Beyond Tri

09/01/2024

“So when I came across a heron suffering on the side of the road, it hit my spirit a bit differently. Harder. And symbolic. Especially since most recently my spirit has metaphorically been struck by a car.”

Do you take it as a sign when you come across your spirit animal? What about if he’s severely injured? Latest writing linked here:

Do you take it as a sign when you come across your spirit animal? What about if he’s severely injured?

08/10/2024

Tranquility. Quiet. Peace. Serenity.

05/28/2024

Thanks again Reclaim Today for sharing my writing. And thank you all for taking the time to read it❤️

Finding Hope in God's Love I was ghosted. Completely and totally. And it hurt. I can’t say he broke my heart. I didn’t know him that well. We’d only been communicating for a month. There was an hour and a half driving distance between us, and we’d only met a few times. But I liked

04/03/2024

I have ONE swim session left at Calvin University pool for the rest of the season! AND I’m discounting the cost to $45! Wednesday, April 17 at noon. Dm if you want it!

02/02/2024

Triathlon and open water swimming are going to be here before you know it! Will you be ready?

I have the coolest job and the most fun helping to make sure that you are!

One hour pool sessions are available again at Calvin University:

Mondays and Wednesdays: 7:30-8:30am or noonish

Thursdays: noonish

Please DM with questions and/or to schedule.

01/02/2024

Can I say that this is my first “published” article?!

Thank you so much Steve Gray for connecting me with Our Daily Bread, and thank you for reading my stuff and working with me, Brenna💛

For years, I’ve dealt with a strained Achilles tendon. It’s a sneaky little sucker, the pain tending to come and go. When it was just a little discomfort while running, I pretty much ignored it. When it progressed to requiring an old lady shuffle when I got out of bed in the morning, it wasn’t

12/26/2023

Swim sessions available this week and next (December 26-January 5) during lap hours at Byron Center High School:
Tuesdays-Fridays 6-7:30am
Wednesdays and Fridays 11-1pm

Dm to schedule🏊‍♀️🏊‍♂️

Photo from Sheila Taormina’s “Call the Suit”

12/24/2023

Can I tell you a story behind this guitar?

I struggle through our winters. Cold and early darkness clashes with my want to be outdoors. Summer nights when the sun doesn’t say goodnight until after 9pm allows for this single girl to take evening walks, hikes, and paddles. Winter nights that start before 5pm introduce boredom that can sneak into loneliness and mild depression.

A few factors, including limited finances, prevent “vitamin D travel” this year. So along with trying to embrace hygge and contentment in these gray months, I decided to look into an indoor hobby. After a couple months of thought and research, and despite this tight budget, I was going to head out in the afternoon to purchase a guitar.

As I was getting ready to leave my home, tragedy entered the house of my nextdoor neighbor. After a flurry of emergency vehicles and first responders lining our little town street, my friend was left with loss and grief and sorrow and heartbreak. Perspective changes as you continue to breathe in life as you hug a weeping friend while standing only feet away from someone else who has left this breath behind.

A guitar. A thing. So insignificant. All my earlier complaints and concerns: vain and futile.

It was in this mental fog that I hours later drove to the music store… fully sensitive to and realizing that “normal” life will continue for me while not for my neighbor.

Shortly after pulling the desired guitar from the wall, while still debating its financial impact, a salesman arrived into this quiet, sectioned-off area carrying a box. He set it in front of me and told me that Santa already purchased it for me, and I was good to go.

I couldn’t make sense of it. Had I won a contest I hadn’t registered for? Was I misunderstanding what he was telling me? But tears of surprise and wonder filled my eyes upon seeing my name across a paid-in-full receipt taped to the box.

So I left the store and its grinning owner and guitar specialists with a guitar in my hands and tears on my cheeks.

It took a little sleuthing on my drive home to learn that my brother and sister-in-law were behind the unexpected gift.

So, y’all, I know there’s some lessons and thoughts that come out of this day. I’m still processing. Much will never make sense on this side of eternity. But I do know that life can be really, really hard. I also know that people can be wonderfully amazing. I’ve seen both today.

I also know that we have a loving God who WANTS us. He could have controlled us through His power and might, yet He came to us humbly and lowly as a manger king. He is with us in the painful and the celebration. We choose if we accept His love and see His presence. And then we are invited to spread and fill this love in the dark cracks we created.

Thank you, Austin Carpenter and Kristi Carpenter for filling in some cracks for me today.

Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. - Romans 12:15

“Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means ‘God is with us.’” -Matthew 1:23

Merry Christmas ☮️ ❤️

12/22/2023

I still love this. This is the one drug I will always endorse💚🩵

12/11/2023

Oooo, here we are to the doozy! The last couple of weeks, I wrote about some concepts that swimmers and cyclists can/should include in their training in order to improve in the said discipline. Onto the running!

I have said many times: running is hard! While arguably the most natural of the disciplines, it can also be the hardest on the body.

That makes this training tip the most difficult: volume, volume, VOLUME!

It has been proven that volume is the most surefire way to improve your running. More than the type of speed work, more than the type of miles, more than the type of technique work. Simple concept, but very difficult to execute. Injury is often not only lurking, but very present… and that keeps the volume not only from increasing but instead must be reduced back to square one. So gains are never made.

Every step on the run sends three times a person’s body weight coursing through their joints and body. Thus you can see, if something is just a little off, there’s that injury.

So this training tip is more what can be done to prevent injury. That leads me to something that many of you have heard me preach before and often, and that is mobility training.

Mobility training creates balanced strength (stabilizing muscles in addition to prime movers) and efficient range of motion and flexibility. This can be done through various forms of yoga, animal flow exercises, the Egoscue Method, different calisthenics, and a combination of all of these… plus some.

I occasionally teach classes of this, always changing with different structure and PLAY. I would love to see you all at some future courses. In the meanwhile, here’s a YouTube yoga workout; one of many good ones… once you get passed the whispery voice, that is: https://youtu.be/jf50kgJ6qGY?si=FgkPYrjwy3clUsop

So, yes, train your movement. Train mobility.

Just for kick’s, here’s the link to another more detailed writing on this subject from a few years ago:

https://beyondtri.com/blog/f/running-is-not-just-cardio?blogcategory=Training

One last thing, our feet are our foundation. Weakness and strength in our feet work up the kinetic chain. Our feet matter. So think about if you are protecting and working with your natural foot or crippling, squishing, contorting and over-cushioning with your footwear… Yeah, I’ll let that marinate…