Draft of prior blog posting found...

Samoa was the first Polynesian nation to gain its independence and did so on the year of my birth.  I would like to claim that this piece of information was what induced me to choose it as the location for my vacation- celebration for the end of my year in Auckland, but my reasons were much more mundane; plane schedules and cost.  Fiji has the reputation of being quite touristy, while Samoa and Tonga less effected by the tourist trade. Samoa lies about 1700 miles away from New Zealand, a mere trifle in the greater scheme of world travel.  I wanted to visit Polynesia while I was still in the southern hemisphere.  Samoa lies about 15 degrees south of the equator, as such, it could provide me with the week of summer I sought before returning to the northern hemisphere and autumn.  What I did not know, when I made my reservation online, was that it was also just on the other side of the international dateline.  I left Sunday, made reservations for Sunday, but I arrived on Saturday.

Fortunately, there are many Samoans at Middlemore Hospital where I worked.  A nurse and friend, Margaret, asked me when I was leaving as she would be home and able to pick me up from the airport.   "See you at the airport on Saturday," she said.  "Sunday," I corrected. "If you leave Auckland on Sunday, you arrive in Samoa on Saturday.  No worries," she proclaimed when I told her of my mistake. "We will take care of you." 

Disembarking from the plane in Samoa, the humid warm air greets you just outside the airplane door.  The walk across the tarmac to the small terminal is short.  A band plays for the arriving passengers as the passengers await their luggage. Margaret was there, as promised, waving happily with her daughter and sister in tow.  After a tour of the family house, some mango fresh off the tree and a drink, we drove to Apia to Hotel Elisa and the start of my Samoan week.

What will be the image, the aroma, the feel of Samoa that will linger when I recall the past week? It will not be the single bed at the Hotel Elisa on the seedier side of town.  The charcoal of a roadside BBQ.  The beach fales, with the front porch overlooking my private sand castle. Waves hushing me to sleep. The bulbul in the thatch of the roof, the cockroach running under the mat.  Perhaps the churchbells at 6:30 beconning that we have silence and consider our blessings.  The dogs that all seem to come from one rangy mutt.  Friendly ones, ones that cower and shy away from any human touch.  Know that they have not seen kindness. Seeing at once ribs showing plainly and teats, swollen and swaying.  I will remember the pigs and piglets at the side of the road, running squeeling from my footfalls.  The horses, tethered in the pasture and my heartache to know they were grown for food as well.  This beautiful land of languid beaches, tropical fruits.  The sensuality of a banana tree bearing fruit with the red flower at the tip of the stalk that yields  the  layered hands of sweet fruit.  This land, both lush and poor, loving and harsh.  Signs reading: Say no to rape and indecent acts.  The child swatted on the ferry.  The boxing ring, ugly stalls where men pitted against each other.  Money from foreign soils build ridiculously weathly establishments where fresh water fills pools while the village water supply down the road gets shut off after one hour.  Tourism comes in all flavors: Some folks come and stay in resorts, sipping Margueritas. Others prefer the budget fales with food served family style. Others hotels, or home stays.  The lives of the tourists in sharp contast to the way of life here.   Tourists clammer on bus/vans for a real Samoan experience.   One such tour landing unannounced  by my fale.  Six people crawled out, oogling my fale.  I, their unlikely and completely UN SAMOAN host.  Funny, that..  Cheerful, Engaging, yet unaware they came, swam.  I sighted whales in the distance.  My binoculars borrowed and trained  on empty vistas of sea and sky.

Perhaps I will remember the turtles  I saw snorkeling.  How my breathing and heart rate slows when watching the life of the coral reef.  Or  floating in the sea, another piece of debris on the surface.  The ferry, with people sleeping on the stairwell, plastic bags soaring into the sea. 

The banyan tree with a sleeping platform and the canopy walkway made seemingly from ladders lashed end to end with wood planking in between.  The chip sealed roads with no signs, just an arrow hinting at the possibility of a turn.

The jarring dichotomy of children watching a music video with grinding women, snorting men, lights flashing issueing from a grainy TV screen in a remote village of perhaps 50 people with the beauty of a starlit night and waves crashing on the shore.

Perhaps I will remember the people.  Women with beautiful smiles.  Folks walking along the side of the road for hours.  Boys with baskets on either end of a pole, hefting more than their weight.  Rugby games watched in Fale foles with cardboard hats, “Go Manu”

Breakfasts of paypaya, mango, banana

Dinners with fried veggies, onions.

Vailima beer, shanties

Discussing Fijian cultural politics with the French anthropologist.

Or  with the German cultural attaché.

Samoan men, who seemed universally bent on discovering my age, marital status, invevitably followed by  an invitation, to church, to date, to return to stay with their families… a ticket to somewhere else. 

I will remember  that the waste water just goes into the ground  A Culture so reliant on land, yet still mostly unaware of the environmental movement.  One protected rainforest. Several marine conservation areas adjacent to sewer dumped in the ground water.

Flowers. Frangiapane. Women with coffee colored skin, white teeth, long silky hair adorned with hibiscus, frangiapane, tropical treats. 

Lilting music as people sing and work, Sa, the evening choruses from church.

Heady, humid air.

The relief of a cool rain, or a dip in the ocean.

Breeze, warm.

Barking dogs at night

The crow of the rooster at any hour of the day or night.

The scarlet colored bird with black wings and down turned bill escaping my camera every time.

The dinner bell

Efita trying to teach me Samoan.

Faa afeeta. (thank you) Samoa, for my week of repose

Faa (bye).

I leave you with tears, and yet I don’t know why.

Traveling alone, I met friends.  Saw better ways of being.  Witnessed my close mindedness. 

Opened my heart to desire for

Further travel

And strangely, for home, for routine, for family and community.

Vineman 2012...Nothing to do with Auckland!!!

My Vineman experience began by investigating new “local” triathlons.  I was interested in doing another Ironman (as I aged up this year into the 50’s and had planned this since my last IM).  Vineman is the oldest independent full triathlon.  It was purported to be a friendly, well run triathlon and it completely lived up to its reputation.  It is also beautiful, cheaper and more available than the Ironman branded triathlons.  What did I have to lose?  It sounded like the tri for me.  I signed up before my job started and started training. 

Training when one is not working is easy.  Juggling a 50-60 hour work week, sleep, single living, and training for IM is not so easy.  After struggling with trying to figure out a good training scheme and honestly, not having enough time to even plan my training, I settled on trying out a trainer.  Mimi Winsberg is a local psychiatrist and IM triathlete/mother in her 40’s who has celiac dz (gluten intolerance and thus GI issues).  She was a great inspiration, source of advice and support.  I would recommend her to anyone seeking an online/phone coach. It was fun to follow her races and know that she “got it.”  

Finally, the day before the race arrived.  I mentally planned everything, down to where I would store the car key, what socks went in which bag, back up goggles.  I thought I had it down and would go for a quick ride the afternoon prior.  Of course, nothing goes according to plan.  I was late leaving SF and had to park for a while so I locked my bike to the bike rack, planning that I would ride later that day and unlock it…

By the time I left SF with my sister( who has recently undergone mastectomy for breast cancer) and my niece, 9 year old Alma, the traffic leaving the city was intense.  The 1.5 hour drive took more like 3. I arrived at registration for the penultimate race debrief, set up my run transition and left at nearly eight.  No time for a bike, much less cooking dinner. I had a delightful pasta dish in Healdsburg and got to the rental cottage at 9.  I had invited another mother and child pair for Friday night to both help Margaret and help entertain Alma while I was gone.  They arrived at 9:30.  It was closing in on 11 when I finally drifted off to sleep to the sound of the Olympic ceremonies in the next room.

I woke up at 4, packed and drove to the race start 45 minutes away.  I got there a good hour before the race start, despite the traffic.  I was ready!  Except when I realized my bike was still locked to the bike rack and the key was at the cottage… I called Margaret (who is not allowed to drive yet) who woke Carol, the other adult.  She agreed to deliver the key.  20 minutes later they called again to make sure they had the right key before leaving.  I knew then I would miss the start.  I checked with transition: I could bring my bike in until the transition closed.  I set up what I could of my bike transition and got my body marked before running back to the parking lot (1/2 mile down the road from the start).  The key arrived after the start.

I am so lucky to have been able to race at all.  I am lucky I invited folks to support my sister.  They wound up supporting me as well.  I am lucky that I got my bike to transition before it closed.  I got to the start… my goggles had fallen out in my racing back and forth.  They gave me an extra pair.  I asked if I could race… “Just get in and go” they said.  So I got in the water, started my Garmin, waited a few more seconds for the last fellow to round the buoy and off I went.  I had the advantage of not having a mass start, the disadvantage of having no one to draft and having to swim by the clots of the slowest swimmers.  Only a few people passed me. The water was warm. It was about 3-5 ft (I am guessing) deep and lovely.  After the first loop, my goggles were so foggy, and the fog on the river was dense enough it was hard to see.  The second loop seemed to whiz by and soon I was arriving at the finish. I stood up, pushed the lap button on my swim time (1:06?) really?  I had just finished my fastest 2.4 mile swim.  I knew my time would not be reflected on the official results.

My bike transition area was a little bit of a mess, having racked my bike and tossed things down so I could make it to the start before they could say I was too late. My transition was slow. I could not find my gloves. I shoved the excess of my gear into the transition bag. Oh no. GI issues hit… (stress is a trigger for me).  A trip to the porta potty before running out of transition.

The bike ride is a beautiful, no, stunning, course. Rolling hills, wine country, untraveled roads.  After only about 8 miles, I found a biker down.  I stopped.  He had what I think was a corneal abrasion and needed medics. Fortunately the race officials on the motorbikes called for them. Apparently, he had given the medics an \ ophthalmic anesthetic before the race!  I got back on my bike and continued racing.  I am really proud of my bike as I think I raced better than I ever have on my bike as well.  Gi issues meant I needed to stop once more at mile 18 and wait in line.

The course covers many miles of rough surfaced roads.  This means flats for many.  I stopped for one woman who forgot to pack her CO2 cartridge, and later another who had flatted both front and rear with no tubes, asking for 650C tubes. I stopped again.  Each stop was only a few minutes, and I caught back up to many of the folks I had previously passed.  I kept thinking that I should “Pay It Forward.” Many folks had let me race today: the key deliverer, the transition fellow, the goggle loaner, the race officials. I hoped I could keep other folks racing too. I kept the effort and attitude of race throughout despite the official clock.  I had one more pp line wait on the ride at around mile 70, but my GI issues seemed much better.

The run is three loops on quiet farm roads.  Lovely.  I was lucky it was only in the upper 80’s and not in the 90’s or worse.  My run started at 3:30. The first loop went well.  The second loop was going well and I had only a bit of foot pain, and not as terrible as my 25k trail runner earlier that year.  My GI issues had resulted in 2 stops, but long waits. I kept running and racing. On my way back, I heard that someone was confused and dehydrated. I stopped to help.  He was young (30’s?) the smell of fresh vomit permeating him.  Volunteers near, medics called, sublingual potato chip and coke sips… and I was off and running again after only a few minutes.  Somehow the combination of heat and the memory of the odor made me feel sympathetically queasy. (I routinely take care of folks who vomit, so I think it is odd that it effected me).  I thought I would soon toss my own cookies if I kept running. I walked. Drank coke, then thought : GI issues = potassium loss and downed some bananas.  Run. Walk, Run and eventually I was back running. This time for good… Just putting one foot in front of the other, and making it to the next aid station. Last loop went well.  As soon as the sun went down and the ice down my shirt and in my sunscreen sleeves and shorts was no longer required, I felt like a million bucks, picked up the pace and finished.

The spectators on the course were tremendous. Many telling folks they would be there for them until the close of the race at 11pm.  The folks I had invited to help Margaret met me and drove me back to the car and I had dinner waiting for me on my return.  The little girls had made their folks “swear” to wake them when I returned so they could hug me.  It was a lovely ending to a delightful race.

I finished, that was my goal.  Eighth in my age group. I own that place.  If you cut ½ an hour off my time for my delayed start, I would have been 7^th.  Either way, top ten… icing on the cake.

The best part of the weekend? Learning that my sister had only 5mm focus of infiltrating ductal carcinoma. … Associated with 95% 5 year survival. My race? Peanuts compared to hers.

Represent.