Happy Mother’s Day! & A week at the Olympic Training Center.

First things first: Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there. Puck and I celebrated Mother’s Day (hey, dogs and cats count) with an early morning trail run in Fraser. At the start, I was cranky (poor sleep) and he was snotty (forgot to poop). But about a mile down the trail, life magically improved. It was going to be a great day. Trail running is like that.

Mother’s day run. Heaven.

Back to moms for a second. My family has always wondered where my propensity to do crazy athletic stuff comes from. I don’t honestly know, but I do know that some of my most vivid childhood memories are from backpacking trips with my Mom. I loved those trips. Even when my friend Jami and I had to wear huge maxi pads on our sunburned shoulders to protect them from our backpacks – and 80s maxi pads truly were MAXI – it was still fun. Thanks Mom!

Now, you are probably wondering why I am spending a week at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. Sadly, they did not invite me to be on the USA Olympic Triathlon Team. A girl can dream. No, I’m here for the second USA Triathlon Paratriathlon coaching certification clinic, which starts tomorrow and runs through Saturday. I really wanted to take this clinic and I was thrilled to be accepted. I’ve never worked with paratriathletes, but through my handcycling and sit skiing adventures I was exposed to some of the premier adaptive sports centers in the country. Two happen to be in my two home towns of Winter Park and Crested Butte. Another in Park City, where a couple of my favorite people will be living soon. I don’t know exactly how this will play out in terms of my future coaching, but I’m excited to start the journey.

Last weekend I took my CrossFit Level 2 Trainer certification course. And I passed! So now I am a CrossFit Level 2 Trainer. I hope to do a lot more CrossFit coaching when I am in Crested Butte (and possibly Fraser). I know the movements and how to teach them; however, my own movement patterns still need some work. I’ve been working on my mobility, but over the next couple of months I will be spending time with one of the amazing coaches at CrossFit Verve in Denver to correct my movement patterns. We have our work cut out for us.

And after that I am going to conquer a handstand push up and a muscle up. Those are two of my CrossFit goals for 2018. Honestly, if you had asked me a year ago if I thought I would ever do a muscle up I would have laughed. But I have come so far. I feel stronger now than ever. Trust me, you will know the second I get that muscle up.

Some things will never happen: me being an Olympian, for example. But I also believe that you can never stop working toward your potential. It takes different forms as we age, but there is always a way to be better.