Time To Recommit

It's been a long time....A very long time since I last blogged. I was at the end of a medical leave from work which lead to diagnosing my autoimmune disease, Palindromic Rheumatism, and it's taken a lot of time getting used to the changes I've had to make. I've had to come to terms with knowing my limits. Sometimes the limits weren't obvious to my until I would awaken at 3am on a race morning in searing pain knowing that I would only hurt myself if I actually raced. So many days of just being too exhausted to be able to finish a 2-3 hour workout, but still trying to get part of it in. 6 month later, I still hurt and I am still tired, but I know how to manage it. I've run marathons and half marathons and completed them. I've done triathlons and completed them. The key is knowing ahead of time what my limits are before I get in the car and drive to a race, and knowing how to avoid the pitfalls.

Along with the physical pain comes the mental strain as well. Feeling that I'm not good enough, wondering why the 4 cups of coffee aren't enough to wake me up some days, some days of mindless eating (which I never did before), and just feeling let down. Disappointing myself is so much worse for me than disappointing other people. When I have to cancel on someone else in all honestly there is no guilt about it. I am always honest and upfront why I canceled. I have a family, work, and sometimes the outcome of those things cannot be controlled. When I cancel on me, which lately has been more often than not, there's a lot of anger and resentment towards myself, and no one else. This is generally when I need to stop, reassess my goals and recommit to achieving them. I rarely go on the journey of a race alone, it's the journey of training to get to that race I do alone. I realize that I'm not very big on the group workouts for most of my training. I find it sometimes distracting and not really following the complicated schedule I now have to be able to finish an ultramarathon, back-to-back half Ironmans, and a full Ironman. I rather like the solo training. Let's face it when you race the only time you aren't truly alone is at the starting line and the finish line. In a marathon you do get word of encouragement, meet wonderful people along the way, but the goal is still to get to the finish as fast as possible and uninjured. In a triathlon, every second counts, and being comfortable being alone for 30-90 minutes during the swim, 2-7 hours on the bike and digging deep in the run carry an athlete so much further than one might think.

I am the world's laziest endurance athlete. I don't show up expecting to win my age group, but I also don't show up expecting to be in last place. I race for me, and nobody else. Wait, that's not entirely true. I race for me, and hope that I'm a great role model for my daughter. That one days she will say "my mommy races" and beam with pride. She doesn't care about the numbers. She doesn't care what amount of wattage I'm producing during a bike training session. She doesn't care about splits, elevation changes, or water conditions. What she cares about is that when mommy returns home she gets to add another medal to the growing collection on the doorknob to the coat closet in the foyer. I'm fortunate enough to have a partner in my life that also sacrifices so that I can train. He stays home with our daughter while I go out for a run, a swim, a training and nutrition session, when I leave at 3am for a race and don't return home until 3pm, to agree to travel to San Francisco twice in a 5 month span, go to Puerto Rico the first weekend of March Madness, to agree to not just spending 6 days in Canada's wine country for my Ironman race, but to do so with my parents and his parents and want to drop me at the race at 5am and potentially pick my up post race at midnight. It takes a village to be any type of athlete, and this is my village.

Tomorrow I'm going to wake up at 5am and drive to Bonelli Park in San Dimas for the Turkey Tri. 1/2 mile swim, 14 mile bike (that's really more like 16 miles) and a 4.5 mile run. When I leave my house it's probably going to be closer to 38 degrees. The water at the swim is bound to be below 60 degrees. It's hilly and will be bone chilling, but it's going to be a good time spent with friends from the Pasadena Tri Club. The rest of my week will then be focused on the upcoming North Face Endurance Challenge 50k on Dec. 4th. A 31 mile ultra marathon in the Golden Gate Recreational park just north of San Francisco. It's probably going to rain the entire time, it's going to be even colder, and it's going to be the biggest challenge I've faced racing. I'm going to go into the woods a runner, and I will emerge an ultramarathon runner. It's the beginning of what is going to be an epic year for me mentally, physically and emotionally and I'm happy to train for the ride solo, but finish surrounded by friends and family.