new blog

I am writing a new blog for the Santa Speedo race I am doing on Dec 10.  Please become a follower of that blog.

it is: http://santaspeedo2011.blogspot.com/

Thanks for following my journey to IMFL.  I plan on completing my first Ironman in 2013 and will start a new blog when I register for it. :)

Week 48: The end of the road

It's been four weeks since my surgery and it's clear to me now that I won't be able to compete in IMFL.  The muscles in my neck will take much longer to heal, I have lost all of my fitness, I'm having trouble swallowing which would get in the way of nutrition, and they severed a nerve which feeds my left arm/trapezius muscle.  All of these issues will eventually heal. But it will take a few more months which is not enough time to be ready for November 5.

The past year of training was an amazing experience for me.  I'm glad I did what I did even though I can not race.  I'm looking forward to next year and the challenges it will bring.  Looking back on this past year I have to say I am most proud of the 5K swim at The Ridges.  It ended up being closer to 6K and it was by far the hardest mental and physical event I ever took place in.  I'm also glad I found a way to overcome my tendon injury and keep running using the Galloway method.

If I learned anything this year, I learned to Keep Moving Forward.  And so I will.  And I hope you do as well.  See you out there...in a pool or lake, on the open road or trail.  Swimming.  Biking.  Or Running.  Forever smiling.  Thanks for sharing this past year with me.

Week 47: To pee or not to pee

Poo-poo and the potty.
There is no other social situation I can possibly think of where grown adults can openly discuss bodily functions like triathlon training. Imagine the horror at Buckhead Betty’s next dinner party when someone asks how many times she was able to pee herself. You would hear crickets chirping after that question was asked.
But discuss it we do. Over and over. And sometimes in such graphic detail that I wonder what is wrong with us. Instead of it being a contest of who raced the faster pace at Richard B Russell Olympic Triathlon, it has turned into “who went poop the most times before the race”. And the stories are always told to me with the largest grin on the storyteller’s face. It’s kind of like it takes people back to when they got to announce to their parents for the first time that they used the big girl toilet.
People will offer up to you their strategies to get you to participate in peeing on the bike. “Don’t wear socks,” they say. To reduce the evidence. “Wait until you are riding downhill” so you can relieve stress on your bladder. I don’t think they are really trying to help me pee on the bike. I think they are trying to feel less guilty for peeing on it themselves by incorporating more people into their cult. I meant club. No, I guess I really meant cult.
And so I have fought this nonsense. This peeing on the bike. I even went out and bought a white kit that would prevent me from doing so. But then something happened on my last century ride. I finally drank enough water to stop me from dehydrating. And it was a lot of water. Something like 9 bottles over 100 miles. And I was having to stop and pee behind trees because I couldn’t wait until the next SAG stop. You might tell me I drank too much water on that ride. I will say I felt fantastic for the first time ever when I got done with that century and given it was 95 degrees out, I will consider it a success.
What did happen though was I finally understood why people pee themselves. If you have to sit on the bike constantly thinking about peeing, it is VERY distracting. You want to be comfortable leaning over in aero when you are placing pressure on your bladder.
There are other strategies I’ve heard that are more advanced. Like using urine to be a deterrent to people drafting off of you. First of all no one drafts off of me because I am too slow. And I think it might take years of experience to actually be able to direct my urine in such a manner. And well, I think only guys can do that. But if I get to that skill level, well, you’ll be the first to know.
There is one runner friend of mine who can pee so easily while standing up that she often has to remind herself when standing around in her running clothes NOT to pee. We aren’t dogs. It’s not really that acceptable to just stand around and pee, you know.
I guess in a weird ,sick way I like that we are all so open about this topic and willing to help each other with tips. It makes me feel like a little kid again.
Oh, I guess you might ask, what did I decide to do? About peeing on the bike? If I don’t have my white kit on, the next time you see me at a race it might be a clue. ;)
　
　
　
　
　

Week 46: The General

I have a friend Cheryl who would make a great "military man".  I say this with a slight chuckle because she and I grew up in military families and both have deep memories of what that means.  You want Cheryl on your side when you go to battle.  She does her research.  She finds out all the strengths and weaknesses of her enemies and figures out how to arrange her own strengths and weaknesses to compete against them.  She has helped me learn what that is all about and she has made it fun.  In the military, Cheryl would be a full bird.  A full colonel.  And I would be a LTC, learning from her along the way.  She has a couple more years experience in tris than I do and I stick close to her and absorb her knowledge like a sponge.

This week Cheryl became more like a general for me.  Because sometimes instead of the tactical day to day info of competing in war (or tris), you need someone who looks at the big picture.  You need someone who will say you can win the war when you are down in the trenches and really think you've lost it.  You need someone who simply will not accept no for an answer.  Someone who reminds you of why you started this journey.

Luckily for me Cheryl wasn't the only general.  I had lots of them this week.  In fact, I had so many generals telling me I could win the war that I didn't really have any choice other than to say "yes" I can and I will. 

There was a period of about 48 hours when I didn't think I'd be able to train again this year.  And no way possibly compete.  Every flower, kind word, cup of coffee, text, phone call, singing balloon, bar of chocolate and jar of popcorn helped me see that I can.  And I will.  Thank you.  Thank you all for listening to the whining and crying but not believing in it.

Week 45: Where is my tuesday?

I missed writing my blog last week not because of the surgery but because I just wasn't sure what I was supposed to write about or what I was supposed to say.  I didn't want to turn it into a pity party about my surgery but I also didn't want to push it aside and write a humorous blog like nothing happened.  So I waited until I was inspired.

The most interesting part of my stay at Piedmont Hospital and my journey there were the people.  The amazing incredible array of people I met from every culture and lifestyle possible.  And how many of them opened up to me and shared their lives with me to help me feel more comfortable while I was in pain.

I met a woman from Thailand during my pre-op check in who survived breast cancer and shared her amazing story with me.  I had ran 18 miles the day before surgery and my veins were dehydrated and she was having trouble getting the main line in.  So we talked while she warmed my veins with hot compresses.  She told me the story of when she woke up on Wednesday when her surgery was Monday with no idea what happened and kept asking her kids "where is my tuesday?"  She wanted her Tuesday back.

When you get to your hospital room, there are 2 objects on the wall in front of you clear in view.  One is a black and white clock.  The other is a dry erase board.  On the board they list the nurses who are taking care of you by their first names.  The first shift I was there, I was so jacked up on morphine that I could not read the board nor understand what on earth those names meant.  I feel sorry for those nurses because I would just find the call button, push it several times and yell "pain" into the box when they asked me what I wanted.  I actually am laughing while writing this because I now realize how rude it was for me to do that...but at the time, it was all I could muster.

The clock.  That damn black and white clock.  I stared and stared at that clock.  I bargained with that clock.  I was in that room for 48 hours.  I can promise you it felt like a month.  I would beg the clock every 10 minutes to make me feel better, to make me feel normal.  Pretty much now I know that was the morphine and anesthesia talking but at the time I pretty much would trade anything to make the time go by faster.  When the bargaining went from 10 minute period to one hour periods, I knew life was improving.

When the second shift of nurses got there, I had a little more decorum about my shouts into the white squawking box.  I would look up on the board, pick a nurse and yell her name into the box.  As the time wore on, I actually used "please" and "thank you".  Mary O was truly a guardian angel for me.  Typically assigned to the orthopedic surgery floor, she was doing a shift on general surgery.  She treated me like I was her own daughter and for that 12 hour period, I relied on her immensely.  The hospital didn't have a clue on what I could eat and she gave her own greek yogurt to me.  She shared stories about her life with me and she did things that went way beyond the call of duty.  I will go back and find her to thank her in person because I'd like her to know what an impact she makes on her patients lives.

There were also numbers of people who had the same surgery who just happened to show up in my life like the anesthesiologist and two of my parents neighbors.  They proudly pulled down the necks of their shirts to show me their scars and tell me their stories.

All of these things helped me mentally which helps me physically.  Within the first few days, I worried that perhaps IMFL might be out of the cards for me and that to recover and then train and race with less than 60 days to go, might be too big a task to take on.  And then I realized it was really just like the clock in the room.  I only have to think about the next 10 minutes.  Nothing more.  And when I get past that ten minutes, the next 10 will be there.  And then the next hour.  And I don't have to take on any more than that right now.

Week 43: 300 days down 65 to go and now this

300 days have passed since I paid my $600 to sign up for IMFL.  300 days.  A lot can happen in 300 days.  There were a lot of things I expected might happen in 300 days.  I didn't know the tendonitis would happen but it was probable given the strain I was putting on my legs from running.  Once I solved that issue, I never truly believed that I'd really run fast again until a few weeks ago at RBR and then this week I surpassed my longest distance and confidently and comfortably ran 16 miles.  The first 14 were at my typical snail's pace of 10:30-11 min miles.  But my coach asked me to amp it up a little at the end and I laid down two 8:45 miles and was as excited as a triathlete figuring out how to wirelessly download their Garmin to Training Peaks.  Ok, call me a nerd, it makes me very excited every time I hear that beep.

I thought I might lose my job because of the economy.  That hasn't happened but things are looking quite shaky.  I thought I would learn a lot about myself over 12 months of training for an Ironman because that‘s what everyone says will happen.  I have.  But I didn't learn what I thought I would learn.  What I have learned over the past 10 months was how to be a better friend.  How to listen to people.  How to care more about other people. And how to let them care about me. It has been a very unexpected result.  And one that makes me wonder how much of life I have missed out on by not seeing this.

And I guess I learned this lesson just in time.  Because something else has happened that I never dreamt possible while training for an Ironman.  I got cancer.  And I hope you can see I am not writing this because I want pity or attention.  I am writing it because it’s just something that happens to so many people going along their path in life.  And you sit on a table in a doc’s office and they have to tell you this.  That you have abnormal cells growing in you.  And you have to figure out how to handle it.  Without losing it in front of the doc while he explains the procedure and the scars and the permanent numbness of your neck and ear and the chance your trapezoid may not work on that side and your swim will really suck.  Worse than it does now.  And you may be hoarse forever.  The cancer in my thyroid doesn’t concern them as much as the cancer in my lymph nodes.  This is not hyper or hypothyroidism which would have shown up on tests.  My blood work is completely normal.  Had it not been for the pain I experienced in my neck while pushing  my head forward while riding aero, I might not have discovered this.  At this point it’s an 85% success rate.  I think those are really good odds.

I mostly held it all together in his office and then fell apart for 5 minutes in the ladies room.  5 minutes.  That’s really all I needed.  Went to the hospital admin office and took care of the paperwork so I can go back Tuesday for the surgery which lasts about 4-5 hours and requires one night at the hospital.  It is a 2-3 week recovery period at home.  There is no chemo but I have to wear some pretty scary looking drains and there is a radioactive iodine pill I will take afterwards to kill off any remaining cells.  (You might not want to visit me those days.)  It is just another hiccup on the road to Ironman Florida.  It is most likely a cancer I have been living with for awhile.  It did not happen overnight.

But back to the new found skill I have learned over the past 10 months.  The one where I let other people help me and care about me.  Something tells me it is going to come in handy during the month of September and beyond.  Perhaps you can teach an old dog new tricks.  I’m about to find out.

Thank you all for the love and concern you have sent me.  I have always wanted to experience what it felt like to be on a team.  And it feels really really good.

 

Week 42: The triathlon bubble.

We all have our neroses, and the longer you hang out with your teammates, the clearer they become.  I have quite a few of my own and they typically involve food.  In fairness, I think that I can blame all of this on my mother.  My mom was one of those people who never threw out anything and thought it was okay to leave the container of milk on the kitchen table for hours while we ate, and then put in back in the fridge for the next day.  Needless to say, I do not drink milk anymore and haven't for about 20 years.  Maybe more.  You can look up my age on my tri results, but I'm not going to make it easy and just give it away.

 

One night, I was over at my parents' house for dinner and they were cooking shrimp on the grill.  You might think that sounds tasty.  But the shrimp were the already cooked frozen shrimp type.  You AREN'T supposed to cook those.  You defrost them and serve them cold.  Or make shrimp salad out of them.  Whatever!  So when I requested some of them to make shrimp cocktail, my mom said, "okay," and directed me to the pantry for the cocktail sauce.  It was "new" and unopened.  It was also black.  In my world, tomatoes are red, they are not black.  "Mom," I said, "how old is this cocktail sauce?  Nevermind, I will just look at the label.  Mom, this cocktail sauce expired 17 years ago!" 

 

So yes, I became a little neurotic about food, and I grocery shop every 1-2 days.  I also freak out when people try to shake my hand while I'm eating at a restaurant.  Or if they lean over me to talk to someone next to me and spit all over my food.  In my perfect world, we'd all eat at our own tables and wave to each other during meals.  And maybe text.  But not talk.  And definitely not spit on each other's food.

 

When I started doing tris, I was quite shocked at my change in behavior.  Not that I will eat old food...because that ain't happening.  BUT I will eat food, any food, dirty food, food off the floor, food other people have touched and coughed on and stepped on and well, you are starting to get the picture.  Is that an unopened pack of Gu I see on the ground that has been stomped on by 500 people?  Pick it up and save it for later. (yes, I will wash the pack first).  Did someone leave the mini boxes of cereal on this table from their swag bag?  They are mine now.

 

At the Augusta 70.3 last year, I was the runner of our relay team, and the more water I drank while waiting for the race to begin, the more I wanted.  But I ran out and couldn't find anymore.  I spied a very large container of it that someone used to fill their aero bottle near the bikes.  It was by the trash cans.  They hadn't used much of it and were throwing it away.  Hmmmm....it looked just fine, so I picked it up and refilled my water bottle.  I might have drunk straight from the bottle.  It's just hard for me to admit that.

 

This past fall, during my first century ride, I stuffed nutter butter cookies from one of the rest stops into my back pocket of my jersey and forgot about them.  After the race, I was starving, and despite them being soaked with my sweat and quite soggy, I ate them and licked my fingers clean.  I also scraped the remaining soggy, doughlike substance from the jersey pocket to get every bite.  When you are ravenous from 104 miles of cycling, you just don't care what people think.

 

What?  Licked my filthy fingers clean?  And it hit me.  There is a bubble.  A triathlon bubble.  It allows us to train and compete and not get sick.  It protects us against all kinds of disease and nasty crap we get into.  I have gotten out of some of the lakes we swim in with horrible bites and rashes only to find that a couple of days later, they are gone.  We have all eaten from tubs of orange slices into which countless other filthy hands have reached before us, and not gotten sick.  We drink from gatorade containers that I am certain have not been cleaned out since Gatorade was invented.  It is the protective triathlon bubble, and you'd better be happy it exists.  Because I know I am.

 

I am not proud of this behavior, not at all.  But it does provide a little freedom for me to believe in this bubble.  And perhaps, a little bit of therapy to be free from my craziness about food, even if it's only for a short time.  Just don't tell my mother.

Week 41: The curse of Ironman.

I don't know what it is about me and registering for Ironman M-Dot branded events and the resulting bad luck I have in the days afterwards.  My first experience of this was when I signed up to do the relay for Augusta 70.3 last September.  I was running pretty well with a few aches and pains here and there.  Once I signed up to do the run, BOOM, my IT band went into full force daily cranky pain yanking on my knee making me feel like a 90 year old.  I babied it as much as I could, foam roller, blah blah blah, and made it to the race and ended up doing well.

Then last fall, I register for my first Ironman while I'm at the event, go out for a 15 mile run later than day and BOOM, once again, have an overuse injury of my left ankle and foot that took about 8-9 months to get under control.  Notice I do not say HEALED as both my IT band and my foot are now injuries that I just manage.  I sincerely hope that when IMFL is over and I take a long time off to rest and start doing shorter distances that my legs will fully heal.

But both of these injuries are really overuse type stuff that tons of runners speak of when they discuss "pain management".  I do truly think they will heal once my IM is over and I rest.

I got back Sunday afternoon from the Richard B Russell Olympic race this weekend feeling really good about life.  My plans were to go into IMFL NOT having done any tris this year.  And after a couple of friends suggested I should do an Olympic and a HIM before IMFL, I signed up for RBR because I loved it so much last year.

The race was fun and exciting  and I loved every minute of it.  Ok, maybe not the swim this time.  But the bike and run went well.  And a stroke of luck bumped the top 2 females in my AG to Masters so I ended up with FIRST place in my age group.  I truly did not expect to podium AT ALL in this race so it was a pleasant surprise but truly not the highlight of the weekend.  The best part was laughing and having fun with my teammates.

So when I got back on Sunday, I signed up for Augusta.  This will be my FIRST half ironman as the two I did earlier this year were without the run since I was injured at that point.  I had a doctor's appointment scheduled for Monday because I have had the feeling of a rock in my throat for about 2 weeks.  I almost cancelled the appt since it wasn't bothering me as much on Monday but figured to go ahead and see him.

I guess the Ironman curse is still with me.  As it was far more serious than I imagined.  I had an ultrasound today and got a call from the doctor within hours telling me I needed surgery right away since I have a mass on my thyroid and a lymph node.  This could be normal or it could be something really bad.  Until I know otherwise, I'm going with normal.  There is no point in panicking or blowing it out of proportion.  Perhaps it explains why my energy level has been so up and down...I have been blaming this on my training schedule.  Maybe it doesn't explain it.  Maybe I AM tired from so much training.  

Most likely the surgery is next week.  I'll know Monday.  I thought perhaps I shouldn't share this info with y'all but I have shared pretty much everything else that has happened to me over the course of the last year and to hide it would make it more serious than it is.  And it's not serious.  Except I think you know that, yes, I am a little scared. 

Week 40: Friends and humor: What gets me through

There is no way possible I could make it through this journey without the support of my friends and teammates.  And although I appreciate their shoulders to cry on, it is really their humor that gets me through the pain.

There are tons of examples and I don't mean to hurt anyone's feelings by leaving them out but here are just a few of my favorites:

First there is Cheryl, with her undying love of athlete stalking.  I don't mean the type that "someone" might do by writing down race numbers with a sharpie on her arm at a race and looking them up later.  I mean her stalking of women in our age group.  Here is a brief glmpse into the detail of info Cheryl emails to me:

3. Jane Doe (I changed the actual names) - WATCH OUT! IM Cozumel '09 13:33; IMFL '08 13:05; Tugaloo '10 and '09 3:05, 3:00; RBR '10 2:23 (4th OA, 1st AG). Relative to us, she's a slighly faster swimmer, slightly slower biker, VERY fast runner (3x BQ - yikes!!). Definite competition and I'm guessing uncatchable, unless she's injured (or tripped...hehe).

4. Lisa Smith - ^%$&. She's a ~44-46 min 10k, 2:24 Oly finisher, podiumed every single one of her 7 tris (but mainly only sprints and 2x W Pt Lake). Crazy fast in all 3 legs. We have no chance of catching her. &^*&. *&*^. #@#$.

5. Kim Jones- Darn again. Slower swimmer, bikes on par w/ us, but crazy fast runner (46 min 10k, 3:39 marathon). RBR '10 2:41 (1st AG, 8th OA). Has only done 4 sprints and 1 Oly, but  podiumed ALL of them (her only Oly was RBR '10 in 2:41, 1st AG, 8th OA). And the worst part of it all? She only just aged up this year. Damn.

6. Jane Wilson - wild card. Only one result, a 38 min open 5k five yrs ago. She could be a crazy fast swim-biker, but somehow I doubt it. Anyone fit enough to swim/bike faster than us can WALK a faster 5k than that. I'm going to say she's no competition. Particularly if she's done nothing in 5 yrs. I mean, I had a 50+ min 5k 3 yrs ago (I was injured and limping from the first 1/2 mi), but that means nothing when you look at other results. But if I had no other results? Then I just quit running altogether and NEVER got any faster. Why is this Jane Wilson suddenly showing up for an Oly w/out so much as a single sprint or 5k race in 5 yrs? Unless she just got married and has never registered under her married name before, and this is not the 38min 5k Jane Wilson. DAMN those women who change their names!

Next there is Jeff.  Who really plays the stoic serious guy until he posts on facebook and is snarky.  When I begin to doubt my ability to complete an Ironman and am having a meltdown and turn to him in complete despair thinking he will say "don't worry Patti, we will make it!", instead he quips back "We are fucked". 

And Reckers.  Oh Reckers.  He really is the funniest person on our team.  He pees 12 times at IMTX, ruins his cycling shoes, and then decides to FREEZE them to get rid of the smell?  He kept me in stitches on our last trail run with his funny outlook on life.

I love Chris' race reports and how he had to outrun a guy in a chicken suit for a free Chickfila sandwich.

There are tons more stories and truly it gets lost in translation.  I just want to say thanks.  Thanks to everyone for their humor and their support.  This past week has hurt like hell.  I feel like a mack truck ran over me and then when I got back up, it hit me again 2 days later.  Please keep me laughing so I can forget the pain. :)

Week 39: 3/4 there

There are 3 months left. 3 months from Saturday until the big day. So today I decided to look at where I am. And how I'm doing. And is it working. A good friend gave me Macca's book for my bday. In it he talks about being able to recognize when things aren't working during an ironman and being able to change on the fly. Several friends who just completed Lake Placid said the same thing.

What is working? The swim and the run. I'm feeling ok with these. I'm slow. I'm steady. I'm not afraid of either of them. I'm not going to get any faster in 3 months but I can continue to gain confidence and peace.

What's not working? The bike. The nutrition and my stamina. I can work this out. I'm getting help. What else? My energy level. Once again. I've made some changes so I don't feel so exhausted. So beat down.

Final words. I started putting goals in my head. Breaking the day down. And I've stopped myself now from doing this. This is my first ironman. This is my second year doing tris. I still have not completed a half ironman. A week from Saturday is my first tri this year. I put way too much pressure on myself in life for everything I do. And I think it's a better idea to have my main goal be "to finish" and let the cards fall where they may.

Week 38: Racing Weight

Oh the dreaded topic of racing weight, diet and triathlons.  Last year my friend and relay teammate, Lee, gave me a copy of the book with the title: Racing Weight.  It gave me information about the different body types of athletes and tons of useful information.  But truly it's not something that we don't already know and haven't known forever.

Calories in-calories burned-resting calories used daily=weight gained or lost.  And if only it were that simple.  My daily burn without training is about 1500.  I burn anywhere between 500-4,000 calories a day in training.  TYPICALLY, I only burn the big number, 4,000, once a week and it's the long ride and brick.  Second to that is the long run which comes in around 1,200.  It sounds like a lot but when I start adding up the food I eat, that bank of calories doesn't go very far. 

Take a long ride/brick.  Burn 4,000 cals.  So I get to "spend" 5500 cals that day.  I eat about 1,250 on the ride.  Breakfast is 500.  I get home and immediately stuff 500 cals of something down while I'm getting ready to eat.  I will eat most of a pizza and a coke.  That's 2,000.  A little ice cream or a treat and boom, the cals are all gone for the day and I have broken even.  BROKEN EVEN?  I just trained for 5 freaking hours and I break even?????  I didn't even have lunch and Gu does NOT count.

It's pretty nuts to me that despite the long hours of training, I still have to watch what I eat so that I won't gain weight.  And the hunger that is born from all of this training will oftentimes make me eat foods that I never dreamed of eating before last year.  I have actually began a search for the holy grail of tater tots.  So far the tot-chos (think nachos made with tater tots) at The Nook are tying with the Tater Tots at Midway.

The other downfall of pigging out after a long training day is that it makes me think I can eat like that every day because I train every day.  But since I am not burning those cals every day, I simply can not.

There is also the issue of when the IM training ends and the appetite continues.  But I'll save that for another blog.  Perhaps I'll use the $600 IM entry fee for lipo next year.  That'll probably get me the equivalent of 5 tater tots.

Week 37: The Galloway Running Method is working

My experience with running with tendonitis:

I am finally at the point with my running that I feel it’s safe to say I will be able to run most of IMFL.  My definition of run is not what it used to be.  To be able to run a long distance, I had to find a new way to run.  I knew the old, pound the pavement as fast as I could until I was in pain method was not going to work.

I started looking around and found The Galloway Method.  At first, it embarrassed me to run this way.  Seriously?  Run 4 minutes and walk 2 minutes.  I might be able to do this in private but what about on game day?  Wouldn’t people laugh at me?

But because of my injury I knew I had to try it or risk walking the entire 26.2 miles.  There is nothing wrong with walking 26.2 miles but at a 15 min mile pace, it would take me about 7 hours.  I was trying to avoid that.

I started back just walking at a brisk pace.  Then I added in a little running here and there.  Switched to 4 minutes of running followed by 2 minutes of walking.  Once I could keep that up for an extended distance, I changed to 6 minutes of running followed by 1 minute of walking and realized I needed more walking.  So I have settled on 6/2 and am up to 12 miles.  My schedule for my weekly long run says I should be at 16 miles so I am not far off.

I feel a minor amount of discomfort during the run but it is NOT continuous and it never gets above a 1 on a scale of 1-10.  I have some pain afterwards which I address with ice, cold baths, self-massage on my legs, compression tights, elevation, and rest.  I also roll out my legs and use a tennis ball on my glutes.  Of all of this, the leg massage works the best.  And I am religious about eating post run nutrition in the form of Recoverite by Hammer.

I am averaging about an 11 min per mile pace and do not feel the least bit of strain or push while running.  It is so slow, I feel at times that I’m walking.  I’m doing this in the heat of the afternoon around 6 pm when it is 95-97 degrees out on a flat, hard packed dirt surface.  If I get no faster than this, I’ll be able to complete the marathon portion in under 5 hours.  This pace includes me stopping to refill my bottle and eat Gu.  So far, it is working.  Jeff Galloway says come race day I will be able to go faster than this but he is only speaking of someone who is running only and not doing the two other sports. 

Mostly at this point in my training, I am worried about GI issues.  The 3 sports seem to be coming together just fine and I practice fueling on every training day.  But when you put the 3 sports together and add fuel, things can often go wrong.  I read a friend’s REV3 Portland race report and although he normally drinks an Ensure in T1, his body told him not to that day and he listened.  It worked for him rather well.  It is just going to have to be a wild card that I accept and hope and pray that I get it right that day.

Week 36: The good vs. the bad.

Taking the bad with the good.

In the 18 months that I have been training for and competing in triathlons, many changes have taken place in my life.  Some of these are good, some bad.  I thought I’d highlight the best and the worst.

The bad:

1-     My fingernails have disintegrated.  Yes, they really have.  They are as thin as paper and they shred like potatoes on a box grater.  In addition, my thumb nails have chunks missing.  I have my theories on this and I bounce back and forth from thinking it’s the pool chemicals to thinking it’s a vitamin issue.

2-     Money.  Let’s face it, this is an expensive sport and sometimes money is wasted on items you think will be good and turn out to be crap.  I have goggles and clothing and gadgets that weren’t useful but you don’t know this until you buy them and start using them.  Zoomers?  Really?  What stupid tri book told me that short fins were a great idea?  Can I have my $30 back please?

3-     My poor house.  I have gotten to the point where I completely ignore my house.  There are so many things I don’t know if I could list them all.  Cleaning, organizing, maintenance, decorating.  Washing clothes, watering plants.  All of it takes a second place to training, eating, and recovering.  I once had a magnificent collection of over 25 orchids.  They are all dead now.

4-     Oh my poor body.  Hmmm, let’s see, you’ve already heard about my fingernails.  I have also lost toenails, had IT band issues that were so painful I would go to bed crying at night.  Issues I won’t go into detail about adapting to the tri bike position including numb hands, painful sit bones, lower back problems, and other painful areas.  The ongoing bout of tendinitis that made me think I would have to withdraw from IMFL.  Knee pain.  Hip pain that had me do “needling” where a PT stuck 3” needles into my glutes.  Shoulder pain from swimming.  And overall a tiredness and malaise that often had me question why I was doing this.

The good:

1-     Number one is absolutely the improvement in my relationship with my parents.  Not that it was bad to start with but it has really been a place for us to bond.  I call them all the time and share with them my successes and failures.  My mom and dad have been so supportive and loving.

2-     The friendships I have made.  You spend so much time with your fellow athletes and although we razz each other about all of the “tri talk” we do, it’s really just a starting point for discussions that often times become much deeper than that.  As we help each other through our life struggles, we get to deepen our friendships and learn as much about ourselves as we do about them.

3-     Finally, something shallow.  Yes, if my body was one of the things I complained about, well, it’s also going to be one of the things I celebrate.  There are muscles and tendons and ligaments I did not know existed.  And I can relax a little about what I eat and have a couple of “bad” meals a week and not sweat that I’m going to gain weight from it.  I starting lifting weights when I was 15 and NEVER saw the muscle tone that I have developed from training for triathlons.  I turn 47 on Sunday and I’m extremely happy with the shape of my body.  It’s far from perfect and I don’t seem to care anymore. (Ok, that is a bold face lie) It’s strong and it gets me where I need to go.  Now, can it just get me there a little faster so I can hop on that podium one more time? J

Week 35: Wow, it's starting to come together

I have to guess that at some point during everyone's Ironman training, that a lightbulb goes on when you begin to think that you are actually capable of doing the event.  Then you do a super long swim or bike and are exhausted and wonder how on earth you will go on to do all 3 sports on your special day.  I constantly battle exhaustion and hunger and have started to plan my life around when I get to eat next and when I get to lay down.

I have four months left to train and get ready.  And although those four months will be rather hard, I've radically changed my viewpoint of the actual day of my Ironman.  Originally I thought of it as a sufferfest, and a huge unbearable day to get through.  And then my view started to change and now I see November 5th as a day of celebration.  A day where I get to enjoy myself and have fun.  Part of this breakthough happened during the Cartersville Century when there were 5 of us riding together for the last 20 miles.  Instead of the meltdown I had for the first 2 centuries, I had a great time at the end.  We laughed and smiled and told stories and joked around.  And I started thinking, what if my Ironman experience was like this? 

It means I'd need to slow down a little...not much...but just enough so that I'm comfortable...not on the cusp of pain.  And I need to add in some ways to have fun...like with the clothing I choose and the attitude I bring along.

In slowing down, I have found that I'm able to run again.  I'm running anywhere from 4-6 minutes, and then walking 1-2 minutes.  I can now do this for an hour and a half.  It seems based on the pace that I can run/walk, I think it's possible to finish the marathon in 5.5 hours.  There is quite a bit of work over the next 4 months to get me from 1.5 hours to 5.5 hours.  The run is the only place right now where that lightbulb has not come on.  It scares me.  I oftentimes think I am holding it all together with duct tape and superglue.

Yet, I am still confident that I will finish.  I will smile.  I will help someone out along the course.  Hopefully many people.  I will challenge myself and give it my all.  I will celebrate the day.

I am incredibly grateful that I have a life where I can devote so much time to adventures like this.  I don't overlook the luxury it truly is.

Week 34: The Ridges 5K Swim: Lost at Sea

Sometimes it is better to go into something blind, not knowing how hard it will be before you do it.  The Ridges 5K swim was one of those things.

On Sunday, a small group of us set out to swim what we thought we be 5,000 Meters.  I say small group because I think it was just over 100 people.  And I say THOUGHT because it ended being a lot more than 5,000 Meters.

As a triathlete, I’m used to swim courses being short or long.  Being REALLY well marked to being just so-so marked.  And you deal with it.

But the directions on Sunday were almost a joke, like “you know the Smith barn, well, you don’t turn there, you go to where that tree fell 4 years ago and you turn kind of near there but not really.”  Swim under the power lines, turn left and aim for the 2 story dock, head towards some green things and eventually you’ll see buoys.  Ok, thanks!  For the record, there are lots of GREEN THINGS near a lake.

Strangely enough I start off the day without being nervous, and even with only 4,000 yards as my longest distance (which included breaks) under my belt, I get in the water and start swimming.  With so few people, there is almost no body contact.  And I’m thankful when a large guy swims close to me so I can draft off of him for about 5 minutes.  It was probably the highlight of the day.

I follow the directions and feel pretty good about it even though I know my pace is pretty slow.  I blame it on the century the day before.  But my head is in the game and I’m happy to be setting out on a new adventure.

Under the power lines, check.  Double decker dock, check.  And then where???  Oh, is that a buoy way off?  Looks like I can see some arms of swimmers.  I’ll go there.  Out in the middle of a lake and then the waves start hitting me in the face and I am wondering how far off the finish is.  My mouth tastes awful from the lake water so I flip over and suck down the pack of honey I brought along.  Unbeknownst to me, it must have been leaking a little and some critters got in my suit and were biting me.  I discovered this when I got home.  Nasty red bites.  Oh well.

I start to lose a little energy when a kayak passes me and the girl says “you’re almost there!”  Now, my definition of “almost there” is 5 minutes or less.  Seriously, it is.  It was the cruelest thing she could have ever said to me.  It was over an hour before I finished from the time she said that.  CRUEL!

I continue to swim and I start to realize that I’d be ok if I drown and this becomes a very scary thought to me.  You don’t want your head to think that way in the middle of a swim.  It’s not a good thing.  So instead I start counting because I remember Josh saying he counted all his strokes at his last race  1,2,3,4,5,6.  Over and over.  And I keep hearing Matt tell me to glide and Trey tell me to watch my form.  You MUST have good thoughts to replace the bad ones when you get in a situation like this.

What saved me during this swim is similar to what saved me during my second century.  A girl swims up behind me and bumps into me and we both stop swimming.  And we both voice our concerns over where the hell the finish is?!?  So we keep pace with each other and stop every 500 yards or so to regroup.  I finally see what I think are red flags…they turn out to be orange traffic cones.  But it is the ending.  I show it to her and we were like horses going back to the stable and I swear at that point we race each other to the finish.  She wins and I don’t care…I am happy to be back on dry land.  I had to hold back the wall of tears that were going to spill down my face.  There was a point during that swim where I felt real fear. Uncertainty.  Despair.  When all you can see is a black abyss below you, it gets very weird.

 At the finish, I hugged the girl who swam in with me.  And thanked her.  I look up and see my time of 2:25 which is about 10-15 minutes longer than I expected.

I spent the next two days feeling down.  Not because I didn’t meet my goal.  But because of how close it came to breaking me.  And today?  Today I woke up feeling amazing and creative and powerful again.  And I signed up for another one in 3 weeks.  This one, I know is well marked.  And thank heavens, it is typically short.  And yes, there is probably something wrong with me. J

Week 33: Why do we do this?

While swimming at Red Top Mtn last Sunday, a teammate turned to me and asked "why do we do this?".  It seems to be almost an inside joke of sorts between triathletes.  On those long, hard training days, we often ask that question among our friends and to ourselves.

I find the best answers come on those long training days.  Like last Saturday when I did my second century.  I think anytime you attempt to do a super long distance (even if you have done it before), it is a bit of a leap of faith.  You don't know what the day will bring, whether mental or physical, and you just have to tell yourself you're going to do it.

My favorite part is the unexpected.  My friends often think I am hallucinating but I find that the most fantastical (yes, I know that is NOT a word) experiences happen out on long rides.  It often mirrors life.  At the beginning of the ride I had to deal with my discomfort of pushing off and clipping in while going uphill with hundreds (over 900) people around me.  "Do not fall, do not fall"...do not embarrass yourself Patti!

Not too long after the start I looked down and saw a dead baby bunny and it broke my heart.  Sometimes a long ride shows you life can be cruel.  Not long afterwards, a bull who had jumped his fence was charging down the road at us.  And the other cattle still in the fence were freaking out.  And quite frankly so was he because he wanted to be safe back inside the fence and not on the road.  The cyclists around me slowed down and let him figure out a solution and he jumped back inside the fence.  Lesson: If something threatens me, back off and it usually will pass.

I also dealt with the fear of riding in aero downhill.  And I found that if I sing to myself, very loudly, the fear passes and I enjoy it.  Yes, I was a little embarrassed when I realized there were 3 people riding my tail.  I hope they like Pink.

You also meet friends along the way on a long ride and get to discuss the most interesting subjects in life with them.  And you find that when you are melting down and freaking out that if you help someone else out in your same shoes, that you forget your problems while helping them and you both get to finish.

A century ride is a great way to discover more about yourself, more about life, more about what makes you tick.  And that's why I am doing another one tomorrow. :)  I'm still not sure why I'm following it up on Sunday with a 3.25 mile swim....but that's next week's post, right?

Week 32: Mommy, My tummy hurts

When you train for a sprint distance race, there are said to be 5 segments you need to consider.  The swim, bike, and run, of course.  And T1 and T2.  In the sprint distance races are won or lost in transition.

In training long, I could care less about being fast in transition.  I’m not going to dilly dally and get my hair and makeup done, but I’m not going to rush either.  But there is a new beast to tackle for Ironman training and it is nutrition.

You get a taste of this (pardon the pun) when you do an Olympic.  It becomes more pressing during a half ironman. Of course I have only done the first 2 parts of a 70.3 so I don’t truly know the whole feeling.  Hoping this changes as I am planning on doing Augusta employing my walk/run strategy.

The race reports I have read have listed nutrition issues as one of the main reasons someone has a meltdown during their Ironman.  Too much food.  Too little food.  Too little salt, too little water or too much water.  I’m not a scientist or nutrionist and I’m not sure even that would help me.

What will help?  Trying things out during training and racing.  To train my stomach to accept food and water while exercising.  Figure out what works and what doesn’t.

But what happens when I use the same nutrition 2 weekends in a row…Gulf Coast and REV3 and have 2 different results?  Then I have to look at what I ate for breakfast that day…what I had for dinner the nights leading up to the event.

And I’m starting to wonder if sometimes your body can accept the conditions, the stress, the nutrition.  And some days it just can’t.  I have heard athletes who actually go eat a meal they know will upset their stomach and then go run 15 miles just to get used to the feeling of racing while sick. 

Recently while reading Velonews, a cycling mag, I saw that some of the pros eat a mixture of white rice and eggs for breakfast.  I like this idea and will be trying it out.  I know those two foods work well for me.  The rice being a quickly digested “sugary” food and the eggs containing protein and fat.

The only thing I have consistently heard is that overeating during an Ironman will surely make me puke.  And not drinking enough water with the appropriate amount of salt (for me) will dehydrate me.  And possibly kill me.  So what I’m hearing is go lighter on the food and heavier on the water and get the salt correct.  When I started at Georgia Tech, my major was chemistry.  Perhaps I should have stayed with that.

So all of this thinking about food and keeping it in  your tummy brings me back to when I was 13 years old and ate Carnation Instant Breakfast in Strawberry Flavor every day before school.  One time I ate it while I was sick and had a fever.  The outcome was not pleasant and it did not stay down.  I have not been able to eat strawberry flavored items for years.  A friend recently gave me a tub of Recoverite.  Yep….strawberry flavored.  I can assure you the training has begun. ;)

Week 31: Color Me Happy

Another week in the life of training for an Ironman and this week definitely did not disappoint me.  I have lived most of my life in the world of black and white.  Everything had to have clearly defined lines.  I’ve always used the excuse “I’m German, that’s just how I am” but truly I think it’s that I feel more in control when life is clearly laid out for me.  The problem with living life that way is that there are no areas of possibility for the life that exists outside perfection.  And when parts of my life did not meet the clearly defined areas, I would push so hard for them to fit, that often I ended up destroying them in the process.

One of the Webster definitions of Grey is neutral or dull, esp. in character or opinion.  But I disagree.  Grey is where the dance of life begins.  Grey is where I begin to accept that life is not perfect and it doesn’t always have to be exactly what I wanted for it still to work.

I had the vision of what being an Ironman meant to me.  And part of that definition was that I would run most, if not all of the marathon.  Now I know that a lot happens on the day of your Ironman and oftentimes situations prevent this from happening.  I understand and am completely ok with that.  But I thought that if going into my Ironman, I had already planned to walk the marathon that I was somehow cheating.  That I wouldn’t “really” become an Ironman.  And since I wouldn’t, why do the marathon part at all?  I planned on DNFing once I knew I couldn’t run. I started to refer to it as “a training day”.

Now here is where life gets interesting.  A good friend of mine takes me to lunch on Monday and boldly states, “you should walk.”  This is someone with 20 years experience of triathlon under his belt and several IM finishes.  He is telling me it’s ok to walk?  Maybe being an Ironman doesn’t have to mean one thing for me.  And boom, with that realization, life changed overnight for me.  I don’t mean my life in regards to my Ironman, or triathlon.  I mean just about everything in my life changed this week when I opened up the door to the possibility of grey.  That life does not have to look and be a certain way for it to be ok.  For me to be happy. 

Neutral or dull?  No.  Not even close.  I’d say that Grey could possibly be the brightest color of them all.

Week 30: Another milestone: My first century

Last year I watched many of my friends train for their first Ironman race.  One of the things I remember them doing over and over again was "The Century Ride".  After a complete meltdown of a 61 mile ride at the Jackson County Brevet last year, I wondered if I could ever be part of the club who can do that.

Earlier this year I signed up for one called "The Challenge of the Centuries".  I didn't bother to look ahead and read my schedule and see that I was only supposed to ride 4 hours that day.  And for some of you speedy folks, I don't know, maybe you are riding 100 miles in 4 hours.  But not me!

So on Saturday, I drove up to Lake Hartwell on the Ga-SC border expecting to ride 66 miles by myself.  No biggie.  I had already cycled 80 miles on 2 other occassions.

In the meantime, I meet a nice triathlete named Heather on BT.com and also realized (from facebook) that 2 other friends, Jackie and Eric, are there doing the ride as well.  But guess what?  They are all doing the century.  And worse, the rides split at mile 30.  So I wouldn't get to spend much time with them.

And the day is beautiful, it's overcast, the hills are rolling and gentle.  And the 2 girsl I am cycling with are fun and interesting and have lots of ironman stories to tell me.  DAMN IT!  OK, Yes, I will throw caution to the wind and just do it.  Do my first century.

With adrenaline flowing and girltalk at hyper speed, we set off and do the first 50 miles in 3 hours. In the back of my head though I know I have pushed a little too hard and that the next 50 might not be as easy.  Somewhere around mile 70 or 80, I start having to talk myself into 10 mile increments.  I'm still doing ok and I'm still averaging an overall 16 mph which I'm happy with for my first go at it.

I think somewhere around mile 85, I really start hurting.  I can ride in aero, but if I get out of aero, my lower back screams.  My quads are tight and my sitbones are very very unhappy having to be on a saddle for so long.  Yet, my mind is still fine.  And that's the thing I was most worried about since the meltdown I had a year earlier in Jackson County was my brain screaming to stop.

There is a SAG stop at 85 which I take and sit for a few minutes to regroup and eat Nutter Butter Sandwich Cookies.  They are new and improved and no longer the peanut shape but rather a round cookie with now 3X the filling.  I eat 2  of them and shove 2 in my pocket for later.

The race planner is smart and puts another stop at mile 93.  This I couldn't figure out until Heather tells me it's 102 miles, not 100 like I thought.  I don't need another stop and keep going and tell Jackie and Heather I'll see them back at the start since I'm going pretty slow at this point.  Heather keeps telling me I'm doing great and this helps a ton.

Yeah, I tear up a little at mile 100.  It's a huge accomplishment to me.  I started off last year barely being able to ride 30 miles.  I've come a long way.

I pass mile 102 and am a bit disturbed I am not back "home".  102.5.  103.  At 103.5, I am convinced that I have started the course again and have somehow missed the finish.  The meltdown begins since I simply do not have the energy to go for any more miles.  I stop.  I put my bike against a tree in someone's yard.  I sit down under the tree in a pile of dirt and I start hyperventilating.  I honestly do not know what to do.

Finally I remember I have my iphone in my back pocket and I dropped a pin on the starting point.  And it has GPS so it knows where I am.  It shows me where I am and where I need to be and I realize I'm fine, get back on my bike and finish.  6 hours 32 minutes.

There wasn't any food for us at the finish and I'm ok with that.  They do have showers, albeit cold, and I take one, dry off, put on new clothes and eat 2 hard boiled eggs and my Recoverite mix.  Oh yeah, I also eat the 2 soggy cookies still in the back pocket of my jersey. :)

I celebrate on the way home by stopping off at McDonalds for a small fries and real coke.  I'm just not very hungry.

It was a good day.  It was a great day.  It was a day that changed my life forever.

Week 29: Time for some humor (sorry about the cussing)

I got up today a little frustrated that my 6'3" female physical therapist is "disappointed in my ass".  Or most accurately, disappointed in my ability to produce glute muscle.  Does anyone have steroids for sale?  Anyone anyone? Lance?

 

So now I'm mad.  And mad is a better place to be than fucking feeling sorry for myself.  I am now a protein eating machine.  And I will be hitting the gym 3X a week.  Those fucking band exercises are for the weak.  Give me heavy weights and blood sweat and tears.  Give me Rocky screaming for raw eggs.  Give me liberty or give me death!  I will have a strong ass soon and I will run again.  I will do Ironman Florida and I will get a tattoo to honor all the fucking goddamn shit I have done, will do, and am about to do so I can run 26.2 miles.  FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!!!  I do not care about the swim.  I do not care about the bike.  I know I can do those.  All I care about at this point is that my ass grows muscle so my knees don't wobble around like a baby horse who just pushed his way out of the womb.

 

Whew.  Thank you.  I'm done.  And I can assure you I am no longer feeling sorry for myself. ;)

Week 28: Run not looking good

I spent the last 2 weekends doing the swim and bike portions of a HIM distance.  The courses were complete opposites.  One being an ocean swim and super flat bike.  The other being a river swim and super hilly bike.  I was faster on the former, and struggled with the latter.  But enjoyed both immensely.  I find I am my own worst critic and think my performance awful the first 24 hours after a race.  Then I calm down a little and come to peace with it and figure out what I learned from it.  I learned that I expect life to be easy and when it's not easy, I want to quit. 

I went to physical therapy yesterday with the hopes that I would get the green flag to run again.  But knowing I would be told no.  And the answer was no.  But we talked a long time and figured out some more of the issues with my ankle and are addressing them.  I will give it another month and then closely examine whether or not it is smart to even think about ramping up to an Ironman.  I have until September 11 to get back $150 of my money and withdraw from the race.  In the meantime, I will continue the swim and bike and replace running with rollerblading.  I do not want to damage the work I have done healing by hurting myself ramping up for a distance I have never done and there is a part of me that wants to quit right now.  So I struggle with knowing whether I am wanting to quit because that's what I do when life gets tough, or wanting to quit because I am protecting my health.  Luckily I do not have to make that decision today.  I have some time.  I have 4 months to decide.  A lot can happen in 4 months.

Training for triathlons and participating in them can teach you many lessons in life if you're willing to listen for them.  I have learned more in the past year about life than I thought possible.  I'm grateful for the experience and for all the people who have contributed to me along the way.

Week 26: Halfway there

Halfway there and it's time for tri season to start and for me to do 2/3 of a Half Ironman.  Two weekends in a row.  Gulf Coast and then REV3.  I'm so nervous and excited and pumped about racing again.

There is nothing like racing in a triathlon. It's such a rush and such a wonderful mix of emotions that pour over me during the 3 different sports and the transitions. 

As usual, my stomach is in knots and I'm having a hard time eating this week.  I think of the race...go through the course in my mind.  Lay out all my gear and nutrition.  And train at a slower easier pace.  I get testy...and antsy and lazy.  I set my goals.  And take a deep breath and begin the journey.

This time it's much different.  It will only be swim and bike...yet these distances are much farther than I have raced before.  And I like the idea of getting in a groove and finding out what it feels like to race long.

I love the time before a race.  I like watching all my friends and teammates and fellow triathletes get ready to start.  I like the way the air feels around me.  The electricity that is present.  I like the shared feeling of looking into a stranger's eyes before a race and connecting with them and knowing what's about to transpire.

I truly can not imagine my life without it.

Week 25: Loving the bike

Short post for this week:

Physical therapy is going rather well.  I feel like my glutes are getting stronger and I have gained about 5 pounds since January.  I think the large majority of this weight gain is muscle.  Normally I would freak out gaining that much weight but I've gotten a lot stronger on the bike and I know it's the muscle gain that's helping me.  I have about 3 weeks more PT before I can start running again.  Strangely, I don't miss it anymore.

I'm loving my new TT bike and the mental and physical change it has brought on.  I feel like I attack my bike rides now and use more power.  I also am spending more time in the aero position.  Definitely looking forward to doing some racing in the next couple of weeks and testing out how I feel cycling 56 miles after swimming 1.2 miles.  After the races, my running can start again and I'll be able to slowly put the pieces of the puzzle together and see if they work.

This has not been the path I ever imagined I would take doing an Ironman.  It's very unconventional.  Let's see where it takes me.

Week 24: Finally, an answer

This is going to be a long blog this week.  It's the story of triathlons for me and how I ended up not being able to run for 5 months.  I started training for triathlons in February of last year.  I did not have extensive experience in any of the 3 sports but I knew how to do them. 

I ramped up my training pretty quickly and found that I excelled at running more than the other two sports.  In triathlon, they say to "train your weakness".  I did not heed this advice but instead trained my strength of running.  My first race was in late April and 2 months later, I was experiencing IT band pain.  The IT band runs along the outside of your upper leg between your knee and hip.  It can pull on both joints and cause pain that just never goes away.  It makes you think you have a bum knee...but you really don't.  Typically people suggest using a foam roller or getting graston work done.  I imagine this might work for some people and they cure the problem.  All it did for me was place a huge band-aid on it so that I could continue to train and race but never solve the problem.

I design homes for a living.  So the best example I can give is that if the foundation of your house is caving in, and your entire house is cracking inside, that all the tubes of caulk in the world are not going to solve the problem.  Sure, you can caulk the crown over and over but that doesn't stop it from cracking again.

This was the same thing I was doing.  I went to a chiropracter, a massage therapist, an acupunturist, used a foam roller, a stick, ice, heat, epsom salt baths, a TENS machine, and just about everything else including vitamins and pain killers.  My knee ached continuously.  Then I ran 15 miles in Florida in early November and I had ankle and foot pain that made running unbearable.  The swelling was so bad they thought I had a stress fracture.  After xrays and a bone scan, it was determined I didn't.  That doc told me to start running again.

So I ramped up my running until March 20 when I ran 7 miles.  The next day all the pain and swelling was back.  The wheels fell off the wagon for me at that point.  Because  I honestly thought I would never run again.  That it was all over for me.  And I fell into a very very deep depression.  I tried to convince myself that cycling and swimming would be enough for me.  But I knew they weren't.  And I just could not understand why such a common problem was not being solved.

Rest didn't work.  Training through it didn't work.  The plyometric exercises were not working.

Finally two of my teammates suggested seeing an MD.  A sports medicine doctor.  Ok, you might think that was the obvious choice 8 months ago.  But it just was not the path I took.

Within one hour, he had xrayed my ankle and knee.  Determined nothing was wrong with my joints.  But that biomechanically, I was a complete mess.  My gluteus medius muscles and piriformis muscles were so weak, they did not support me at all while running and my hips, knees, and ankles collapse when I try to run.  It's a miracle I ran as long as I did.  And as fast.

I started physical therapy immediately and the knee pain I have had for 9 months is now completely gone.  My ankle and hips are still sore yet I am sure this too will subside.  I have about 6 weeks of PT and then I can start running again. 

I kept looking to fix the symptoms, instead of solving the cause.  I know better than to do this and I'm not sure why I choose the path I took.  It's hard work doing exercises twice a day, PT twice a week, and continue to swim and bike my training schedule.  Maybe I was looking for the easy way out.  Letting someone else do the work...ie massage, graston, etc are all done by someone else.  Not me.

The good I take away from this is that I have become a much better cyclist and swimmer.  And I did not quit.  And that I do know that no matter how low I may fall, I can pull myself out of it and come back.  I am looking forward to rocking the run on my Ironman.  I am looking forward to staying healthy and never ever letting it get that bad again.  And helping anyone along the way who struggled the same way I did.  Because in the end, I would not have made it if it weren't for the help of others.

Week 23: Time to go back to basics

I missed the post for last week because I was in Florida "previewing" the Gulf Coast Course which is kind of a joke in the sense that I'm doing the swim part of a relay and didn't need to bike or run the rest of the course.  But it is good previewing for IMFL.  And the swim was quite the eye opener.  I never imagined that there would be so much fog that I would be unable to sight.  And we stopped so many times that I became seasick.  So Gulf Coast really will teach me what IMFL will be like.

With that said, the buoyancy was out of this world.  Between the wetsuit and the salt water (and the current), I don't think I was actually swimming.  It was more like steering.  I wasn't kicking hardly at all.  I had to remind myself to kick.  And each pull of my arm sent me skyrocketing forwards.  It must be what its like to do Augusta 70.3.  We were swimming parallel to the beach so if we had been swimming out to sea, it would have been different.  I didn't do the 2nd swim but my friends told me that when they reversed direction, it was swimming as hard as they could just to "stand still". 

So I'm ready for rough waters, yes it was pretty rough, and FOG.  I don't know if I'm ready for 1.2 miles of it but it's coming soon.  I'm quite comfortable doing 1.2 miles in a pool or a lake.  I'm just wondering what it will be like in the open sea.

Now on to the bike.  We decided that riding a bike in aero position with lots of drunk and crazed teens around us was not a good idea.  So we drove out to the tail end of the course and did 8.5 mile loops until we got dizzy and decided a 4 mile stretch of freeway would be ok to get to the next 8.5 mile loop of the course.  The first one was Pine Log Road and it is NOT smooth sailing.  It's ok...just not as perfect as the other road, Steel Mill, was.  Steel Mill was like a dream.  Florida is flat.  It is not false flat like Silver Comet.  It is FLAT.

There was a lot of wind but somehow it only bothered me for very short sections.  The part on the highway was very fast both ways..kind of weird...how the heck did I go 20 mph both ways?  And I was not riding aero.  I ended up averaging 16.5 mph for 52 miles.  It's the fastest I have ever gone for that distance.  But the most interesting part to me is I didn't push.  I kept my heart rate at 5-10 beats under LT.  I was never breathing hard or really even sweating.  Low gear and high cadence and low heart rate.  The ride was my favorite part of the weekend.

So why did I name this "back to the basics"?  The IMFL course is where I messed up my ankle.  It was over 5 months ago.  When I was down there and realized it had been 5 months, I knew I had to get my act together and get my ankle fixed.  Although I have been to two "doctors", a massage therapist and an acupunturist, I have never been to a REAL doctor.  An MD.  Tomorrow I go back to the basics and see a Sports Medicine Doctor.  I'm going to find out what is wrong.  And together we will fix it.  I'm not about to give up what I love most doing.  There has to be a reason for the pain to continue this long.

Week 21: Pins and needles

I recently said to a friend I'd drink a potion of eye of newt if it made my legs heal.  So when a fellow tri-friend suggested I try acupunture, I thought "why not?".

I had been 8 years ago so I went back to the same doctor.  He is Chinese and speaks almost no English.  His daughter translates for him.  I was explaining my woes shen she pulled out a big plastic doll for me to point to.  Now I'm thinking...I could just point to the parts of my body where it hurts, but if he wants me to point to the plastic doll, ok.

I have flight or fight sydrome around needles and I will black out if I see one headed my way.  So I just laid back and closed my eyes while he put needles in my feet, knees, quads, and hands.  Lots of needles.  Maybe about 20?  Then he wheeled a cart in the room and hooked up electrodes to the needles.  At that point I was ok looking down at my body and seeing everything.  It looked like a horror movie from my childhood.  You know the one where the guy has all of the needles sticking out of his head???

The electricity in my quads had my muscles jumping.  It felt ok...no biggie.  But when he cranked up the juice to my ankle, I was happy he did understand "NO!".  There isn't much meat on your ankles, and that hurt way too much.  Turn it down!  So he did.

I think I laid there for about 45 minutes.  It was quite peaceful.  After they took everything off, I touched my ankle and pushed on it.  It was no longer painful to the touch but it still hurt when I walked.

Fast forward to today....my it band pain is gone.  My hips feel about 75% better.  My ankle is not really a whole lot better.  BUT I got some things out of it I did not expect.  I have been sleeping like a baby since I got it.  My brain seems very clear and alert and I can concentrate better.  And when I finished my bike ride on Sunday, my muscles hurt.  FINALLY, I have MUSCLE pain again instead of joint pain after a ride.  Subsequently, my workouts have been better so far this week...I have had a noticable amount more energy.

So I did schedule another visit for this Saturday.  Oh yeah...the eye of next?  He gave me some weird pills to take and I read the side of the box.  I'm pretty sure that was in there. ;)

Week 20: Back to square one

I can say that pretty much without a doubt week 20 was the lowest week for me so far of the 20.  Things seemed to be moving along well...I was running again without pain.  Building cycling miles, cycling speed, and loving the swim.  Then BOOM, the ankle pain returned again after a very slow 7 mile run on Sunday.  No pain at all during the run.  It was one of the best runs I have had in such a long time.  I was insanely happy as I ran the last 7 miles of one of my best friends in the entire world's marathon.  It was so much fun to support him in that way and to celebrate with him and my other friends aftewards.
But by Monday morning I knew something was wrong...and 5 days later, I'm starting to wonder if it's broken. In some ways this pain is more than it was the first time around.  So with my first 70.3 only 51 days away, I spent this week in a very low place.
OK-yes I admit I did ALL kinds of things wrong last year.  But I honestly thought I had corrected them and have been so happy lately that the IT band pain is almost 100% gone.  My hip pain is almost gone...my core is so strong and my general fitness improved.  My quads have grown probably an inch bigger around from all the cycling and although that isn't what I intended, at least they are providing me strength on the bike and the run.
But a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.  And the tendons along the inside of my left ankle weren't ready.  And now they are very angry. And I have no idea how to heal them or what to do except let them rest for awhile which means I will DNF my REV3.  I still want to swim and bike it.  I just won't run and walking isn't an option because it's too far and will probably irritate my leg.
I did spend the greater part of 4 days feeling very sorry for myself.  But I got it together last night and headed to the pool.  It's exactly what I needed to do.  To drown my sorrows in chlorinated pool water instead of alcohol. :)
And to develop, once again, a new plan of action for my future.  My friend, Zach, said his father in law goes to an acupunturist.  It's actually something I believe in..and believe it helps.  So I made an appointment for tomorrow to see if it can help me too.  I'll continue to work on my swim and my bike.  I MIGHT, and yes I said MIGHT, sign up for an aquabike"thon".
I love running.  It just does not LOVE me back right now.  One day it will again.  I can wait.

Week 19: 60 days until my first 70.3

So a big number hit me today.  My first half ironman distance race is 60 days away.  Until now, I've felt no pressure, no nerves, nothing.  And today is different.  I'm starting to feel it in the pit of my stomach.

Strangely enough I'm ready for what I thought I wouldn't be, and I'm not ready for what my strength was.  I'm sure I can comfortably swim 1.2 miles now.  I've done it several times without a break and it feels really good.  I'm also good with 56 miles on the bike.  I'm not going to say GREAT, just good.  I can do it.  I can do it if it's 40 degrees out and windy to the point of me screaming and cussing on the bike.  I can do it if it's hilly with cars flying by me or if it's super hot with broken up pavement.  Speaking of that, I haven't changed a flat yet so maybe I should practice that, right?

I'm only up to 5 miles now running and using the 10% rule, I'll be to about 11 miles by May 15.  Since I have run the 13.1 distance many times, I'm ok with coming up a little short in training.

What I'm NOT ready for is putting these 3 together.  Not yet ready I should say because I damn well will be on May 15.  I don't know HOW I'm going to get there...but I will be ready.  And there may be a little bit of "suck it up buttercup" in 60 days.  But I wouldn't have it any other way. ;)

Week 18: I love to swim

Swimming with an Olympian:

Last Saturday I had the honor to meet and be coached by Sheila Taormina who won a Gold Medal in the 1996 Olympics in the 200 Freestyle Relay.  Sometimes an elite athlete is an incredible athlete but not a good coach.  Sheila is both.  I wasn’t looking for an easy fix.  I was looking for someone to tell me what I was doing wrong and what Olympic swimmers do right.  Ok, you might think, Patti…there is a HUGE gap between you and an Olympic swimmer.  And of course I agree.  But they know something I don’t know that I want to know. 

I went to the clinic having read Sheila’s book: Call the Suit.  It’s a reference to a card game where you get to call the suit or let your opponent do it for you.  Sheila said she always calls the suit.  Never let your opponent do that for you.  In card games, in swimming, and in life.  It’s a valuable lesson that I’m ready to apply in my life.

I also went there knowing that my head position, my foot position, my breathing etc etc had little to do with why I wasn’t swimming well.  I knew that it was my pull but I just didn’t know how to fix it.  Or what it should look like.  OR more importantly, what it should FEEL like.  Because you can’t really look at yourself while you are swimming.  But if you discover what it “feels” like to be swimming with power, with force, with a feel for the water, then you know when you are off or when you are on. 

I spent last year in misery when I swam.  I hated every single Monday night practice.  I even wrote to a sports psychologist when I found myself CRYING on the pool deck after each practice.  I wanted to quit.  Triathlons were only slightly better because I was anonymous during the swim and people didn’t know me and there was always someone slower than me….and I knew if I could just hold out for the run, I’d be happy.

Then enters INJURY.  IT band issues, ankle issues, shin issues.  And by the end of last year, I wasn’t allowed to bike or run so I had to swim.  And so I began to let go of my frustration with swimming but I wasn’t any better at it.  Until that is, Maria Thrash of Dynamo videotaped me and gave me advice on what to do.  That was the beginning of me understanding what I was doing wrong.

Sheila’s instruction took it to a whole new level. I have only swam twice since her course on Saturday but I was smiling the entire time I was swimming.  Seriously SMILING.  Last night when I swam alone, I was humming and singing to myself while swimming I was so happy.  There were parts that felt like I had a tailwind like you have on a bike and instead of me pulling through the water, I was being pushed. 

You can ask my friend Jeannine, who I told last year that I was ready to quit triathlon, just how miserable I was.  I was going to do duathlons.  And I’m so happy I held on.  I can now feel better that I had to stop running.  So I could be a better swimmer.  And find something that I love to do so much.

Am I a ton faster?  No, I’m slightly faster.  But as Sheila says, and as I know in my heart, life happens in very small steps.  It’s happens when every single day you work towards a goal.  You don’t get to sit back, do nothing, and then take a huge leap.  And I’m excited that between now and November 5, I’ll get to take a lot of small steps.  In the end, they’ll add up to 2.4 miles of swimming.  And you can be certain, I’ll be smiling at the fish in the Gulf of Mexico while I’m taking them.