spine that allows them to sleep for hours in the weirdest position? That was me. But this trip, I barely slept a wink while traveling. I had some time in Miami before having to get to my international gate, so I went and spent some time in the lovely sun with packs in tow.

While checking in for my flight to Quito, I made sure that my bags were both in Miami and ready to board for Quito. I was told they were both there and ready. Fast forward to finally arriving in Quito, I get through Customs in their brand new airport and head to baggage claim. I wait. I got one bag, but of course it’s the unimportant one with nothing in it. And I wait some more. No bag. I was told to wait for the next flight coming from Miami, ‘maybe it’s on that one’ they said. So, I waited…

It’s a good thing I had goldfish and some candy to keep me company.

After what seemed like forever but was only a couple of hours, I headed to the lost baggage desk. They told me the bag never left Seattle on my American Airlines flight the night before. I was dismissed from the airport. Now, this would be a good time to let you know that all my clothes and climbing stuff was in the bag that never left. I was supposed to start climbing the following day. Trip landed.

Very disgruntled with pretty much everyone at that point, I left the airport for the hostel. During the hour long taxi trip, I calmed myself down. ‘I’ll have someone who speaks Spanish call back’ and ‘I’ll just delay the climbing trip’ and ‘I will never ever fly American Airlines again’ were thoughts going through my head. Faithful friend Caitlin stayed up at the hostel for my arrival and I was so happy I finally made it! We immediately changed plans, and after Caitlin had let me whine and calmed me down we planned to explore the city the next day since I didn’t have much of anything and was exhausted.

The next day, the two gringas left to see the sites of Quito after a lovely rooftop breakfast overlooking Quito. I have never been stared at that much in my life. I was the tallest person wherever we were. The buses were insane; people just jumping on and off. There wasn’t room to sit, and there definitely wasn’t space for a personal bubble. The entire trip people used me to steady themselves by grabbing my leg, head, shoulder, stomach, you name it. The bus rides on our first day weren’t any different. An elderly lady was trying to get off the bus and I attempted to steady her, and just then the bus slammed on the breaks and she went flying still clinging desperately to my hand.

 

The old Basilica. It was pretty amazing.

The streets in Old Town.

 

We made our way to Mitad del Mundo, or center of the world as Caitlin and I fondly referred to it as. It was as creepy as a deserted theme park – no one was there. We had ourselves a jolly time playing around the equator line, talked about how different life was at the center of the world, and even attempted to leave our mark on the center of the world in some wet paint.

 

Caitlin and I on different parts of the world.

We are here!

We really didn't have any idea who the bronze guy was, but we wanted a picture with him.

We headed back to the hostel to do some work on tracking down my bag and figuring out what we were going to do next. Bag was still nowhere to be seen. The airport said they would inform me when it came in and could drop it off to me. Since we had to stay around Quito for my bad, we decided the following day we would do a climb (more like a hike at elevation). Quito itself sits at around 9,200 ft. There is a volcano literally lining the city that you can hike to, with a cable car that gets you part way up. The next day, we took the cable car up and started to hike. Immediately both of us could feel the altitude. We started out at around 12,000 feet and eventually reached our highpoint somewhere above 15,000 ft.

The cable car ride up.

C&M

Obviously, a jumping picture.

 

At our high point somewhere around 15,600 ft.

 

It got a little stormy.

We made some friends while we were on the mountain.

No, really, it wasn't that bad.

 

 We wanted to get back down to check on my bag, and weather was starting to get a little nasty.
The hike itself up Pichincha was amazing. I was totally floored that such an amazing hike JUST outside of town was essentially empty of people. We passed maybe ten people the entire time. The landscape and the view were jaw dropping.

Can't beat the view.

 

On our way down, we met a nice business man from Europe who spoke flawless Spanish. A storm was coming in and hardly any taxi's were available. See, no one there liked rain. It rained and life essentially stopped. All three of us started walking down the hill after attempting to barter with a taxi driver, and we were picked up by a friendly family on vacation. They offered to take us wherever, but Caitlin and I parted ways with the family and the business man at the bottom of the hill. After a very rainy and thunderous cab ride, we returned to the hostel, had some beers and dinner and learned that my bag had arrived! Now that we had missed our climbing trip that we had paid for, all my stuff finally arrived. The airport said they were unable to deliver the bag, so we planned that the next day we would take the buses out to the airport to claim my bag. After having spent an entire day doing that, we decided it was finally time to leave Quito. We had been attempting to reschedule our climb, but communication with the guide service we had hired was essentially nonexistent. We made phone calls and wrote emails, and continued to do so for a couple of days, with absolutely no response.

So off to the beach we went.  

Stay tuned for another blog post to continue with the story of my trip!  

Recap of my thoughts on this week

Because this week has been tough for so many reasons...

And to post my old Facebook status:

'Athletic events are amazing displays of the strength of the human spirit, not hatred. Sporting events should unite us all and allow us to celebrate what is right in the world, and I hope that despite the fear this doesn't change that. Thoughts with everyone in Boston.'

#bostonstrong

Make it a great weekend everyone!

Never a dull moment

Well, this past weekend was quite the adventure. I was hoping it would be a nice and relaxing weekend, and it started out that way! I spent some quality time with my Joelybean and his family (I'm meeting family - woah). Saturday I was laying in bed, napping like anyone should on a weekend, and as I moved around I subluxed my left shoulder. Subluxing means the shoulder almost came out of the socket, but not quite a dislocation. It almost feels like a dislocation, and scares me just about as much. I caught it and pulled it close, and my entire shoulder area started immediately hurting. Now, this is my left shoulder for those of you keeping track. I have had one surgery on my left and three on my right so far.

Anyways, I was supposed to run a 5k on Sunday with my mom. She was unable to make it because of winter weather (so sad) and I was on the fence about doing it. On one hand, I wanted to run to get a workout in if for nothing else. The weather was ok, but my shoulder was KILLING me. I had to deliver a gift to someone at the race, so I went prepared. Then I sad, 'Awe, what the hell? Who's it gonna hurt?' And did the 5k. I ran an insanely slow average mile pace, but I had a great time and I am glad I did! Afterwards, Joelybean and I went to lunch and REI before heading over to his brothers for a lovely family dinner!

My Joelybean and I at lunch.

I feel like this might be the beginning of a new adventure... another shoulder saga. Stay tuned. Doctors appointment next week.