Soft Opening

After nearly a year without blogging, writing the first blog post back comes down to writing the first words, right? Seems so simple yet I've kicked around this idea of coming back for days, weeks, maybe even months.

I don't even remember stopping. It wasn't a conscious decision. I took a weekend off after blogging every day for a month. A weekend turned into Wednesday, which turned into two weeks and 10 months later, here we are.

I've missed it, but I think some of the reason I lost it is that I couldn't figure out my voice. Am I showing my life as a PR professional in pro bike racing or am I simply showing me? If I frame it as a glimpse into my job, then I'm not motivated to write the blog. I love my job, but I aim to pour my creativity into my clients, not myself.

If it's pulling back the curtain on what it's like to live out of a suitcase, function in a predominantly male environment and attempt to thrive as an expat and all the dirt, grime, glitter, and joy that comes with that, then I can do it. 

Maybe I shouldn't link to this through a professional website but juggling another website doesn't seem worth it. I work 16-hour days for months straight. Long ago, I gave up on having a work/life separation. My work and life blend nearly seamlessly together, so I feel that this blog is simply another example of that. 

Disconnecting for the Weekend

I'm still traveling home and I can already tell I need to disconnect and recover this weekend. It's been such a full few weeks and I really would like to appreciate and enjoy the weekend without feeling like I'm also juggling work. I want to simply flow through what it brings instead of checking off boxes on a to-do list.   

So if I'm missing from here and social media, nothing is wrong. It means that I'm having quality me time without any distractions. Be back Monday! 

One Month, Continuous Blogging

Funny enough, yesterday would have been the one-month mark of writing every day. Figures it was the first day that I've missed a post. Life just got too crazy with one of the biggest interviews for the team, mixed with a team dinner out, and getting packed to fly back to Europe today. All excuses but I didn't really have any moments for me yesterday and writing was one of the first things I knew I could skip.

I'm back in motion and currently sitting in the Delta lounge at JFK before my flight back to Brussels. I always feel spoiled when I get to spend the day here. It's as good as any office. And once I'm home, I should be there for maybe up to three weeks! That sounds absolutely amazing. And the Roommate should be there for a little while. We haven't really seen each other since January training camp, so that's great news.

Blah.blah.blah. Yep, my brain is fried and all my attention is on getting home, so with that, I'm signing off.

 

Micro Me Moments

As I said in a previous post, I grew up in a huge family. There was no such thing as an empty house or quietness, and I remember craving it. In my room at one of our houses, I had access to the attic's eves. I cleared one out and turned it into my hideaway. Some of my favorite time living there was hiding out and reading in there.  

Then I headed to boarding school, followed by college and grad school, and a marriage. I lived alone for a while in grad school, but that was it. I either had roommates or lived with a boyfriend/partner for the next 15+ years.

It wasn't until moving to Belgium that I rediscover my love of solo time. The adjustment was painful and lonely as I learned to spend time with just me. But once I was over that hurdle, it felt like a warm, comforting bath. During crazy parts of the season or when I'm traveling with the team, it's hard to find solo time. Every meal is eaten as a group, and you work from basically sun up to sun down. When I'm home in Belgium, it's super easy to find me time; that's just called my normal.

But when I'm on the road, it isn't nearly as simple, but this week while in Atlanta, I've focused on finding quiet, me time. It's still been full work but finding micro me moments has allowed me to appreciate the shift between the extreme solo times (Belgium) and intense group living weeks (work) with ease.

 

Calling It

This is a lazy post.

It was a good day, but a long day. I woke up slightly before 5am and I wasn't too excited about it. I didn't have my suitcase, so I couldn't put on clean clothes, work out or do much. Instead, I got to put on the still damp, a bit stinky clothes I'd worn the day before, sink washed in hotel shampoo and hung over the air conditioner in an attempt to dry. It was underwhelming at best.

It's now a quarter to 10pm and I'm crawling into bed. I would say from a work perspective, I worked full gas for a solid five hours and then off and on for the next seven hours, so plenty was done. But I also felt like I was able to decompress and be normal. I went outside, went to shops, spent more money than I should, got excited by all the options and choices and then got overwhelmed by American. It's way too easy to spend money here.

Now it's time to snooze and hopefully wake up sometime after 5am. Maybe I won't be the first person at breakfast waiting for them to put the coffee out at 6:30am. At least it was a damn good hotel buffet breakfast.

A girl can dream....

Continuous Motion

I come from a big family, and we traveled a pretty impressive amount for our large numbers. When I was little, we owned a Volkswagen bus that my dad had taken the benches, rotated them 90 degrees and bolted back so they lined the sides and faced each other. The VW symbol was flipped upside down.

We went to the Outer Banks in North Carolina frequently and once a year did a trip to Florida, typically to Disney World. Once the first minivan came out, our trips got upgraded and we hit the Florida Keys and did ski trips. I also got to ride the train and do at least an annual trip to Washington DC or New York City. This sense of wanderlust was ingrained in me early. I remember one thing that I really loved the most was when we’d travel far enough that the weather shifted or that the trees/scenario changed.  I loved trying new foods and remember my first tastes of raw oysters on the half shell, sea conch soup, a real Ruben sandwich, and on and on.

I started working around 16 and saved my money and started going on solo trips. I do appreciate that my parents let me fly, take the car or ride a train solo throughout high school. As long as I checked in, paid for it myself and didn’t have any problems, I was allowed to keep doing these trips.

When I reached college and needed to pick a career, I knew I loved to travel. I tried to come up with a career where someone else would pay for me to travel the world. I wanted to see it all. So Political Science with a concentration in International Relations seemed the most likely. During college, I got to study abroad in France and did a humanitarian trip to Honduras. Immediately following graduation, I headed to Europe and backpacked for three months and went to 15 countries. My wanderlust has only grown and spread since then.

When I take a moment to slow down and appreciate my life, I feel so spoiled. I live in Belgium. Last week, I spent part of it in Italy, and now I’m on a plane to the US for a few days. It never gets old. Even returning to the same races or same places doesn’t feel redundant. I get excited about a little reflection of familiarity that’s mixed in with the hope of a new restaurant or adventure.

One day this will all slow down, and I want to be a place that I embrace that when it happens. Until then, I’m going to go big and always say yes to the extra glass of local dessert Sicilian wine that the waiter tells me I must try or extend one of my work travels by a day or two (which rarely happens but I aim to do it when I can!) to wander around and explore. More is more.

Smarter, Not Harder

Back in February when I wrote out my six month goals, one of them was to work smarter, not harder or longer. Today at Milan- San Remo was a perfect example of putting that into action.  

This is the longest one-day race of the year and that played a major decision into how I organized my time and planned my approach. Additionally, it's probably the biggest single day for the team of the year. So my race aim was to maximize that potential and I managed to do it in the easiest way possible. To be honest, this was by far my easiest (and favorite) Milan-San Remo to date.  

In the past, I drove the many hours from Milan to San Remo. After the race, I drove again to Nice. This meant I spent probably 6-7 hours in the car driving stressful Italian roads. I was exhausted by the end and far from the sharpest me. 

This year, I split up duties and assigned tasks to other people. Basically, the thought was 'how can they support me from afar?' I simply left from the start and drove 30 minutes to a decent but basic airport hotel that had solid wifi. I was able to be productive from start to finish. No time was lost driving a car or fighting with Italian wifi and I feel I was able to achieve even more professionally.  

Little pat on my back for thinking outside of the box and figuring out ways to be smarter. And now sleep. Super early tomorrow, I'm hopping on a plane for the USA.  

No Sleep For Me

I'm not exactly sure what happened last night, but I woke up probably 15 times during the night and then was wide awake at 4:45am. I'm sure a lot had to do with the fact my hotel room was 28C (!!!!) and even with the windows open, it remained sweltering. I laid in bed until about 5:30am willing myself to go back to sleep and then I just gave up.

There is something to be said for feeling like you've already worked a full day before 11am, especially when it is a crazy week like Milan-San Remo. Instead of feeling frustrated with my lack of zzzzs, I told myself that I could nap later if I needed, but why not go ahead and get moving. I eased into the day with a little journaling, meditating and then work. I got thru a ton of emails and general work duties that had been pushed to the back burner and set an alarm for 7am. Then I stopped working and squeezed in a workout: 30-minute strength training and then a solid 45-minute walk. I think that walk ended up being the best part of my day; I got away from the hotel and actually into what resembled the country. It was foggy, still a little chilly and simply peaceful.

By 8am, I think I had gotten in what would end up being 85% of my step count. The rest of the day went by in a blur of interviews, driving around Milan center to pick up race credentials, chopping down on maybe one too many RXBars, losing my parking ticket, banking loads of video interviews and tackling even more emails and reports.

It might be St. Patty's day for some, but for me, it's Milan-San Remo eve. That means it's 9:15pm and I'm crawling into bed and hoping for a much more restful night. Tomorrow is the longest day in bike racing and I've got a new plan of attack that's different from previous years. I'm a bit excited to see how it all unfolds....

(and I never napped.)

Packing Fails and Checklist Protocols

I'm not even to yet Italy, and I already know I've forgotten numerous things (some more essential than others). Total rookie move on my part, and it annoys me. 

When people do highly stressful tasks where operational failure isn't an option, they follow routine checklist every.single.time. Think of pilots. Even if they've flown tens of thousands of hours, they always go through several checklists before take-off. During an emergency, they follow a checklist. No matter how experienced you are at something, you'll never be perfect 100% of the time. 

When it comes to packing, I've created my own form of the checklist. First, I have doubles of many things so that certain essentials never leave my suitcase. Think glasses, makeup, chargers, and world plugs. Other items, such as medicine, running shoes or my computer that I can't have duplicates of fall under the checklist protocol. So I put little reminders in place so that I can't forget them: laptop case next to my backpack, empty medicine bottle on top of my bag, empty shoe bag in my suitcase, etc. Keeping all these things consistent helps me avoid forgetting anything.  The same goes at a hotel; you put everything in the exact same place, every single time, so you minimize the risk of leaving something behind.

I also take time and only focus on packing. And that's where things went wrong today. I'd run out of time and found myself multitasking. I took a conference call, tried to put away laundry, clean the apartment and pack all at the same time. Instead of focusing on packing and doing that well, I probably did none of the above well.  

What annoys me the most is that the things I forgot, I reminded myself to grab them moments before walking out the door. I just happened to make the mental note in the middle of the call instead of going to do it right away or writing it down. 

Oh yeah, and I just realized I never watered my plants! Ugh. At least I took the trash out..... 

 

Impending Travel Days

I've lived out of a suitcase and on the road for several years, but it still amazes me how the transition throws me off every time. When I'm home, I get a little nervous about leaving. When I'm about to head home, I get anxious about all the free time and basic tasks like grocery shopping. Either way, I transition so quickly and seamlessly that it makes me slightly bemused that this still happens.

I'm heading out tomorrow for about 10 days but that'll include quite a few flights, time zone changes, and two contientents. It should be a great few days of work and I'm excited for what's to come. Food is the only thing that even brings me concern. Will I have access to food that I can eat? For the past few trips, I've packed a lot of backup food with me (cans of tuna, bags of lentil, protein powders and bars) but I'm kind of wing it for this trip. I'll throw in some protein powder and a few bars but otherwise, I'm going to figure it out on the way. That's all part of the adventure, right?

Milan-San Remo Monday

This week is full gas; one of those weeks that the whole calendar is based off of. I knew all weekend today would be big; I woke up this morning feeling blah, feeling overwhelmed. I felt like my to-do list was so long that it couldn't be tackled. I felt defeated before starting. And it was only 7:30 am. 

I spent the weekend thinking about this. I knew feeling overwhelmed, exhausted and buried wasn't how I wanted to start the week. I tried to avoid it and here it was. So I took a few moments to slow down and make the conscious decision to approach everything better.

instead of feeling buried by that massive to-do list, I told myself I would get it done. I'm not lazy and checking boxes would be enough. There was no need to approach it like it was anything bigger than a list. Step-by-step. 

But more importantly, I decided to find a happy, positive and good mental place to approach it all from. Instead of being buried, I tackled it.  

Guess what. It's after 10:30 pm and I worked until now. I never saw this coming. But I'm okay. It was all for the greater good and I'm excited about things to come. I smiled throughout the day, grabbed moments where I could and basically just went with things. Do I want to work this late? No. I have pretty strict boundaries I try to keep. Yet sometimes it's worth it and for the next two weeks, this might be more my norm than my exception. If I can keep approaching it from a positive, calm place, I feel pretty confident I can weather it (there better be some relaxing at the end of this!!!!) 

Con Brio!!!