Giving Thanks

Looks like my bloggie and I are taking another hike again.  I'm SO excited that the cards (as they say) are seeming to line up quite nicely.  More on this closer to take-off time - which looks to be October-ish.

And in other news.  My belly is happy again.  Like healthy and ready to digest anything again.  Like it doesn't get grumpy anymore after the smallest bit of food culprit overload.

I ate the best cheesecake (from Otto Cakes) ever and two small bites of pizza - yes the real kind - one day after the other (this was about three days ago) and I am coherant and happy and nongrumpy and not fatigued enough to write this email.  Seriously, if I did this 6 months ago (which would have NEVER happened back then), I'd still feel like a train ran over my head with a tornado storm in my belly.

Don't worry, these foods in my life will not become a habit.  I still have a very intuitive response to avoid grains and sugars and starches...and legumes.  If eliminating these foods from my life got me healthy again then bringing them back seems very likely to make me unwell again. 

But it is a huge relief that I can consume these things and digest and break them down well enough that I don't become ill.  It's a relief that I no longer have to live in fear of accidental cross-contamination.  That I don't have to deal with the headaches and bellyaches and a plethora of other symptoms that take over my life.

And what's great is that it all makes so much sense.

I must give thanks to the good bacteria I've been introducing back into my gut flora.  It got knocked out (killed) of my intestines via antibiotics (un-thank you antibiotics).  It took a while to put two and two together, but it actually does make sense.

Thank you good bacteria.  You are my friend.

Moloka'i

Not a single traffic light.  How intriguing to be on an island so quiet and unfamiliar to the daily hustle and bustle of it's densely populated neighbor.  Moloka'i is the perfect place to embrace the concept, or master the art of "doing nothing."  Of course, there is much more that goes on with doing nothing than actually doing nothing.  But we'll decipher the beauty of this concept later.

Leave from Maui and get a bird's eye view of the world's highest sea cliffs.

Don't get me wrong, my Mom and I found loads to explore.  Serene stretched of beaches where we were the only visitors.   Beautiful tropical vistas and sea cliffs from above.  Ancient fishponds.  And get this - my mom is an off-roader...who knew?!  We traveled nearly every paved road on Moloka'i which left us to discover some unpaved roads, and more specifically, not well-maintained and heavily eroded unpaved roads. 

One off-roading mama on a quiter stretch of road

Moloka'i's south shore is dotted with fish ponds.  These ponds are used to trap and harvest fish.  We learned that different styles of fishponds exist allover the world.  Hawai'i's are unique because of how they capture fish.  A wall of rock with a single opening is built around a fresh water source, usually either a stream or freshwater spring.  This is because the interaction with the freshwater and saltwater create a nutrient dense environment which fishies love. 

The restored Ali'i Fishpond

The opening is small enough for fish too little to eat to be able to get in and out of the fish pond as they please.  One day, they will enter, feed and grow too big mighty to escape the little whole.  Bam, food for the people.  There is a bit more to it than this, and tides also play an important role.  But this is the basic concept and I find it fascinating.

All the islands have/had fishponds along the south shores and any other area protected by the powerful seas.  Development on O'ahu has practically eradicated most of the ponds, sadly.  But this is the world as we know it.

Fortunately, there is a movement on Moloka'i to restore the 60+ fishponds as a way of cultural preservation and a way to embrace and live sustainability again as a way of life on the island. We came across one and an NGO (www.kahonuamomona.org) involved with restoring the ponds...what a beautiful sight.  This is a good article in the Star Advertiser about the organization.

Clearly the fishponds intrigued me.  The political activism intrigued my mama.  The people on Moloka'i are certainly not willing to be bullied by corporations and manipulated with money, that's for sure.  It's so inspiring.

 

King Kamehameha V's Coconut Grove

 

View of Kalaupapa Peninsula

 



Handstand in Moloka'i - Halawa Valley.  Check that off the list.

It's so easy to appreciate the beauty of simplicity here

 



Southeast Coastline with Maui (left) and Lana'i (right) in the disctance

 

Sunset on the beach :)

 

Back x5.

The Gathering Place is lovelier, yet crazier, than ever.  My five year "plan" is on phase 2.  'Plan' is in quotes because, well, plans change.  At least in my book, they do.

This fifth time returning to O'ahu has been an island hopping and job/apartment hunting whirlwind.  I'm ten days away from being settled into a beautiful and peaceful Manoa home for a few months.  Until then, my temporary abodes have resided in Hawaii Kai, Maui and Moloka'i.  And the first week back was family time at its finest.

Bonaynay and Matti R are somewhere in there..Go Go Go!!!

A beautiful snorkeling spot, and apparently surfing as well, on the Maui coast.

 



My arrival included a family greeting at the Kahului airport, followed by a fun an exhausting swimbikerun, Xterra style.  I rocked the swim.  I give thanks to my little kiwi island and the local Paihia swimmers for motivating me to take the frigid plunge multiple times a week.  The warm aloha seas off the coast of Maui were quite inviting and an ease to plunge into.

Taking the plunge in Paihia's waters will do the above left to your hands. 

 But swimming around a beautiful kiwi island (above right) everyday makes it totally worth it.



The very warm and inviting Maui coast.

The mtn bike was actually fun.  Loads of hills.  Lots of twists and turns.  I think it's the heat that got me.  I drank Gatorade, also.  My body is in such a transitional place in terms of how I fuel it and this sports drink was the first highly unnatural and multi-unpronouncable-ingredients-list-hydration-source I've ingested in ages.  We'll just pretend it helped me and call it a day.  But I was in a hydration pickle and decided that due to the amount of sweat coming out of my body, it was best to ingest some electrolytes rather than straight up water.  We will NEVER know if this was the best choice.  my apologies.

The run went by speedily.  Ha.  not my time so much.  It sure as schnockers didn't feel like I was running for over an hour...but I was.  A super nice lady gave me her extra electrolytes.  My legs were cramping up a storm.  Ugh.  This is a new experience for me.  My first experience really, REALLY feeling cramps was on a run in Christchurch eight-ish months ago.  They are nearly debilitating.

Check out what the first of three falls on the bike did to me:

 



You wanna here a kinda funny story?  So I had a new pair of goggles that I used for this race.  They worked like a charm.  I wrapped them around my wrist as I was running from the ocean to the swim to bike transition (above/right pic).  And I forgot to take them off.  So I completely ate a bunch of fluffly red dirt on the fall that created the little scraped off skin above...my favorite souvenirs.  Meaning my new goggles wrapped so nicely around my wrist completely ate fluffy red dirt as well.  lovely.

 

Soooo... I rubbed out the cramps and walked and ran, then my legs cramped in a different place, so I rubbed those out and walked and finally was able to run the last four miles without another cramp.

And that was my race.

And now that the race is over, I can focus on becoming a ketosis machine full force!

I loved seeing my family and we gradually parted out separate ways the following days.  Mark and Paige returned to the Lands of Peaches, and Hayhay the Bonaynay and Matti R returned to the Garden Isle.  Mom and I made our was to the most peaceful and lovely island of all, the Friendly Isle.  Aka Moloka'i.

Not even a traffic light exists on this island.  Here is a sneak peak of what's next:

Ocean Blue Love.

Busy - one of my non-goals in life.  And what I happen to be now.  In fact, stupid busy is a better way to put it.  Ugh, I dislike it to the max. Actually max as in capital letters, like this - MAX.

But guess what?!  Come Tuesday, I will be unemployed yet again and jobless for a couple weeks.  After my race, I intend to do nada (as they say in spanish) for a few days.  Well, not entirely nothing, of course, cause that's just not my style.  But spending my days on the traffic-light-free island of Moloka'i with my one and only Mama sounds quite like a lovely way to unwind.

My first day off in well over three weeks was totally worth not booking myself for housework in the lands of Russell - a post on my three kiwi jobs is soon to come...

But get this - I shot water!  Thrilling, right?!  ok, maybe not.  But the guy who's spear gun I shot water with actually used it to shoot..........fish - yeah, what it's purpose is for.  Check out what he caught for dinner apparently a not sooo successful venture.

Boy or Girl?

He ended up taking it (the dead fish) to a local fish and chips restaurant, where they deep fried it into divinely smelling goodness with a side of delicious looking fries - all of which I was able to enjoy by looking...and smelling.  But that's about as far as it got for me.  It got devoured by everyone else in a nanosecond, though.  And I did enjoy some crayfish he caught...which was entirely satifisfying seeing that one of them attacked me (well, it snapped its tail while I was holding it and it scared the living schnitzel out of me and I actually dropped it on myself.  way to go.) 

I also got to 'enjoy' this via eating: . 

Mmmmm, tasty (if you heard me via noise and ears, you'd totally hear sarcasm in that Mmmmmm, tasty, btw).  Perhaps it's an acquired taste this kina (as it is named here).  I still think these are some of the most photogenic creatures out there.  Especially their skeletons.  At least they've got that going for them.  And now I know what to hunt down in the event I get stranded in a coral-filled sea.  Somewhere.  out there...

  

So we went freediving in one of the most gorgeous coastlines I've yet experienced in the country.  Well, maybe not entiiiiire country, but at least my time in the small radius of land I've visited in the Northland.  I could have easily spent hours snapping pics - but we were on a mission.  Food!   And ocean.  More specifically, getting inside the ocean.  I donned my only-once-worn-prior wetsuit that I had intended to sell.  It kept me warm.  It's purpose is finally served.  Mr Spearfisher had a spare mask/snorkel, head warmer (more like alien maker) and gloves for me to use.  I rented some fins, booties and weight-belt down the way and we were off to Mahinepua Bay with Mr Rodfisher and Miss I'm-French-I-Don't-Care.

Beautiful Coastline/Mahinepuna

I swim in the ocean  4-5 times a week, so I'm comfortable in the water.  But being COMPLETELY covered head to toe in neoprene and plastic has a little claustrophobic inducing qualities to it.  I survived...especially once the cold water started dribbling through my zippers.  As was mentioned prior, I shot water.  But holding a speargun is a good first step.  One day I will kill my own food.  But in the end, it was my first time properly freediving again in nearly two years so focusing on killing animals was probably not the best idea.  I needed to focus on keeping air in my mask to keep my eyeballs from turning bloodred, and I also needed to focus on making it back to the surface. breathing.  I love the ocean. Especially being immersed in it.

The amount of snot in my nose is worth noting.  by the way.  Too bad I don't have a picture of it.  next time...next time.

My apologies.

Can you tell I like trees?

A trickle of a tear, yes.  Or maybe a few.  Oh my holy schnockers - the less than a month countdown has begun.   I will miss this place, for sure...and the town characters I've met along the way...baby small towns are in a class of their own.  That's for certain.  But you know what?  It'll always be here.  And I'll be back.  And I bet if I came back in twenty years, a lot of these very same characters who are here now will still be here.

Methinks I'll return for a visit next southern hemisphere summer in route to Australia for yet another working holiday stint - my time is running out, so why not?!  I'm aging so fast - well, aging so fast in terms of numbers.  I think in spirit, I'm actually de-aging.  I'm pretty sure of it.  How are you aging - up or down?

Bittersweet is the right word.  But to be honest, content is an even better word.  I'm so happy to be here and so happy to go back to my one true love.  Actually, my one true love is mountain biking.  But I can do that anywhere.  There just happens to be no place on planet Earth like Hawai'i - well, no place that I've yet discovered.  So I'll keep going back.  And leaving to play and work and live and adventure somewhere new.     One day I will settle long-term, but that day just ain't gonna happen yet y'all.  I've finally come to terms with this.

So guess what?!  Look what happened to my bike - rather the rim of my wheel.  No good.  I'm mostly sad that I just can't hop on my bike and go for a ride at the moment.  Or tomorrow.

When life "seems" to suck sometimes, I always think of people forced into a life of prostitution completely out of there will.  Then stuff like this becomes so minor.  Which it really is, in the scheme of the universe.

That being said, I still have to deal with it.  It wouldn't be such a dilemma if I didn't have a race I'm getting ready for in less than a month.  Otherwise, I'd just stick it in a box and not think about it til I get back.  Then go kayaking.  Or sailing.  Or swim around my little kiwi island.  But my race is, in fact, less than a month away.  Maui Xterra I'm so excited!! (and even more excited to see mi familia!) And with my new way of eating - essentially paleo, or my preferred words 'species specific' (check out Mark's Daily Apple - most informative website regarding 'primal' living, and the success stories are super fun), I feel superhuman at times.  Training has been going incredibly well.

Then BAM!, the bike kerplops.  Better the wheel than the frame, right?  And better now than the day of the race.  And that wheel is 5+ years old - plenty of crashes, bob trailer pulling 3500+ kms, several planes traveled, etc.  It's been well-loved, at least.

And life goes on.  The one pleasant thing about this whole situation is that my work hours have increased significantly and I picked up a side job on my day-off (no more), so I should be able to afford a replacement.


On to happier news... Happy thru-hike AT Anniversary for me!  Just over three years ago I summited Katahdin after losing my sanity and consciously choosing to walk 2178 miles from GA to ME.  Crazy people we are.  But what a lifestyle - one I'd go for again in a heartbeat...especially now that I know what the heck is going on with my body.  But that's another story entirely.  Worthy of 26 blog posts.  Maybe 25...let me just say, thank you antibiotics (NOT!).


Countdown to Hawaii, 24 days!

I realized I haven't posted in over two months - which means more pics of Bay of Islands adventures to come!  The pics in this post, aside from the Katahdin pic and cracked rim, are from a recent little ride from Paihia to Kerikeri and along some of the backroads - beautiful, eh.  I say, take the side roads when you can - even if it'll make you're journey a tad bit longer (or maybe a lot longer than a tad bit longer...even better).  That's my 2 cents.
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Ohh, I'm So Happy...to be Happy Again!

                                  

July 12th I proclaimed on my Facebook status that I was "sooo in love...with life..." - which was very true at that moment.  Fast-forward to now, July 17th, and I am happy again, but everything in between was blah.  I won't go into the details, but I had to handle a lot of bread toasting for a group of people staying at the hostel.  Though I never ate the bread and washed my hands often, I figure somehow a fraction of a smidge of gluten ended up in my body.  The past few days haven't been entirely robotic, but I've not been optimally well and a few of the milder "this is what gluten does to me" symptoms surfaced.

The symptom that perplexes me the most is my sudden lack of thirst...or inability to feel thirst...even though I should feel thirst...cause I exert energy and sweat a gallons of liquid when I run.  Eventually I end up dehydrated, which simply creates more problems.

Anyway, I'm on the upswing.  After a fatigue-filled run (I haven't experienced one of these in well over six months) two days ago and a day off running yesterday (heavy rains, and even heavier winds), I was armed today with a 'just get out and run' attitude.  Instead of Mr. G (my garmin), I was armed with my camera.

I ran just over two hours on the Oromahoe Road Traverse, which connects Paihia to, you guessed it, Oromahoe Road.  The mossy trail traverses through the wooded hills and ridgelines of the Bay of Islands.  It's a pleasant trail, though illustrates heavily that New Zealand doesn't believe in switchbacks.  Or maybe New Zealand doesn't know switchbacks even exist.  It's good for training, at least.
              
I was reminded of PUDs on the Appalachian Trail.  PUDs = Pointless Ups and Downs.  These things are mental crushers.  You're in a good hiking mood, then bam!, a series of PUDS shows up and you feel a complete mixture of awe and confusion and deep, deep frusteration - why do we have to go UP and DOWN that Everest size mountain (elevation gain = 143 feet) when the trail could have gone AROUND it. Flat. Then eventually you realize that this is, in fact, the very thing you signed up for.

There were some PUDs on this track.  But it's all G.  My mental state of being was healthier with each step and PUDs were tackled.  Granted, this state of being is much easier to maintain without the weight of your life's possessions on your back.

Anyway, trails pretty much rock my world.  Even with PUDs and nonexistant switchbacks.  And I love that I'm able to just go on a hill filled two hour run without any issues or concerns.  I feel great and my body is functioning better than ever!

This is having me contemplating something new...Ultras!

Day with the Dolphins, and a Hole in a Rock

Mind Your Head, said the slightly awkward, lowered doorway sign on the 'Let's Search for Dolphins' boat - reminding me that, yes, New Zealand is very connected to the lands of the Queen.  

I will very soon be working reception at the hostel where I work for accommodation and was able to go on a "Famil" tour to hopefully sight dolphins, get a different perspective of the Bay of Islands, and visit the Hole in the Rock - a very natural sightseeing sight that features...can you guess??  That would be correct, a hole in a rock.  29 points for you!

Famil = familiarization...so I am now familiar with the tour and can sell it to the masses.  Everyone wins!

First the boat made some brief stops at a few of the smaller neighboring islands.  Most of these islands have something of an entertaining story usually - and sadly, involving battle and death.  But now that are peaceful, quiet little lands minding their own business with the occasional landowner and holiday home occupying a chunk of space.

See the human in between the two islands?  It almost looks like he/she's walking on water!

The boat meandered to a couple more scenic spots and then the intercom declared "Dolphins have been spotted!" and we were off to the lands unknown.

The bay where we ended up certainly had dolphins.  Apparently over 40, but they were dispersed in search of fish to consume to increase the fat on their bellies for the continuation of winter.  Plenty came up to our water floating device (the boat) to say hello.  Genuinely intriguing creatures, these ocean swimmers - so curious and friendly, yet totally doing their own thing as well.  We were happy that they were happy to say hello!

This one just said "hello" and decided to peace out for this pic.

I made this pic extra big so you can see the fish in it's mouth!  Mmmm, fresh fish!

We gawked at the dolphins for 45 minutes or so, then we were off to the Hole in the Rock - about a ten minute boat ride away.  The whole is gigantic and the boat we were on could have motored through it if the seas and swells were calmer.  They weren't.  So we didn't.   

The hole is deceptively small...cause the boat is further away than it may appear.  That's me, by the way!

Overall, I enjoyed a beautiful half day on the water checking out the Bay of Islands and seeing a few playful dolphins.  Not a bad day at all!  And after that I even ran in my new shoes...check out the wear on my old shoes...see:

I've gratefully been running injury free (and I've been running A LOT) despite my not so happily treaded shoes...and I give a good chunk of credit to Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Ever Seen,  by Christopher McDougall.  This book altered my running ways forever.  I firmly believe now that proper form is heaps more important and effective than the device that goes on your foot.

Entertaining read, too...even if running isn't your thing.

And just to be like the dolphins, I finally took the plunge...into the winter ocean...in just my bathing suit, swim cap and goggles...OhEmGee!!  The outside temperature was 14*c (58*F) and the water temperature was about 16*C (61*F).  It was extremely frigid and delightfully refreshing as well.

One day, I hope to swim as fast as the dolphins...one day.  I think it would be super fun to jump into the air and flip from the water as well.

Countdown to London: 18 days!