Swimming, The Journey No comments yet

Examining habits: The Naked Face Project

By on January 27th, 2012

Resetting the timer function on my watch, I started to do the math in my head. In order to swim my 400-yard repeats in the time allotted by my coach, exactly what did that break down for each 100? I had a general idea but then changed my mind. I didn’t need to know what my 100-yard splits needed to be. I wouldn’t be checking them anyway. I would be more focused on counting and making sure I did the proper number of laps (eight in the 25-yard pool if you’re scoring at home). And so, off I went.

On the first interval I finished, oh, 43 seconds faster than what was called for in my plan. Um, did I count wrong? Did they shorten the length of the lane? I decided to forget the doubts and just swim hard for No. 2. Off I went again, thinking strong and steady with an emphasis on the steady. The second interval was harder but felt smoother. I was 10 seconds slower than my first interval but  again, for those scoring at home, that’s 33 seconds faster than original plan.

This has happened before in the pool. I crush the times given to me by my coach. Oh, not every time, but lately more often than not, I’m working pretty darn hard and easily beating my times. What gives? Perhaps part of it is the way I perceive myself in the water. I’m not a swimmer, I would say over and over again in my first years of triathlon. Swimming is my weakness, was another favorite of mine along with I’m just not very good at swimming or the variation, I can swim but not very fast. There was no great incident to change that thinking but I did. Slowly over time I realized that thinking that way, even in sarcastic tones to friends, wasn’t getting me anywhere. It was just a habit, a habit of selling myself short. Now, I get in the water, focus on the task at hand, and give my best effort.  I think of myself as as swimmer now, regardless of what my 100-yard T-time is.

The topic of habits, and the stories we tell ourselves to perpetuate our habits, came to my mind this week when I stumbled upon The Naked Face Project.  Undertaken by Molly Barker, founder of Girls on the Run, and her friend Caitlin Boyle, founder of Operation Beautiful, the project is to go for 60 days without wearing makeup, high heels and dying and styling their hair, among other typical “beauty primping” habits. This is not some anti-beauty campaign. They’re not out to make a point. They just want to see what happens. They have no hypothesis or crusade. They want to see what happens when they take a conscious look at the habits they’ve formed around “fixing their faces.”

The Naked Face Project is likely to be very uncomfortable for us. Why? We’ve engaged in these Beauty Habits for so long and we know that changing up our habits and especially our mindsets around habits are always a bit unsettling. We feel like we’ve only approached feminine beauty in one way for our entire lives. What might reveal itself when we give ourselves the opportunity to experience another way?

I love The Naked Face project because they are examining their habits. We often do things out routine because they serve some sort of need for us. Molly and Caitlin are exploring their habits around beauty, what it means to be beautiful and in your own body, ideas which we often form without much thought. So in my habit of selling myself short, what possible need could I be serving? The one which doesn’t want to be crushed by disappointment, by falling short, but feelings of failure. If I’m not a swimmer, it’s OK if I’m last out of the water or slow in my intervals. If I start to think of myself as a swimmer though, new opportunities open up, not just in performance but in the quality of how I feel. Seeing myself as a swimmer has allowed me to gain different perspectives on my time in the pool, ones which I like better than protecting myself from disappointment.

What might happen if we change a habit that we’ve done for so long, as become such a part of who we are that we don’t even realize it is a habit? Forget the judgment of “good” or “bad” habits. What might you do different today, this week or this month? What might you try? You never know what you might discover when you open yourself and challenge your habits.

College Basketball, The Byline, Women's Sports 1 comment

A tale of what happens when you don’t know any better

By on January 26th, 2012

In all honesty it was some of the worst basketball I had seen from a St. Bonaventure women’s basketball in years. They were tight. They were flat. They were uninspiring. This was not the team that had built itself into a small mid-major powerhouse in the middle of nowhere in the midst of a highly respected conference with big names and big teams. For 30 minutes it really wasn’t great basketball and the team’s winning streak and rise into national recognition were in jeopardy.

Doris Ortega led the Bona women.

But then came the last 10 minutes and something clicked. It wasn’t quite like turning on a switch, more like gutting out a tough day at the office. The Bonnies dug deep, found their defensive intensity and converted those stops into points. In the end, it was a sophomore forward Doris Ortega who had a career-high 20 points, a surprising breakout performance desperately needed when the team’s top two scorers and senior leaders were struggling to get shots. In the end, it was a 68-61 win over Bona over Saint Joseph’s, another win in a what is turning into a truly charmed season.

In my life as a sportswriter, I’ve spent the better part of the last 12 years covering women’s basketball in western New York State. And while in the interest of full disclosure I am indeed one of the “sons and daughters of St. Bonaventure forever”  it doesn’t change the fact that the Bona team has been one of the biggest stories in women’s sports in the area, arguably in the post-Title IX era.

What happens when you only know success? What is then possible?

The Bonnies are 19-2 overall this year. They’ve won at least 20 games the last three years and have gone to the WNIT, one of the postseason tournaments, each time. The senior class only knows winning. They only understand success. They don’t know that St. Bonaventure is a podunk school in a podunk town with no money and no business even being in the Atlantic 10 Conference let alone undefeated and leading the conference. They don’t know that when I first started writing about women’s basketball for The Buffalo News 12 years ago that I routinely received emails telling me how much readers didn’t care for women’s basketball and hated (I mean hated) seeing stories about it in their morning paper.

They don’t know that when you’re down 13 points on the road, you’re supposed to lose. Or that when your leading scorers are struggling at home and it’s late and you’re tired you’re just supposed to roll over and move on to the next game. Or that they’re not supposed to play that hard in front of stands which are only a quarter full.

OK, these are smart young women and maybe they do know that. Maybe they do know all the story lines about why they shouldn’t succeed. And maybe they just don’t care. Whether they’re living in a world of success, teamwork and dedication or in a world where they aggressively ignore the negative thinking, this program is inspiring. Whatever their motivations, collective and individual, they reinforce what we all are sometimes afraid to believe — that truly anything is possible, if you believe, I mean really believe, that it is.

I thought about the Bonnies this morning as I gathered my belongings for my interval workout on the treadmill. I was tired and fighting being not in the mood for six intervals of 800 meters. But I stopped myself, stopped telling myself that I was tired. I started telling myself I had plenty of energy, that this was going to be good. In fact those 800 meter repeats on the treadmill were freaking hard today. But I did them. Every single one. I kept my focus. I used the mantra “strong.” I dug deep. And I did the hard work which wasn’t running 800 meter sprints six times on the treadmill. The hard work was keeping myself mentally in the game. I thought about the Bonnies and how they don’t know any better. They just go out and play. And win.

I brought a little bit of that swagger home with me. If my interval workout is any indication, it’s going to be an interesting, and powerful, kind of day.

The Journey, Training No comments yet

Have yoga mat, will travel

By on January 25th, 2012

It wasn’t until the trip was over that I fully processed the silliness of what I just did. Who would travel three hours roundtrip for a yoga class? Yep. This girl. Such is the way I decided to spend my free Tuesday evening. And it was one of the best decisions I could have made all week.

See, I went to the class at the Rochester Athletic Club for Women because my friend, Tracy, was teaching it. I met Tracy through my friend Tara and we developed our own friendship over virtual discussions of our triathlon and marathon training. In my time with Tracy, she’s exuded positivity in a calm and balanced way, someone who can energize you without shouting. And that was an energy I really wanted to be around this week.

So I found myself on the New York State Thruway heading from Buffalo to Rochester to take her evening Moonlight Yoga class. I warned her before that while I love yoga (and have been practicing every day for over two weeks now) I’m not, how shall I say this, good at it. Her text indicated a light-hearted laugh as she assured me the yoga class focused more on relaxation than anything else.

Tracy demonstrates reverse warrior.

I entered the space with a new group of women, realizing it had probably been years since I actually took a yoga class (though I talked about it a lot). I was a bit nervous. I didn’t want to suck in front of my friend who was teaching the class. I didn’t want to be the one doing the lowest level of modification on every pose. And I  didn’t like the fact that I had the chance to look at my reflection in a mirror the entire time. Great for checking your posture and positioning, bad for my self-critical judge who is never happy with the way I look. But as Tracy started the class I was immediately put at ease.

With our eyes closed in a comfortable seated position, Tracy helped bring focus to the room. She asked us to be present, to listen to and be aware of our bodies and to leave competition and judgement at the door, competition not just with outer people but also with ourselves. Competition is not what yoga is about. I exhaled deeply. For the next hour as we moved through stretches, vinyasa, balance and core poses, Tracy reminded us to “just breathe.” That was all we had to do. Just breathe. The rest would come. I fixed my attention on myself, closing my eyes when I could and gazing away from other people. Sure I caught glimpses of what other people were doing, but I didn’t compare myself to them. I went into poses at a level which was comfortably challenging for me. And by the end of the practice I felt energized, refreshed and more open.

And yet this nonjudgmental space made me think about competition. In athletics we compete. We line up at a starting line and know it’s a race. We’re supposed to move quickly with strength and speed and skill through whatever type of course is in front of us. We’re motivated to push harder by the thought of a podium finish or beating our nemesis. If that external competition does not readily appeal to us, there is the internal competition, competing with ourselves to go a bit faster, be a bit better, than the day before.

But there’s a balance to competition. It’s about being comfortable with contradiction. We are strong yet supple. We are fierce yet relaxed. We know when to tap into our reserve of competitive vigor and when to let life flow. In yoga, each pose has a counterpose, a way to bring balance to the body. I sense that other areas of my life also have counterposes, some which I understand, others which are starting to become clear to me. Through it all, the most important thing is to just breathe. The details and the how and the plan? Those will all come in time. My only job, right now, is to breathe and be present.