Today I’m on my way to New Orleans for my first triathlon of the season. I decided to do this race last year for a few reasons. It was picked as one of the team amazing day team 70.3s and I wanted to do a race with the team and have Katie there. Another reason was I liked the idea of being gone and racing that particular weekend.
April 15-17 hold bad memories for me. April 15 last year my Mom had an MRI and was immediately sent to the hospital as they found two large tumors on her brain. That was the sudden beginning of what were the worst few months of my life. The next night I flew to VA which also happens to be the same day as the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007. I was a freshman that year and although I luckily didn’t know any of the victims, that will be a day I will never forget. April 17th (back to last year) my mom went into surgery and afterwards we were given the official diagnosis of brain cancer.
I had two options: I could either sit at home (or lay in bed) being upset or I could do something I loved. I would rather go out and create happy memories and find some joy on those days than sit around being upset. I will find peace from being in the water, figuring out what I can do on the bike and running again (hopefully). I will still have sad moments during these next few days but I know I will find the joy too.
So New Orleans here I come! I’ve put in the work, the long hours, the many hours in the pool and sweating on the trainer. I pounded the pavement through the cold (although not recently). This won’t exactly be the race I was hoping for but I’m excited to see what progress I’ve made on the swim and bike. I’ve had several moments this week of “I feel like I’m not training enough” and “this feels really tiring for 8 minutes, how am I going to hold this number for 3 hours”. You know, the usual tapering thoughts.
The problem with tapering is you realize all the life
things you haven’t done because you either don’t have the time or don’t have
energy to do them. And now that you have the time, you aren’t allowed to do
them because you’ve been instructed to sit on your butt. So in between thoughts
about the race and oh crap I need to remember to pack that, I’ve been thinking
wow there’s dog fur all over my house and I need to iron and I need to mulch
and I need to plant my garden and holy shit the weeds are getting out of
control and my whole yard looks like crap. Next week… next week.
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