Recently I was under the impression that I actually gained a lot of speed but with the rude reality of everything else, that was not the case.  I went for a run and clocked the milage off of maps google at 9 miles in 1:30!  Which was about 1.5 faster than my running at WWC.  I got really excited!  And then I went for a outdoor swim at my new gym and did what I thought was 100 yard in 1:30 compared to my 1:50.  I couldn’t believe it so I asked the manager of the place and they said 25 yards.  I was like HOLY SMOKE moving to Philly was worth it!  And the reality hit, I went on a ride and I was not as fast as I thought I should have been since I became a superstar, in fact my ride sucked! I t was so bad I’m not even going to talk about mph.  I then went home looked up the yardage of the pool and of course, 20 yards.  No wonder when I swim with the Masters here everyone is faster than me even in the slow lane.  But yeah know what?  I’m pushing hard and I am joining spin class, and swimming clubs to push my hardest and that still might bring me in the last few but let me tell you, it takes more strength and courage to keep on going even when everyone is done than being one of the first ones finished.  I’ve been in both places between paddling and swimming.   I’ll will not give up but only push harder :)

Like I said, I made it up to Philly and it seems like everything that could go wrong has gone wrong and things like mental health awareness has strayed from my mind and won’t use the wording giving up but everything seemed so hopeless.  I then received this email from my dad.  He shared with some people what I had gone through and what a victory it was for me to graduate and this is what someone replied:

I have had an eating disorder for 3 years now.   Nobody but my best friend, my therapist and my psychiatrist know because of my weight and how hard I work to hide it.  I just wanted you to tell your daughter how much she inspires me.   Sometimes I’m terrified that I won’t get better, but her success gives me hope.   It is such a hard thing to get over, but hearing stories like this lets me know that it’s possible.  If she can be that strong, why can’t I be?   I’m working hard to recover.

So, I just wanted you to tell her how amazing she is.   I’ve never even met her, but she is helping me more than I think my doctors can.   Just let her know what an inspiration she is.  Thank you

I have been have all these reality checks of the real world but the reality of my life is I make a difference with people with just the telling of my story.  So I WILL NOT give up and will not let things like mean people get in my way.  My name is Alicia Rink and I am here to transform the conversation of mental health whether you like it or not!

Well my whole life has altered and with the combination of my drive up to Philly and me trying to readapt to city life, I keep hearing that Australian GPS voice saying recalculating.  The major thing that has happened is I am no longer a Warren Wilson student but now an alumni and the biggest change is I am in Philadelphia.  Moving up here was all last minute and I had never been SO stressed.  But ya know, I don’t dwell in it, I realized ok one breakdown what can I learn from this and then moved on.  I actually ended up back to my old apartment for a few weeks until I find some where more permemant and have time to stop, take a deep breath and think about what I am doing.  So reality hit today and I have realized that the Warren Wilson bubble I have been living in for 4 is NOT I repeat, is NOT how the real world works.  In real life when you smile at people most people usually don’t smile back, people are not nice in the sense they don’t help you save money but try to get it from you any way possible, and it is not ok to run around on the street in your sports bra.  I thought me moving to Philly would be awesome more possiblities and familiar.  The truth is Philly didn’t change much but I have.  I feel so unbalanced right now and everything that could go wrong has gone wrong and is not how I planned.  Part of me thinks maybe I should have stayed in Asheville but my other half reminds me of my family amd friends here and that when I toughen up and find my ground again I can make a hell of a difference but I am going to have to work HARD.  Right now I am just trying to take a deep breath, find a job, and learn the new routes for my training.  But yeah, this ain’t no Warren Wilson this is the real world and it’s going to take something to get where I want to be but by god I don’t have a college degree for nothing;)

I have seen a young woman that really was looking unhealthy.  A few weeks ago it seemed so bad I had to say something not sure what but I saw her two years ago at my talk so I was able to make that connection.  I went up to her asked her how she was doing and I forget exactly how it came out but she sort of admitted it and had to go.  Later that night I received an email from her and in it she revealed things to me she has never told anyone before.  I was able to write a thoughtful response back giving what I thought was key advice and because of that she is taking the next step and going to the counseling center.  She said she would be in touch with me if she needs more advice or just wants to vent.  Stuff like this makes me tear up because I am changing the world even if it’s one person at a time :)

It’s been SOO great!  More and more people with eating disorders are having the courage to reach out and ask me for advice!  AWESOME!!  This blog is for those who are not at that point yet but still seek a helping hand.

One tip that really helped my recovery go smoother is to have an all star cast of a support team.  My consisted of an art therapist who was not only an individual therapist but a family one as well.  I also had a kick ass doctor that specialized in eating disorders and was able to help me determine when going to a hospital was best for the state I was in.  Another key player was my psychiatrist.  Mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, and bipolar tend to go hand and hand with ED and helping to treat one can help treat the other.  And no support team would be complete without a nutritionist.  Having one of these is helpful but having a whole rock star venue of a team that’s is ALL about YOU and getting YOU healthy is even more helpful.

What I am going to share with you next is a distinction that I had taking a course with Landmark Education and is very powerful.  I got that my eating disorder is a choice.  I do understand and have been at a place where I didn’t even realize what I was doing was ED but there is that point when you see that there are two of you, ED and you.  Once you have admitted that those thoughts are ED behaviors then they can be seen as something you choose to do and not a have to.  Not only will you gain power around your sickness but you can start breaking free from that victim role which might scare some of you.  Granit, after I realized this I didn’t always choose health and it didn’t make it “easy” but I started to get my power back that I had lost and with this my loved ones really got it is all up to me.  

I understand all this might seeming scary and intrusive but just think about it and play around with it in your head.  I can tell you one thing ED isn’t going to like what you just read and try to be aware of that.  I hope I helped :)

Last blog I wrote about my meds decrease and my performance at work on Saturday and neither went that well.  I am happily back up to 80mg and might try a slight decrease in a few days nothing drastic like before.  I felt my performance was so bad at work that my boss had to notice so I said something to him and it seemed like it wasn’t even on his radar.  This is not the first that something like this has happened, that I cared more about my performance and how I effect others than them.  After repetitively making mountains out of mole hills I’m just tired with all the worrying and drama that comes along with it.  I just need to take a chill pill and get people like me mistakes and all.  Now I just need to convince myself that it’s okay to make mistakes IronWOman don’t have to be perfect all the time and there is not a constant need to have to explain myself.  First step realizing, next step relaxing and starting to watch my step because I feel I’ll be seeing more mole hills around ;)

Back to another hard week of training after a tortuous recovery week.  Few things I learned about myself last week.  #1 I hate tapering or recovery weeks because they make me so tired and hugry all the time when really I should be eating a little less since I’m not burning as much but I’m not too concerned with that.  Another valuable piece of information is I need to do a pre workout before I workout to perform at my best.  I realized this with my first TRI (swim, bike, and run) day.  I have also been doing these warm ups Donna Reed, the school trainer, has given me and realized when I do 16 reps instead of 8 it revs up my body more.  Good thing I’m doing something like an Ironman, I have two workouts until it gets to the real race, the transition from biking to running.  That’s what they say but it actually makes me faster.  My 11 minute mile dropped to 10:34!  After waking up again for my 5:45am swim workout I was able to bring  my :50  50 yard down to :46!!  And with biking a ride that has taken me 23 minutes to do I can now do it in 21:30!

I have to credit most of my positive improvements because I have been good to my body.  First, like I said the preworkout workout plus I am sleeping more.  I use to get 7 hours of sleep last term but since over break and now the least amount of sleep I get is 8 hours.  Because training this hard your body needs that extra rest plus extra calories.  Last week I started bringing some kind of bean or other protein source to add to my meals.  But let me tell you, I LOVE BEING VEGAN!!  The good part is that not only is it much more taster but it’s so good for you too.  I want to a cafe the other day and the woman asked if I was vegan and then she asked how does all that work with me biking around so much?  I pretty much told her there is two ways to be vegan, the shitty way lacking food knowledge or the healthy way.  I have clearly chosen health more knowledgeable route.  With working hard I love to eat hard too.  Today for my 9pm snack after my 3,600 swim, 15 mile ride, and hour long yoga class I have fixed myself a vegan, no refined sugar sundae with vanilla soy based ice cream sweetened with cane sugar, melted dark chocolate, walnuts, half of a banana, and almond butter with flax seed.  Listen I don’t mess around when it comes to food if I’m going to eat it it must taste good and be good for you.  I think this world would be a better place if people were more educated about what they eat and how it effects  the body and mind.  Key message in this blog is be good to your body it will help you to be able to perform at your best whatever that may look like and helpful when being anything less than a rock star is unacceptable:)  

Today is the last day of my last spring break in college and boy, was it the best yet!  Going to a work college we get the oppertunity to work over break so I got a 20 contract working with public saftey since it was the only crew I could work and still train.  This job entails showing up at 7am doing whatever I want for 4- 8 hours and leaving around 3pm at the latest.  So what do I do with that time you ask?  Things like writing in my blog, yoga, and looking for sponsors.  The one woman I was counting on for a sponsorship sent me a kind weird reply stating they got my letter, read it, and hope I find help else where and that’s what I am going to do.  There is a search engein that list all the famous people that contribute to eating disorders and mental health causes so that is what I am going to spend today  doing.  

This pub safe job was only the last three days of my break and for the first 6 I got to do anything I wanted.  Training wise, this week was the hardest yet with over 8,000 yards of swimming and I finally decided to join the Masters adult swim club and got a good workout at 5:45 in the morning Thursday.  Not being on as much Geodon has me able to get up early no probably.  Biking wise I did about 60 miles and I am getting faster!!  I did my fastest ride yesterday and followed it with a 30 min run.  The transition from biking to run and really good for me which is great because they say that’s the hardest part.  Running I got in about 16.5 miles.  All of this plus 3.5 hours of yoga.

Before I started meditating in October I not only got depressed all the time but I was always getting into to accidents or getting injured but there is something about meditation that not only balances the mind but the body as well.  Within the past 6 months I had only recently got spin splints that only caused me to use the yucky Elliptical once.  This all occurred the day after I decreased my medication and think it was a response to that.  But really, meditation is the answer.  Monday I will start a new one that is suppose to break all boundaries and make the unthinkable possible.  I really need this since recently I got scared and was wondering finically how this whole Ironwoman thing is going to happen.

I have good news too!  A woman is writing a book about recovered eating disorder people and she wants to interview me for her book Wednesday!  This will be the second time I will be published.  A few years ago I was a case study in an art therapy book.  Slowly but surely I am going to make it big and get my message across and that’s AWESOME!!  I am not going to let anything get in my way and this finical something will come out and it will all turn out, it always does.  I just need to keep working towards my goal and it will all fall in place:)

It all started with trying on some bras at the store and with my new lens everything became clear.  I was looking and the mirror and was like, “Damn, I look pretty good!”  So I put my rugged clothes back on and construction boots and headed to the bus stop.  There, there was a homeless guy named Calvin and I saw he was asking for water and some nice guy gave him the rest of his soda.  I had just filled up my water bottle so I headed over there and offered to switch out that nasty sugar drink for some wholesome water.  We got to talking and he said man if I were 19 or 20 I would be on my knees begging for you cause your hot.  I laughed and corrected him that I’m 27 but even when I am wearing an over sized sweatshirt, some gross cut offs, and I pair of leggings someone still thinks I am “HOT,” maybe I should investigate.  So I went home to an empty suite, went through my underwear draw, and brushed the cobwebs off of my good lingerie.  I hadn’t worn any in awhile so I wanted to see how I looked with my new Ironwoman body and to tell you the truth, I was HOT and it was the first time in I forget how long I realized that’s okay.  I have this whole thing going on if I have to put effort into to being beautiful it’s not worth it.  That you should like me for me despite what I look like but I’m realizing it’s okay to feel sexy too once in awhile.  So I put my good lingerie back in the draw until next time I want to realize how HOT I really am:)

I have recently put up 2 blogs and neither is what I wanted people to be left with so I’m going to try this again.  This past week some major stuff happened.  One mile stone is I saw the doctor decreased my Geodon from 120mg to 80mg and feeling great!  I also reccieved a package in the mail from atorney and chairman of Bumcomb County Council David Gantt and enclosed was a laminated copy of my article and a card saying, “Thanks for sharing your story and good luck with your Ironwoman competion.”   What makes this monumental is that someone with such high authority is acknowledging such a topic like mental health!  AWESOME!

Yeah know, it’s great getting feedback from so many different people but nothing bets the support of my own family.  My mom, dad, two sisters, and I have been through it all together.  My mom is my best friend and the strongest woman I know. I talk to almost everyday about everything and value her feedback.  I also enjoy up dating my step dad in what is going on. My dad is my hero.  When I was really sick he made sure his little girl got the treatment I needed with the help of my stepmom and love talking to him about health.  My older sister always sets me straight and let’s me knowing when I am being other than what I am commit to. She also owns a training studio with her husband and provides fitness guidance to a wide range of people.  My little sister can make anything happen she wants to.  She is the meat manger at her work and she and her boyfriend just bought a house with a pool together.  I inform everyone regularly what’s going on and it’s always nice to know I have a team of cheerleaders rooting me on and willing to call me on my crap.  One thing I realized today is I call a lot of people on their stuff and when people confront me it might take me a second but I always come out with better solutions and realizations and always appreciate the feedback because it makes me a stronger more well rounded person :)