Coping

This weekend contains several events for me. April 15th is tax day, my nieces birthday and also the day my mom got her MRI. April 16th is Easter (this year), the day of the Virginia Tech shootings and the day my mom had surgery on the brain tumors. Overall not the best combo of memories. The last several weeks for me have been difficult and I thought a lot about what this weekend meant to me. I wanted to go to VT for the 10 year anniversary of the shooting. There were many scheduled events and I haven't been there in years. It seemed like the perfect time to go and I thought it would be good for me. But even that I was unable to do.

 

It's been 6 weeks since I pulled out of Ironman New Zealand. As I expected, as soon as I returned from NZ the realization of the situation hit me. It was easy to ignore it while enjoying the vacation but that distraction was gone. I put so much into training for that race, pushing myself for months. While everyone was enjoying their off season, sleeping through the  cold mornings, eating their Christmas cookies (ok I did my fair share of that) and drinking at holiday parties, I was training. I woke up more mornings than not at 4:15 to train well before the sun was up. There were many, many rides wearing wool socks, toe covers plus shoe covers and double gloves and still being numb. I skipped many opportunities to train with friends so I could stick with my schedule and do the proper training I needed to be as strong as possible come race day. I was alone. I made the sacrifices that come with doing an Ironman. I was happy to do it. All of it. I got stronger and faster in both swim, bike and run. I felt ready to race. This was the first race in a long time that my training was not altered to deal with injury. For the first time, I was truly confident in my ability to perform. After returning home I couldn't stop thinking it was for nothing. I was ready to toe the line, wide eyed, both scared and excited for what was about to come. There was no excitement though, only fear of how my body would hold up. Only disappointment. 

After returning home I slowly and gently got back into swimming and riding. The pain in my elbow was bothering me the most. I had an x-ray and it wasn't broken so I felt more confident in pushing it harder since it honestly seemed to help the healing. My swims got longer, harder and my arm was shaking less while riding. It took a whole month for the wound on my arm to close up so I was able to get back into aero. I spent a few weeks waking up in the middle of the night because of pain in my back but that eventually subsided. But there was pain in my groin I couldn't ignore and it wasn't improving. After describing the pains to Katie she convinced me to go to a doctor for an MRI because my pelvis might be fractured. My immediate reaction was well that's ridiculous, I would know if it was fractured. That would hurt more, this pain I can handle. I went for a 5 minute run the day before my appointment to see if it was still worthy of going to the doctor and I was back to limping. The x-ray of my hip showed a shadow so he sent me to get an MRI and told me no running or riding until we got the results. A week later I got the MRI which involved a very large needle for contrast material and then a wheelchair ride... yay life on two wheels. Strangely on of my fears was that they would find nothing and that it was all in my head. Nope. Results include stress fracture, muscle tear, tendentious, muscle strain, etc, etc all in the pelvis/hip region. The various issues knocked off using my lower  body at all for training which meant only upper body strength training and swimming with a buoy with a prescription to see a physical therapist. 

After one week of only working my upper body I was already going crazy. Swimming 100% pulling for 20-25k a week was getting a little annoying. On the other hand it was the only thing to do so I would laser point my focus on bulking up my upper body and telling Bill I was going to look like him by the end of this. We both agreed that we could already see my upper body getting bigger which isn't exactly what you want as a female but it was helping balance out my growing ass from all the emotional eating. I was making it my goal to be able to swim with the fast guys at the pool and I was making good progress. 

And now that has been taken away from me. A week later I had my PT evaluation appointment and it was clear that I was still doing too much. Now, I'm not allowed to do anything for at least a week. Some part of me deep down knew this was going to happen. I didn't want to admit to anyone or even to myself that I could tell it wasn't getting better and some days it felt worse. I was so determined to hold onto whatever training I could that I didn't want to let go of the tiny piece I had. Yes, I want to heal as quickly as possible and sitting around doing nothing all day is apparently how it's going to happen but mentally it's killing me.

When recovering from a race or enjoying off season I could still do some light training when I wanted, take Nikita for long walks, go hiking or even get my house looking spotless. I can't do any of those things or at least not without making the pain worse. There's a part of me that keeps screaming BUT IT DOESN'T HURT THAT BAD! I can handle the pain and it's difficult for me to pull the reigns back and sit on the couch feeling 100% useless as I watch my house do yard work. Unless you've experienced it yourself, you don't know what it's like to go from training for an Ironman to nothing. You go crazy. CRAZY. 

Every time I accepted my situation, it seemed to get a bit worse. And look, I understand this is not the end of the world and (hopefully) I'll be back to training in a month or two. I know it could have been so much worse and I got off easy considering I crashing at 30mph, hitting hard on my side and rolling several times. I try to remind myself those things all the time but sometimes the logical part of my brain is over powered by the emotional side. The emotional side has been winning a lot recently resulting it heavy sugar binging like eating a whole big bag of peanut butter M&Ms in 24 hours. For some reason, this situation is bringing out an emotional side of me I've had stuffed deep down for a while now. 

Exercise is a powerful tool for dealing with stress. Every study out there will tell you that and I know it to me true. Being told you can't do the thing you love brings on a great deal of stress and when that thing happens to be the way you deal with stress, well let's just say it's not going well. I handled my mom's death probably the best anyone could given the situation. I always knew training helped with that but I think now I realize it even more. I've thought about my mom every day over the last two years since our lives were turned upside down. It's hard to explain how I've felt over the last few weeks though. I think about her more often, sometimes in the good memory type of way but mostly in the way that makes me feel hollow. The way that has me tearing up during the MRI as I think how insignificant my situation is compared to the MRI she had two years ago. I know how ridiculous I'm being for being so upset about what was taken away from me and I know she would tell me to toughen up and get over it. But my ability to cope with her no longer being in my life was taken away. Being able to free my mind, pushing myself forward on two feet, two wheels, gliding through the water. I am alone for 95% of my training but I feel at peace during those times, it give me a sense of comfort. I can't seem to find that comfort now other than eating every bit of sugar I can find in the house. I miss her so much and I hate how I'm reacting to everything right now. I try, hard, to stay positive and normally I am but I can't get myself back to that place right now. I keep reminding myself be patient, be patient. And please stop eating so much sugar!