I suffer from allergies and receive regular allergy shots to build up my tolerance against various atrocities that assault my immune system. It’s nothing deadly like licking a shrimp will cause me to balloon up and die, or being within three square miles of a bumblebee will result in a development of cankles and neck fat which will consequently cause me to balloon up and die. Nonetheless, my allergies have made me uncomfortable enough since childhood that my allergist determined weekly injections were the best course of action. While I have no food allergies, I’m allergic to a ton of pollens and mildews and grasses and some pet dander (cat being the worst). I get two shots, one for cat dander and one that’s a cocktail of trees, grasses, dust mites and mildew. Right now I’m in “maintenance” mode for the cat shot, meaning I only get that shot once a month. I’m still building up the other shot though so I receive that once a week. Yesterday I went to the medical center to receive my weekly injection. The nurse was someone I hadn’t seen before and I was less than impressed with her needlework. After a more-uncomfortable-than-usual shot, I texted Jas: Stupid new nurse pulled the needle out at an angle. Blood ensued. Come on, junkies take more care than this. Whenever I get a shot I have to wait around for 30 minutes afterwards to make sure I don’t have a systemic reaction from the allergens that were injected, so I wiped the blood from my arm and waited until my time was up, not knowing that the botched shot would serve as ominous foreshadowing to how the rest of my day would go. As I was driving home, I started to feel a pain in the middle of my chest. Not like a heart attack-type pain, but like a really bad bout of acid reflux or like there was a wad of something stuck in my esophagus. By the time I got home the pain would sharply flare up every few minutes and course from the middle of my chest up to my throat. I told Jas about my discomfort and he gave me a “WTF call the doctor” look. The ensuing conversation went as follows: Receptionist (in a bored, flat voice): “Medical Specialties.” Me: “Hi, I just came in for an allergy shot and I think I’m having an adverse reaction.” Receptionist (slightly less bored now): “Uh, okay, what’s your name?” Me: “Rebecca Kelley. K-E-L-L-E-Y.” Receptionist: “One moment.” Abrupt silence. Then: Voice: “REBECCA IT’S JEAN CALL 911!” Jean is one of the head nurses who typically administers my shots. She is very sweet and exceptionally cautious, as I came to find out from our phone call. Me: “Whuh–” Jean: “CALL 911 AND TELL THEM YOU’RE HAVING A SYSTEMIC REACTION! …then call us and schedule a follow up appointment, mkay?” Me: “Uh, my boyfriend is right here, can’t he just drive me to the–” Jean: “NO, IT COULD ESCALATE SO YOU NEED TO CALL 911!” Me: “Well where should I go, should I go back to the UW Medical Center?” Jean: “Whereever’sclosestI’mhangingupnowcall911bye.” I hung up the phone and looked at Jason to relay the conversation, but considering that Jean was shouting at me in a panicked Jack Bauer state, he had heard everything and the look on his face went from “WTF” to “Jesus Christ WTF was that?!!!” Me: “Screw it, I’m not calling an ambulance to take me half a mile. Jason, can you drive me to Swedish?” We headed to the hospital. The pain in my chest continued intermittently and I was feeling...

Last week Teresa must have weighed all her objectives and settled on one that was especially important to her: Operation Kill Rebecca’s Legs. And so she embarked on a week-long plan to destroy my little Asian stumps and succeeded quite handily. The week’s workouts weren’t too bad…who am I kidding, the entire week sucked. Let’s revisit the schedule of pain: Monday: dryland. I was already feeling kind of tired and Bridget sensed fatigue and pounced, making me do lunges, squats, burpees, and a bunch of other dumb crap because she’s sadistic and mean. Swim: Pacing/conditioning workout. Teresa tried to drown me by incorporating sculling into my workout and very nearly succeeded because I am terrible at sculling and think it shouldn’t be a thing that exists. Tuesday: track. Oh goody, a run test. I ran as hard as I could for 30 minutes, sucking in air like a Biggest Loser contestant on week one. On the plus side, I PR’d for a 5k and posted a good pace for the half hour test. On the minus side, the workout was hard and hurty and I got a wicked side stitch that hurt through the next day. Wednesday: dryland. Admittedly this wasn’t on my schedule but I had already signed up so I went anyway. Teresa showed some mercy on me and gave me minimal leg workouts so she could lull me into a false sense of security before destroying my lower limbs with the rest of the week’s workouts. Cycling class: Who gives a bike test the first day of cycling class? The TN coaches, that’s who. I emerged from this one exhausted, legs burning, and with new bike heart rate zones. Thursday: Sweet fancy Moses, a day off. I celebrated by gorging on fish and chips, a fish taco, and cupcakes from Cupcake Royale. That’s how you take advantage of a rest day. Friday: cycling. A 1:30 workout in various zones. Not too bad, but after that I had to run to… Swim: A tempo trainer swim clinic. I only ended up swimming around 800 yards and it wasn’t too taxing. I learned a lot about using the little tempo trainer device and posted my four fastest 100s ever, including a personal best of 1:33. Whaaaaaaat?! I never swim that fast. (And yes, I know that time isn’t fast for 90% of the triathlon population but it is for me. Maybe this “devote more time to swimming” strategy is starting to pay off…) After class I went out with a couple friends and had a few drinks that wouldn’t have affected Fat Rebecca but ended up giving Less Fat Rebecca a bit of a hangover. I didn’t get to bed until 2 am, which set me up for a grueling Saturday workout. Saturday: 1:35 run with tempo efforts. I was supposed to go to the group run but seeing as how that started at 8:30 and I was operating on no sleep and too many sickly sweet cocktails, I didn’t start hauling ass until about noon. The run wasn’t too bad but since it was colder than usual, I was atypically sore afterwards. I stuck my tight calves in some compression socks and headed off to a dinner party thrown by a fellow teammate. I debated sneaking off and taking a nap because I was exhausted but figured I wouldn’t get a return invite if Amanda caught me snoozing in her bed and drooling on her pillow, so I fought the good fight against consciousness and (barely) won. Sunday (aka D-Day): The triple whammy of workouts coming off a day where I was already getting pretty sore. Cycling:...

I don’t know why, but I had some faint hope that my aggro Ironman training wouldn’t really kick in until the start of 2012. One one hand, I’m really focused on hitting my workouts and pulling a Knutson and training like a hardcore mofo for Ironman Canada 2: Ironman Boogaloo. On the other hand, the holidays are fast approaching and I really want to enjoy my monthly pies, so I was hoping that I could enjoy my newly uninjured body by doing no workouts whatsoever. Wouldn’t it be great to stay thin, strong, and fast without putting in any of the hard work or effort? “Not by a long shot!” my chipper coach Teresa most likely exclaimed as she loaded up my workouts with classes and utter bullshit. For example, here are just the classes and group workouts I’ve got scheduled for this week: Monday: dryland strength class (It sucked; I was tired and Bridget made us do burpees with a biceps curl, one of the poopiest circuit workouts along with triceps pushups, which she also made us do. I hate Bridget.) Tuesday: track (in which I get to do a speed test which basically involves running as hard as you can for 30 minutes so Teresa can assign me new heart rate zones. FML.) Wednesday: dryland strength, cycling class Friday: swim class Saturday: group run Sunday: cycling class, swim class That’s not even counting the additional swims (two) bike workout (one), core workouts (two), and runs (one) I’ve got this week. Tell my wife and kids (meaning “Jason” and “pie”) that I love them, because this girl is going to be living and breathing fitness for the next 10...

Before I begin, I swear that this whole weight loss thing is working. So far I’ve lost 20 lbs from my fattest sad panda state, and I’m roughly six pounds away from my tentative weight goal (which may change depending on how much belly pooch I’ve got when I hit that magic number). That being said, let’s talk pie. So when I trained for my first Ironman, I ended up eating a lot of frozen custard from Old School. It’s freakin’ delicious, and you can’t beat the fact that they have a new flavor every day. I’m not really a “sweets” person; normally I’m more of a savory/salty fan when it comes to food cravings. However, for some reason I just ended up gorging on frozen custard in conjunction with the ridiculous amount of training hours I was racking up each week. I had the calories to spare, so what the hell, why not waste them on frozen snacky snacks. This year I thought about changing things up a bit. While I’m still intent on losing weight, I’ve decided that Ironman #2 will be fueled with pie. My fellow Ironman Canada alum Bill is married to a woman named Alley, and not only does Alley run like the wind (I don’t know if she’s done any tris, but she’s done a bunch of run races), she bakes pies. Normally I’m not a huge pie freak (again with typically being “meh” with regards to desserts), but I commissioned Alley to make a coconut cream pie for Jason’s birthday last month and once I tasted that coconutty goodness, I got a little hooked. Like any junkie, soon after polishing off this bad boy I was craving another fix, so after trying to hold out for a couple weeks, I messaged my dealer on Facebook: Me: “Okay, so I seriously am thinking about buying a pie from you every month. Would that be ridiculous? I’m open to seasonal flavor deliciousness…something seasonal and awesome sounds like it could be a winner for October. Yes, I am addicted to your pies after only having tried one. Don’t judge me.” Alley: “Hahahaha! I KNEW you’d get hooked! Atta girl!” And thus my “One Pie Every Month” agreement had been born. On Saturday I picked up October’s flavor, apple. When Jason heard we were getting an apple pie, he had this reaction: But then he saw this hefty motherfucker: When he tried it, he reacted accordingly: I picked up the pie on Saturday and right now there’s only one slice left. We’ve been pairing our portions with snickerdoodle ice cream from Bluebird for super extreme deliciousness a la mode. (I must point out that despite Jason being fully on board with the Pie of the Month agreement, he’s lost 30 lbs thus far and has been dropping weight like a mofo. So there, I’ve now justified our fat-assness with the fact that we’re mostly being responsible and health-conscious, minus pie.) November’s pie flavor will obviously be pumpkin. That combined with the fact that Thanksgiving is easily my favorite holiday purely because of the large quantity of food that can be drenched in gravy means my triumphant return to racing (the Seattle half marathon) could either go well because I’ve been injury-free and running well lately, or it could go horribly awry as I stumble 13.1 miles in a bloated pie and starchy haze. Place your bets...

We’ve all had them–I’ve certainly had my fair share, like when I set out to ride the Lake Stevens course a couple times and made it 10 miles. Or when I set out to ride 82 miles and made it about 30 and nearly froze to death. Sometimes you just have one of those days where you set out to do something and the forces combine to eff up your ess so that you have the worst day imaginable as one thing after another goes wrong. Yesterday was one of those days for me. I had a speed run workout scheduled, so Jas and I headed to the Greenlake track on our lunch break to bust it out. The plan was to do a 20 minute warm up, then two miles all out with a five minute recovery, then 4×100 at my previous all out pace with a three minute recovery, then a 10 minute cool down. Total workout time: 1 hour. I started my warm up then began my hard effort. It sucked. Bad. My stomach was really sour and I felt like I didn’t have any speed. I stopped after one mile, figuring I’d do my recovery and then I could do another hard mile. I started my recovery time and the sour stomach went into overdrive. My easy set quickly incorporated some “awkwardly mosey over to the portapotty and unleash the fury” time (at least there were portapotties nearby — I wasn’t about to fail my #1 goal). When my stomach quieted down, I left the portapotty and dejectedly made my way back to the track. Okay, so my two mile hard effort was kind of a bust, but at least I could do my 4×100 sets, right? I started one and had a decent lap time, then did a recovery lap. During my second lap the stomach acted up again, and once again my recovery lap included a sprint to the bathroom where I had to do the walk of shame past the same tennis players who I had just passed five minutes ago. I felt like waving and announcing, “Yes, yes, it’s me again. Yes, clearly I’m having some sort of bowel issue. Thank you for noticing. Yes, I have seen Anna Kournikova on The Biggest Loser. Uh, no, I don’t really like her more than Jillian. I mean, she kind of sucks and she’s got the crappiest team, so…you know what, speaking of ‘crappiest,’ I really gotta go. Again.” After Wave of Number Two #2 came and went, I managed to bust out a super sad cool down mile, figuring that the workout was a complete bust considering my guts weren’t letting me run hard. Instead of 7-7.5 miles, I managed a fairly sad five. We drove home and I had some soup and some tea to try and quiet things down, then I headed to the allergist to get my weekly shot. I needed to get a swim workout in but wasn’t sure I’d make the swim time at our gym, so later that evening after my shot I headed over to Medgar Evers to drop in on their lap swim time. When I got there, the employee recharged my parks & rec card and was about to scan it when I looked over at the pool and noticed an unusually large amount of pre-teens occupying the lanes. Me: “Uh, is lap swim going on right now?” Employee: “No, it’s a youth swim clinic.” Me: “Oh…how long does that go for?” Employee: “From now until 6:30.” Damn it all! Me: “Does lap swim start after that?” Employee: “Yeah, from 6:30 to 7:00.” Oh,...

It’s been 44 days since I embarked on my quest for abs so that I won’t race Honu 70.3 in shame. Jas and I are progressing along nicely, and save for a gloriously unhealthy weekend in Portland a few days ago, we’ve managed to shed some poundage thanks to the combination of constant exercising and counting calories via the My Fitness Pal app. Right now I’m back to my Ironman Canada race weight. Huzzah! I’ve also noticed that my running has felt noticeably stronger, probably because I’m hauling less junk in the trunk. After this week’s track workout, Bridget and her mom commented on my relative speediness (which was actually an optical illusion because my friend and multiple Boston marathon runner Kirsten slowed down to run alongside me for the evening, thus making me look way faster and giving the impression that I can hang with the 3:13 marathon runner): Karen: “You’re so fast!” Me: “Thanks, it’s amazing how being less of a lard-butt does wonders for your running.” Bridget: “So you have lost weight!” Me: “Yeah, 16 lbs so far.” Karen: “You know where I’ve noticed it? Right here!” She pats my back. Me: “Uh, so I’ve lost back fat?!” Good lord, I knew I was a bit chunky but back fat? Really? Bridget: “No! I think she means that you’ve got an hourglass figure now!” At this point I stifled a guffaw. Being the boobless and hipless wonder that I am, one would not in a million years describe my figure as “hourglass” shaped. That chick from Mad Men has an hourglass figure. Salma Hayek has an hourglass figure. I am built like an Asian boy. In fact, one time at Express the salesgirl wrinkled her nose when I asked why this pair of pants I tried on looked so funny and responded with, “Um, because, like, you have no hips.” Whatever, so I don’t have a womanly body. Today I headed to the UW Medical Center to get my weekly allergy shot so hidden evils like dust mites and pollen won’t someday kill me. While I was there, a newer nurse loaded up the syringe while my usual regular nurse, Josette the motherly African woman, popped her head in to ask a question. She noticed me sitting there, narrowed her eyes, and said in her slight accent, “Are you losing weight?” Her tone felt like it was an interrogation more than a casual question, so I uncomfortably replied with, “Uh, yes.” Josette: “Why?!” Now she sounded practically angry, as if I told her that I had just broken her favorite vase on purpose. Me: “Um…I’m just…eating better?” Josette: “But you looked good before!” Me: “Yeah, well, I’m visiting my mom in a couple weeks so I’m hoping to escape her harsh judgment unscathed.” Josette: “Oh you kids…you always think us parents are harshly judging you but we’re not.” Me: “…..yeeeahhh, my mom really does. She’s Asian and brutal.” I got my shot and sat in the waiting room for 30 minutes, then had my arm checked out by the newer nurse and was cleared to leave. On my way out, I passed by Josette, who chirped, “Bye sweetie!” Then she frowned and said, “No more.” Me: “No more what?” Josette: “No more weight loss!” I laughed and got the hell out of there, figuring it was a bad idea to tell her I actually wanted to drop ten more pounds. Great, now I have a motherly figure in Seattle who’s telling me I’m too thin and one in Michigan who always tells me I’m too fat. You can never please a...