Blog
Listen to Your Gut
The holidays may not be relaxing and comfy for everyone. If this is you, here is something to try to help you relax and stay in your body. In times of stress it can be easy to bolt or hide. … Continue reading
Unknown and New
Each day, if I am payng attention, is the beginning. Each day something unknown can happen. A new awareness, something I didn’t know or recognize the day before. I never really know what’s going to happen. I can have a … Continue reading
Self Study
Mindfulness and meditation seem to be the new buzz words, the new thing, the new kale. I see it in magazine articles, blog posts, newsletters, books, podcasts, etc as discussions and explanations. Yay! We all need it. We all can … Continue reading
Organic Electrolyte Drink
Organic Electrolyte Lemonade Drink Looking for an alternative to all the sugary chemical drinks out there! This is my favorite and simple organic drink. 1 cup Organic Coconut Water 1 Tblsp Fresh Squeezed Organic Lemon- strain the pulp, or to … Continue reading
Puppy Mind, Dog Mind
Have you ever had the pleasure of teaching a puppy to sit and stay? They don’t. Well, not right away. You can plop them down and they immediately get up to wander, sniff, explore, and play. You do not expect … Continue reading
Reverse Triangle: Your Swim Core-Length
REVERSE TRIANGLE POSE I love Yoga and how well the poses relate to sports. Here I am sharing reverse triangle because I love how the pose is about lengthening the spine and rotating the upper body “into” the front leg. … Continue reading
This Is What We Came For
It was starting to look like I should bag this whole race idea and go home. My plan was to leave the house by 6:30 a.m. to get to the race by 8 a.m. leaving me time to pre-ride the … Continue reading
Effortless Swimming Takes Effort
Putting in extra time in the pools after a group swim practice. Effortless swimming takes effort. I know, I have been working at it for over 16 years since I became a Total Immersion coach. Elbow grease. Practice. Learning takes … Continue reading
We Pass Through Awkward
I often congratulate swimmers when they tell me they feel a little awkward when working on a new skill. What they are practicing may be more efficient or more fluid. It may be a better movement, but the movement feels … Continue reading
Exhale
Exhale under the water. This weekend I gave a swim lesson to a woman who had been to several other swim instructors but, felt she wasn’t making any progress in her attempt to learn to swim. By the time … Continue reading
Hydration part II
Just after I posted my blog about staying hydrated by addressing keeping the skin hydrated a reader/athlete/friend pointed out a few more things he does to keep his skin hydrated when swimming, so with his permission I am sharing. “Well, this … Continue reading
Skin Hydration for a Healthy Immune System
Winter is dry. The air is dry. Hydration becomes more important, surprisingly, than in the warmer months. Why? It is easy to miss how dry we can be. It is not just losing moisture in sweat, but also losing moisture to … Continue reading
Fat Bike, Commute, Ski
Sweaty but very, very happy! The Coop was in the shop, needing a battery, and the snow was great. I couldn’t miss it. So, I pulled out Hellga and loaded up the back pack. Back in the early 90’s … Continue reading
Seriously Out of Your Comfort Zone
Carol Leaps Off the Raft!! Each year do at least one thing that gets you seriously out of your comfort zone. It is so easy as we get older to stop challenging ourselves physically. As the body grows older we … Continue reading
Failure
I just read another story about failure. Story line: Fail leads to success- once you fail pick yourself up and the next thing you know you have made millions. Yes, agree, to a point. But…first you have to recognize your resistance or … Continue reading
The Middle Way
Neither good nor bad, just is. In my book The Truth Inside I write about not judging things, ourselves or others as good or bad. There is a middle way when we don’t judge, things “just are”. Recently I was … Continue reading
Training or Exercise
Training and exercise are not the same. We do need to have physical activity- exercise- in our lives as part of being healthy, but we don’t need to train. I know it can be just semantics, but they are different. … Continue reading
Instinctual Eating: trusting your body
Instinctual eating is listening to and trusting the bodies biological need for food. There is so much information out there about what to eat to be healthy, to lose weight, to manage type 2 diabetes or to fuel for sports. … Continue reading
The Justifying Ape
I was reading Elizabeth Gilberts latest book Big Magic in which she refers to we humans as the creative ape. She is refering to our ability to create and make things. True, we are creative, we have made many things … Continue reading
The Eating or the Anxiety?
Eating when you feel anxious or stressed doesn’t mean you need to change the eating. Eating is the sign, the symptom. Address the anxiety or the stress first. Anxiety and stress come from thinking about something, something you don’t want … Continue reading
More About the Catch
Melissa shows good form as she Stand Up Paddles, SUP. Put the paddle in, then hold it steady as you press the top of the paddle forward-left hand. hold steady with the low side of the paddle-right hand, not letting … Continue reading
Mastery: 2 Beat Kick
Mastery: The 2 beat kick The most challenging thing about the 2 beat kick is it isn’t a kick like we think of kick. In swimming most of us think of the legs moving back and forth non-stop. But in … Continue reading
Swimming Is Not Linear
“Learning Swimming is not linear”-said Beth this on the last day of the 6week adult swim program at Plymouth State University. This was her response when I had asked the group what they had learned during these last 6 weeks. … Continue reading
Getting Off The Road
Adding mountain biking to your weekly triathlon training can be beneficial both mentally and physically. Mentally it can toughen you up- a hill on the road is cake compared to a hill in the woods. Hitting the dirt trails can … Continue reading
Pull Buoy and Paddles
This August, 2016, I will be participating in the Casco Bay Swim Run event off the coast of Maine. This type of event is very popular in Europe and now making it’s way to the states, known as the Otilla. … Continue reading
The Universe Breathes Us
I Love the notion that there is more than one way to look at something and that a simple shift in how we look at it can open us up to a new or deeper understanding. The most common challenge … Continue reading
Swim Tools
Kick board with fins or flipflops underneath it to prop up the board, water proof notebook, water proof pen, tempo trainer, and watch with a stopwatch feature. Write out the practice. Determine todays goals and/or intentions for the session and … Continue reading
Easy Breathing, Create a Bow Wave
Notice the wave in front of the head and the opening it creates around the face. Plenty of air there! Keep the head in line with the spine, torso, horizontal to the water. By keeping the head low, aligned, and … Continue reading
Swimming Fast, let it happen
My swim notes, a little messy but very telling. For the past 2 months I have been very committed to my swimming. Over time I have drifted away from planning my own swims, though I have written many swim practices … Continue reading
Trust Your Body
What would happen if you let go of the diet or anything that suggest you can’t trust your own body, that you are separate- mind and body- and that you need to be managed or controlled in some way? What … Continue reading
Nothing By Chance
Just after finishing Xterra Worlds w Dave DeSantis I finished 4th place in my age category at the Xterra off-road World Championship triathlon by 2 seconds. Click-click. Passed at the finish line by another woman in my age category. … Continue reading
A Lesson from Racing
I recently did a triathlon and won as overall woman. But it’s not the win that moved me it was that I had realized I was giving up on myself and was able to turn it around. As I was … Continue reading
Balance, our true nature!
Here’s to the Warrior III and Crane Poses! Balance is our true nature! Since committing to my home yoga program and adding in the warrior III and crane poses, they have become my favorite poses. I feel like they have … Continue reading
Resting Heart Rate
Resting heart rate is how many times your heart is beating per minute while lying still. The best time to find your resting heart rate is first thing in the morning before getting up and going about your day. … Continue reading
Swimming as Asanas
In yoga the poses are referred to as Asanas. I like to think of swimming as a sequence of Asanas that flow from one pose into another. The same Asanas repeat, and as a result of the flow and timing … Continue reading
It’s A Weight Thing
Mountain biking is a lot about weight, balance, a onenes with the bike. And I don’t mean, like spiritually, well maybe it could be. But thinking the bike is an extension of the body. Having a constant sense of where … Continue reading
Swimming, Breathing
When swimming, keep breathing! Breathing seems to be the number one challenge for people new to swimming. Breathing is not something we think about until we get in the water. In the water, we now have to think about when … Continue reading
Open Water Season
Yahoo, it’s open water season and time to get outta the pool. But do be wise in finding friends to swim with for fun, and for safety. Wear colorful caps, and get a swim buoy to tow along. The buoy … Continue reading
How Far Can You Go
It’s not pain we feel when we are pushing the body, unless of course you fell and broke something, but sensation, an aliveness in the body. Pushing the body is the body going full tilt, all cells on deck, all … Continue reading
Trainng That Matters
No point in training a tired body. If you are tired, cut back on the volume, or on the intensity, or maybe a little of both, or skip it altogether. Or turn that Trainng session into a pure skills based … Continue reading
