Extended recovery

Although I was very ready to get back to real training, I enjoyed the week of recovery. I relaxed a bit, I finally started organizing some stuff for my bonus room and started an arts and crafts project for it (still in process). I walked Nikita more. I finally planted my garden. Better late than never.

I gave myself one full week of some guilty pleasure eating. Since I was sick of white food the guilty pleasures naturally came in the form of dessert. Chocolate, peanut butter (of course), double stuffed mint oreos, ice cream, margaritas. When I heard some people were doing Whole30, I immediately jumped on board to join them but in my own way. I’m not doing Whole30 again but eating by the rules for most of the next few weeks. This is me trying to find a good balance. I know I do better with eating when I have some outside influence hence why I’m joining them. At the same time I’m going to Universal next week and I’ve done Whole30 while traveling before and it’s VERY difficult especially if you can’t cook at all for yourself. I want to enjoy those few days without having to constantly think about what I’m eating. Plus I want butter beer! It’s so yum. What I AM doing is trying to help my body in every way possible to heal and I think eating this way does that. 

I’ve been in a bit of an injury cycle where as one injury heals, another one pops up. I’ve heard that’s somewhat common since you tend to compensate while injured which can irritate other things. End of last year I got Achilles tendinitis, as that finally got better the pain shifted to medial tibial stress syndrome. Now that it’s mostly better, my knee and opposite foot are hurting. Both of those pains have popped up in teeny tiny amounts over the last several weeks but I was always able to get it under control. After NOLA I could barely walk by the end of the day my knee pain got so bad. Now I can’t run 20 minutes without limping around rest of the day. The knee pain is from my IT band and I know how to handle that. The foot pain, which is the worst pain, I’m struggling with a bit more. The real issue isn’t necessarily each individual pain (although obviously those are each problems), it’s the fact that there is always something injured or hurting and not in the little nagging type of way that can be expected.

I’ve said mannny times in my life that my body isn’t designed for running. It took me a long time to get here but I finally realized I am meant to run. We are all designed to run. And if you don’t agree feel free to start an argument with me so I can prove you wrong. I however haven’t done everything possible to run optimally. My weaknesses, my poor form, and maybe even some poor choices, that’s what gets me injured.

True to my engineering-type-A self (and after a shift kick in the ass from Katie), I created a list of everything I could and should be doing from small daily stuff to mobility to strength to things to do before running. I’ve looked through notes I took after run camp and PT visits and I searched my brain for everything I’ve been told. I’ve done some research online and through books. I’ve started putting the puzzle pieces together. I’m sure I’m still missing some pieces but I think I have an idea of what the overall picture looks like of what is wrong and what I need to do to fix it. I’m still seeing my PT and going to see others to help fill in the holes.

The one thing I do know is I have work to do. It won’t be easy, no part of this triathlete life is easy so why should this be any different. I have no problem dedicating so much to training and yet I’ve clearly fallen short in other areas and it’s costing me. Just like training, now I need to truly dedicate myself to fixing this before I lose any more time. I used to get angry when I got injured, then I progressed to getting upset and defeated, recently I’ve felt acceptance of my situation. Acceptance…. why should I accept my situation? At least when I was angry I was more motivated to do something about it. I’m not saying I’m going back to angry, but I’m hoping I can move to a new mental state. One that is determined. I know what my goal is for the year and now I have to be prepared to do whatever is best to get me there. Whatever it is.

NOLA 70.3 Race

Race morning I mostly did my own thing. Set up transition, got body marked, did my warm up, and then I hung out with my team. Out of everyone on my team, I was in the earliest group to start. This meant they weren’t in a hurry to get to the swim start and I decided to stay with them. When we reached the start area it didn’t look like anyone was in the water and I wasn’t really paying attention and before I knew it I saw navy caps standing on the dock. Shit. I started pushing my way through the sea of black wetsuits trying to get to the dock. SORRY, EXCUSE ME, SORRY! It was too late, my age group already left. Luckily it was a TT start and not wave start so I didn’t have to worry about time. I still pushed my way to the front as fast as possible through all the men. I was quickly throwing my cap on and someone told me my wetsuit wasn’t zipped and I couldn’t find the string so 10 seconds before I’m about to jump in the water a volunteer is zipping it for me. I quickly threw my goggles on and didn’t properly set them in place and started fumbling with my watch while waiting on the mat with a bunch of men to jump in the water. I heard some noise and the guys on the mat started jumping in and I followed.

Swim: 42:20 

This was certainly a unique way to start the race. Oh shit go! GO NOW! No time to think. No time to sort my thoughts. In fact, no time to even look at the water I was about to jump into. And you know what, I’m kind of happy it all started that way.

I had no idea how choppy the water was since I truly didn’t look at it but I knew it would be bad based on the previous two days I looked at it. Yea it was choppy. I haven’t done a lot of open water swimming but this was the worst I’ve ever experienced. The first straight section felt like a cluster fuck (excuse my language but that’s what it was). Right off the bat people were breast and back stroking. I found out afterwards some people decided not to start the race, got picked up as soon as possible or handed their chip in after the swim. I’m not in this picture but it sums it up. This was at the beginning of the swim and you can’t even tell what the correct direction is people are supposed to be swimming (hint: to the left).

I wasn’t thinking about the chop that much though. I was focused on trying to make up “lost time” from starting late and wanted to catch up to the women in my age group. It didn’t take long before I was in a mixture of different cap colors. I felt like I was plowing through people, I felt strong. That feeling kept me focused. Sure I got a few mouth full of nasty water and I wasn’t particular enjoying when we started getting spray on top of the chop but I managed it well.

Honestly my main goal for the swim was to not swim off course so naturally I swam off course. After the first turn around buoy I started swimming back to the start of the race (just like my last race). A kayaker yelled enough to get my attention and set me straight. Number one lesson I learned (finally): If you are not swimming near other people, you are off course! I started focusing equally on looking for the masses of swimmers and the buoy to keep myself on course. Might have gone a little off one more time… maybe. It didn’t help that when I was deciding between goggles it was cloudy so I picked my clear pair. Of course by the time I was swimming the clouds had disappeared. I already suck at sighting buoys but it was extra challenging when the sun was right above them.

The physical swimming aspect went fairly well. I still breathe primary on my right side (I know I know!) so naturally I did that 100% of the time during the race. That made my left arm more tired than the right. But I swam hard and steady other than when I’d breast stroke for a few seconds to fix my goggles and make sure I was on course (where is everyone?). When I stumbled my way up the stairs of the dock I was surprised to see my time. I was expecting in the 30s. On the other hand I knew it was tough conditions and I felt like I passed a ton of people so I didn’t pass judgment on my time.

T1: 4:10 

Apparently I had a hell of a time finding the string on my wetsuit. This was the first time I’ve had the experience of laying on my back and someone ripping the wetsuit off me and it was kind of fun in a weird way. Unfortunately that meant running while holding the wetsuit and it was a long run to the transition area. The wind had clearly knocked my helmet off my bike so everything wasn’t set up exactly like I had left it. After I got everything ready to go I just spent a few seconds staring, convinced I was missing something. It’s been 7 months since I last raced a tri. 

Bike: 2:55:07 

Wind. I could simply leave it at that one word but I’ll type way too many more words instead. IT WAS WINDY! I knew it would be but it still felt worse than I expected. The course was an out and back, mostly flat. On the way out we had over 20mph head and cross winds. It was brutal. When I’m pushing along on a flat course and see 12mph at times, well there is nothing positive that can roll through my head. Despite the conditions, I held it together fairly well mentally. I knew it would be windy and I knew everyone was dealing with the same conditions. What I did not appreciate was expecting an awesome tailwind on the way back and only getting it part of the time. I averaged 8mph faster on the way back than out but I was expecting better. The cross winds were still beating the shit out of us. The whole ride it was about staying in aero, staying small and not letting go of those bars unless absolutely necessary for fear of being blown over.

I was (or should have been) in the first age group of females for the swim and I passed the majority of them during the swim. Therefore, I spent the entire ride surrounded by men. I remember a time when I found the men somewhat intimidating to race against but that was not the case this race. I assumed all of them would fly past me but once again, that was not the case. Sure, there were plenty of men literally flying past me but I could tell from their legs they were the super-fast ones from the age groups behind me. I did my fair share of passing the men though. It felt good like I could play with the big boys. It was even more entertaining to have some pass me and then pass them back later in the ride after they burned out.

I’ve been training with a power meter for the last few months and this was my first race with power numbers to hit. Having those numbers really helped because I knew I was putting in the correct effort irrelevant of my speed. I knew what I had to do to properly execute the ride and I focused on that. I ate when I was supposed to, I drank when I was supposed to. I stayed in my power range, I road hard, I road steady. I started out a bit easier as planned to settle in and I picked it up the last hour only a tiny tiny bit like planned. From Katie’s review of my data and what she told me, this ride was pretty spot on perfect. For that I am thrilled irrelevant of my time. It did happen to be a several minute bike PR which of course is nice as well.

T2: 2:35 

Nothing exciting to note here other than I forgot I don’t really need a visor and sunglasses (season opener). I noticed I had to pee but for whatever reason decided against sitting down to take care of that. I just wanted to start the run. 

Run: 2:05:00 

Of course my main concern about this whole race was the run since I’ve done verrrry little in the last 5 weeks since my half marathon. I thought very little about the run though during the race until it was actually time to run. Nothing seemed painful when I started. I was given an easy pace to start at due to the little running I’ve done recently and the conditions. Naturally my body wanted to ignore that and when I saw I was running about a minute faster pace I had to slam on the brakes. Or so I thought. I felt like I was slowing things down further and further trying to get in the range and yet I kept running at a pace too fast. I felt good though. It felt like an easy run to me (spoiler: tailwind).

My stomach however was not happy. As soon as I started running I had a horrible pain in my stomach. I sometimes get this pain in my stomach and you can literally see the upper part of my stomach bulge out. Normally the only way to get the pain to go away is lying down and waiting it out. Well obviously that wasn’t an option so I kept on running, took TUMS and didn’t eat or drink anything. The pain started to calm down so I ate a packet of chews but that made my stomach angry again so I had to essentially let myself become dehydrated so my stomach would calm down. It was in the 70s which was a manageable temperature especially given the wind so at least I wasn’t sweating a ton.

The way out my legs didn’t feel too bad. Once I hit 5 miles I thought “this is further than you’ve run in 5 weeks!” but it still didn’t feel that bad. My pace had slowed down a bit but I was ok with that. This wasn’t like my last race where I was focused on negative splitting each mile. I would have been thrilled just to hold the pace I started at. I really just wanted to finish and to keep running. My plan was to walk through every other aid station but I ditched that plan because I was afraid if I started walking, I would keep walking. 

As soon as I hit the turnaround I realized I was turning into hell and that the last half of the run was going to be miserable. I felt like I was suddenly running with a parachute on my back. I saw my pace drop by a minute. I obviously knew it was windy from the ride but I never thought it would be that bad while running. Well it was. I passed Katie about a mile later and said “this wind really fucking sucks!” She seemed to hear something else but that was my way of warning her how miserable it was about to get for her. There was a lot of swearing out there among the athletes. We were all struggling. Although I apparently gave my other teammates the impression I was doing well since I would smile and wave when I passed them. Trust me, I was only trying to be supportive, I was dying too.

At this point the low running volume was catching up to me. My feet were hurting, my legs were hurting. All I wanted to do was walk. I finally finished my bottle of OSMO after 90 minutes which was supposed to take me an hour to drink. At the second to last aid station I decide to pick up my tossed out plan and walk it so I could get something to drink. I was going downhill mentally very fast at this point. After that aid station was the last bridge we had to go over. The thing is, I was under the impression this was a flat course but there were several bridges. Normally I like some elevation change but when you are tired, haven’t been running a lot and are dealing with wind, the last thing you want to do is run up a bridge. I started running up it but with the wind I literally felt like I wasn’t moving. Several people around me started walking and I gave in. I was pissed off at myself for walking but I didn’t care. I told myself just walk to the top and then jog it in.

I started running again at the top but I felt horrible and I couldn’t stop thinking about walking again. With a mile left I told myself this was the time to try picking up the pace a bit. That was a mistake. I didn’t have it in me to run faster for another mile and with maybe half a mile left I started walking again. That was the lowest point of the race. I was angry at myself for walking with so little left in the race. I did start running again though and I managed to find that final gear for the finish chute.

Overall: 5:49:12, AG 7/48 

My goals for the year included having a PR for each split and overall. I accomplished a PR on the swim, bike and squeaked by with a 2 minute PR overall. 3/4…. not bad. Would I have liked a larger PR? Sure, but I’m happy with what I got given the conditions of the day. I was curious what the last several months of hard training had gained me. I don’t think the times tell me what I’ve gained though. I know inside what I’ve accomplished and I know I’ve made progress. Forward progress. At the end of the day that’s all I can ask for. I’m happy with how I raced and how I handled the conditions. I’m also pleasantly surprised at how high I placed in my age group. Makes me hopeful for what I can accomplish in the years to come. One month until I get to race again!

NOLA 70.3 Weekend

My brain is still too tired to relive the race so for now I thought I’d reflect on the days surrounding the race.

We arrived to New Orleans Friday afternoon, checked into the hotel and headed off for lunch. Afterwards we met up at the race transition area with Katie and a few of her other athletes. I got to meet Wes from ProBike Express and he taught me a little something about tire pressure and let’s just say mine was too high. Despite the fact that he didn’t transport my bike, he was awesome and helpful to me all weekend and I’m happy I get to hunt him down in Chattanooga and bother him some more. We did a shakeout ride which included a tour of the swim start and end and the long run to transition. We also got our first taste of the wind and a look at the choppy water. There will be a lot of talk about the wind in the race report but let’s just say it was bad! We all went out for dinner afterwards and then tucked into bed early.

The next morning we decided to explore New Orleans a tiny bit with whatever was within a short walking distance which wasn’t a lot. We met up with everyone again for packet pickup and then went back to the race site for another ride and run. We checked our bikes in and then there was nothing left to do but relax rest of the evening (very exciting for my husband). The next morning it was up bright (well actually dark) and early to race!

I was looking for joy over the weekend to get me through a few tough days and that is exactly what I found. I was surrounded by like-minded people who understand what this triathlete life is about. They don’t judge you for the way you are eating, for wanting to go to bed at 8 or for the training you are about to jump back into. It was nice to feel like I belong and am accepted for the way I am. We are all supportive of each other, a real team. I’m so thankful to be part of team amazing day and to have Katie as my coach. The weekend was filled with laughter and eating lots of white food together and drinking margaritas and eating beignets after the race. We shared in the good and certainly the bad of the day. It was good for my soul. And it’s always good to spend real time with my coach.

Above all, my husband was the most supportive. It’s not easy being married to a triathlete. I’m a pain to deal with between always being tired, always gone training, always talking about pace and watts and this part on my body really hurts. On top of the day to day stuff, race weekends can be tough. That was vacation time he took to drive way too many hours to do a lot of standing around the whole weekend while I trained and raced and spending time with my team. He is awesome and I couldn’t have done it without him.

The weekend was wrapped up by waking up at 3:30 to drive home so my husband could catch a flight. The universe had different plans for us 30 minutes into our drive and at 70mph the hood latch on my brand-new-post-last-accident car decided to fail and the hood flew up and smashed our windshield. A very long day and short story later, after trying every possible option, 4 attempts at loading our car on 3 different hitches/trailers and a very expensive bill, we finally hit the road driving a 20’ uhaul towing the car. My body was really pissed off at me for racing a difficult race, sleeping 4.5 hours, dealing with the car stress, sitting in a uhaul  truck for over 8 hours and being awake for 21 hours before going to  bed after 1AM the next day.

Although I still hurt all over, my body is starting to heal. I’m so sick of white food. For 3 days I had nothing but white food… pasta, rice, pizza (3 times!), pretzels (soft and hard), cheese and English muffins. I like white food and I rarely have it but I’m so over it. I don’t even want to look at it. I’m craving salads and Brussel sprouts and other plants that my body needs right now. My body needs sleep and rest. Yesterday I accidently took a nap, woke up for a few hours to eat and sit on my butt and then slept 10 hours. I can finally walk normally (although still painful), the post-race inflammation weight is starting to drop and I feel less like a puffy marshmallow and my ankles aren’t all swollen. I still have this awesome chafing line across my stomach… who chafes there?! For the first time in a very long time I’m happy doing nothing. I don’t want to sit on my bike, I don’t want to put on running shoes, and although I want to swim, I have no desire to do anything more than move at a pace that keeps me from drowning. The training mojo will come back in a few days but for now I’m content being lazy before I’m jumping back into half IM training. I can only imagine what I will feel like post IM. Yikes.

April 15, 16 & 17

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 17^th (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. 

Calmed down

After going to the orthopedist, I got the good news that I don’t have a stress fracture big enough to show up on an x-ray. There could be some minor fractures or tissue damage but those only show up on MRIs and he thought it was best to save me the cost. Sigh of relief. He confirmed what my PT said which is medial tibial stress syndrome. The doctor told me it was ok for me to race but to realize I might have to do a run/walk method depending on the level of pain. The nice thing about seeing someone who specializes in sports medicine is they understand. As even he said, he gets injured guys who need to race well enough to quality for Boston or they lose another year, so my situation was nothing specials.

I left that appointment feeling more optimist than I had in a while. Normally when I get injured I get angry. This time there was no anger or even frustration. It was more sadness. More like defeat. I think this feeling was coming from another place though. This weekend marks a year when my family’s world was turned upside down with the diagnosis of my mom’s cancer. For the most part I’ve kept fairly strong emotionally about everything but every once in a while I break a bit. Recently was one of those times thinking about how it’s been a year since it started and reliving it in my mind. I walk around my property now and watch all the things my mom plants start to grow. I long for the phone calls from her asking what’s starting to pop up.

The sadness of my mom and my injury sort of collided in a way that made me break down for at least solid week. My poor husband had no idea how to help me when he would see me crying and saying I don’t know what’s wrong with me (mentally, not physically). But it's not something wrong with me, my whole family is experiencing the same sadness. After my appointment though, I was finally able to turn that around. It flipped that switch in me and I knew it was time to pick myself up, stop feeling sorry for myself and take care of business best I could. You can’t change the cards you’ve been dealt so you have to learn how to make the best of them. Being sad or angry or frustrated about my leg or even losing my mom doesn’t accomplish anything and the stress of it certainly doesn’t help. I can choose to stay in that dark place or I can choose to pull myself out.  

Since then my leg has started to get better. Slowly, but I can feel the improvements. I even managed to do a 3 mile run yesterday with minimal pain! Woohoo 3 miles! Aaaand that will be the longest I’ll run before my race. As my mom would say, it is what it is.

After I managed to calm down about everything I think it finally sunk in that I’m racing soon and better get my shit together. I realized I hadn’t tried on my tri kit since I got it. Sweet love handles… were those there before? Damn you ice cream and lava cakes! I haven’t used my wetsuit since May. After lots of help from my husband I was able to confirm it still feels a bit small and I feel like its compressing my chest so I can’t breathe. My arms also won’t lay flat against my side. It reminds me of the kid from Christmas Story. And yet I’m too cheap to buy a new one. Only time my aero helmet had been on my head was when I got it. After making some adjustments I’ve decided this is a totally awesome look. I’m sure my neighbors saw me walking around my house thinking what the…? Got a test drive of my gear today during a brick and I feel ready to go now.

Everything is slowly coming together and hopefully I’ll be ready to go soon so I don’t get last-minute-stress-syndrome. Right now I’m simply happy I seem to have my head together again. Now all I have to do is get my dessert tendencies under control. I had my husband melt the last of the ice cream (a sin!) and hide the chocolate chips and peanut butter from me so we should be good. Time to respect the taper!