The Countdown

I had a recent post-lunch food-coma deep-thought that I spend way too much of my life counting down to the next “big” thing. I’m currently counting down to my trip to Africa. Up until this past weekend I was counting down to my being the matron of honor in my best friend’s wedding. Before that, the big countdown to race day.  

Ironman. It’s the single date on the calendar triathletes think about the most. It’s a strange concept, to put so much emphasis on one day when you spend so many months of work leading up to it. It’s not like counting down to a nice beach vacation where the only prep is buying enough sunscreen and packing a bag the day before. We often become so focused on a goal or a race outcome, that we put too many happiness eggs in one basket. At times I don’t enjoy the day to day aspects of my life enough. I’m always looking forward to the future.

I signed up for Ironman Louisville before I did the M2M half in the spring. I bought the insurance this time, accepting there was a chance my run would give me issues and I’d have to pull out. I had zero expectation while training. No goals. I didn’t broadcast I signed up for another Ironman but I didn’t hide it. When people asked what I was training for, I told them the truth. People kept asking me, did I have a goal, I time I wanted to beat. Nope. I jokingly said my only goals were to get to the start line in one piece and to cross the finish line. After IMNZ, I knew better than to have any expectations about training and especially about the race. Those truthfully were my goals. My third goal was to be mostly happy during the race.

At the beginning of August, I did Lake Logan International to get at least one more race under my belt. I did this same race training for IM Louisville two years ago. I started the race feeling flat mentally. I spent the beginning of the swim thinking “I don’t want to do this” while forcing myself to push hard. I ended up finding two other women swimming the same pace and I latched on. For the first time EVER I properly drafted and swam with a group. It gave me enough mojo to put a solid effort in for the bike portion. Coach Katie gave me an aggressive power goal on the bike. Because the course was hilly and had a few sections of coasting down big hills, my average power numbers didn’t look very good. I spent the whole ride not knowing if I was going to hit this arbitrary power goal, but I tried my hardest. I knew it was a time PR from two years ago, so I was at least happy going into the run. I rode strong and made sure I only passed women, they never passed me.

Unlike my swim and bike plans, the run plan was to take it a little easier. I was still building my run back up and dealing with a handful of issues. I was in good spirits though and the weather was amazing in the 60s. I ran the first 3 uphill miles exactly to my pace plan. During the downhill second half, I picked up my pace, but my HR and effort were still on the easier side. Given it was a “race” I kind of laughed at my effort but I didn’t care. I was content not running hard and happy to cheer on the women passing me. I did force myself to pick it up the last few minutes. I managed to snag 1^st place AG and a nice PR in swim, bike and run compared to 2 years ago. After reviewing my bike file post-race, I did hit my NP goal. It was a great race and a confidence boost… at least at that moment.

This was my third time training for an IM and probably the most I’ve ever struggled with training. The weather seemed unnaturally brutal. I was training in the 80s and 90s with 90+% humidity literally until race week. The summer weather did not let up. I HATE the heat and humidity with a passion. I cannot count the number of times I’d walk into the house drenched in sweat after training, telling my husband we were moving, leaving a trail of sweat drops from the door to the shower. I’m not meant to live on the east coast. I sweat at least twice as much as all my friends. I cannot stay hydrated in those conditions without drinking to the point where I upset my stomach.

Mentally, I struggled with the heat more than normal. Training was going well until it wasn’t. By August I had enough, and my brain was giving up. The heat won. After Lake Logan, I tripped and fell during a run and hurt my knee and shoulder as a result. That gave me a hard time for a few weeks. My long rides and runs started falling apart. I cut them short or gave up on harder efforts and soft pedaled it home. I sat on the side of the road in a little sliver of shade trying to talk myself out of calling an uber home while Katie gave me a pep talk via texts. I lost my confidence every time one of my training days didn’t go well. Mostly this got to me on the run. I finally had a solid day of training with a long ride and a longer run off the bike but by the end my foot was hurting me so badly I was limping while walking. I had to shut training down for a few days and take it easy rest of the week. This meant I skipped my longest run and after cutting my previous long run short because of other pains I’d been battling. My longest run was only 15 miles because of everything going on.

I told myself all of this was fine. I’d done my first IM with only one long run of 16 miles and I was happy with how I raced. I knew my swim was leaps and bounds ahead from 2 years ago. My bike was in a much better place. I had completed 3 rides in the 100-112 mile range so I had confidence in the distance and my race power. But my doubt about the run lingered. It’s always about the run with me.

Going into race weekend, I was the most detached about the race than I’d ever been before. I knew what my race plan was but I didn’t think much about it beyond that. Part of this was intentional. It’s too easy to get sucked into being nervous or over thinking everything. But I think a part of me lost some of my mojo along the way. Still, I was happy to be racing an Ironman after the long road back from IMNZ.

I left Greenville where it still felt like summer. I literally drove through a tropical storm to Louisville. When I arrived it felt like winter. I spent months complaining about the heat. And ironically, the temperatures in Louisville dropped from the highs in the 80s to the highs in the 50s in a matter of 3 days. Bring it on.