Breaking Away

To Cindy my meme not easy ___________________ Racing me versus time 37th lap ___________________ Though I really liked this tag I will not tag others who might curse me times ten for doing it to them again, again ____________________ Last night the hub. and I watched Breaking Away, the 1979 classic, after putting the kids to bed. I had never seen it before. Saying I really loved the film doesn't really do justice to how I actually felt about it. I connected to many parts of the movie. The part that I felt was most poignant came after David has been knocked off the road with a spoke stick by the Italian racing team. God my heart broke! And then the exchange with his father: "I didn't know that everyone cheats." (David) "Well." pause "Now you know." (father) I've always connected to the whole shattering of idealism thing--which seems to happen again and again throughout our lives in different ways. We suffer the same (slightly varied) wound of learning that the whole world cheats until we wake up one day totally embittered. We fight to not sink into quiet desperation. We take anti-depressants, have children who allow us to relive what we have lost, we get divorced--marry again--forever hoping that some of that early, untarnished joy might be recaptured. It's why we do triathlon. _________________________________________ Onto other news. I'm actually going through a job crisis. Just thought I'd let you know. It's a pretty bad one. I have been teaching for 16 years--since I was 22 years old. I had verve. I was inspired. I was alive. I was GOOD. 2008: I am burnt. When I was younger I used to look at veteran teachers who were clearly burnt out and who had become dead wood with such disdain. Why didn't they just get out? Clearly they disliked the kids, they disliked the job, they never stopped complaining and they had lost all vestiges of inspiration. Teaching doesn't really pay well. Why not just get out? Yeah. Well, younger self. You don't know SHIT. What about that pension you are going to get if you just stick it out for another 15-20 years? What about the seniority you've built up? The respect? The clout? The safety? What about the fact that the only f-ing thing you know how to do is teach? What about the fact that you have more than 60 credit hours of professional development under your belt and multiple degrees--all in literature and education--and who the hell cares about those degrees outside the world of school? What about the fact that you are at the top of the pay scale and you are pretty sure there is no way in hell anyone will pay you what you make now given that you have no qualifications to do anything other than to teach? What do you do then, huh? Sink into despair because you are slowly and surely turning into the despicable dead wood you so vehemently hate? Any of you who have survived this kind of mid-life crisis--I'm open to any and all advice. Those of you under the age of 30--I love you. But you ain't there yet. Talk to me in ten. ______________________________ Okay. Finally. the good stuff. Triathlon. My love. My savior. My Calgon Take Me Away! My Breaking Away! I went out for a grueling hill bounding workout on Thursday morning at 5:00 a.m. I had finished my repeats, and I decided I wanted to run to the very top of this hill (about .25 miles of super scary steepness) before I ran home. I reached the top. I'm panting. I'm ready

to walk. And then I see out of the corner of my eye, this: We looked at each other for a moment, and then he did this: I didn't have a camera, so these pictures are obviously not the same peacock I saw, but you get the idea. It was neat. I watched him for a good five minutes, and then he walked slowly away, and I started my slow recovery home. On Saturday I went for a 50 mile ride with my friend Petra. Petra is pretty much a tri goddess (e.g she did a 2:35 bike split at Clearwater 70.3, Worlds, last fall) , so I was intimidated, but excited for our ride. I got the Black all ready. (I decided to call her Black Beauty, btw. I do realize, for all you lit. buffs, that Black Beauty was a boy. I know!) Anyway, Black Beauty was looking fine. I was going to look like a tough, hip tri girl even if I did suck on the actual ride. It was a beautiful morning, it was all mine and I was PSYCHED. (and scared of sucking, too. definitely scared.) One interesting note: Petra and I kinda, sorta look like twins from a distance. We are both 5'2". We are the same weight (to the pound), we have similar body types, we both have the same color, same length hair, blue eyes, etc. Anyway. Close up we don't look that much alike, but from a distance we are clones. When she showed up she had on her red biking jacket, her black shorts, her blue/silver helmet, and a long pony tail in the back. um . that is exactly what I had on. exactly. We were like the Doublemint commercial--only without the skates, the boobs and the blond hair. It was kind of scary. Okay, I digress. The ride was amazing. It was a great day to be alive. We averaged about 16 mph with stops, which wasn't fantastic, but also not totally shitty given it was my first real, long, substantial ride outside this spring. I know I held Petra back, but she was very patient and didn't make me feel bad at all. To round out the weekend this morning I went out for a 10 mile run. I hammered it. I just felt so strong and alive and ready to take on the world. (I am also feeling a little upset and icky about the job thing--and I just wanted to hammer it all out.) During the last mile "Add it Up" by the Violent Femmes came on my playlist, and I went nuts and did a 6:30 mile. Wish I coulda done that two weeks ago in that shitty race... oh well. Tomorrow I take the kids out to watch the Boston Marathon. It's my hometown race, and it makes me sad that I'm not running it this year. But we can't have every race we want every year. Or maybe we can and I just haven't figured that out yet. ______________________ It's the NEXT DAY: Just wanted to give a shout out to all my buddies who kicked butt today! Rose, Michael, Maureen, David, Claire, Tom, Zac, Tim and Mike (a 2:41--holy shit!)--you all Rock! I'm so proud to know you! Here we are getting properly fueled to cheer everyone on at the Boston Marathon. What a fantastic race! What a great day!