Totally busted up

Last year’s racing season was EPIC to say the least.  It will never occur again in my lifetime.  To start the year PR’ing at Boston Marathon, sandwich four half ironman races (including the World Championships) in the middle and end with the New York City Marathon in November, was exhilarating, unbelievable, utterly ridiculous, hard, fantastic and totally awesome on so many levels.

I only have random pictures and really no blog posts to show for it. Sorry, I was on my bike, or running or maybe in a lake.

I had a plan, a two year plan of how racing was suppose to go.  The plan I set out for myself has me signed up and heading to Ironman Canada in August. Not only to head there, but to work my way towards a Kona slot.  I decided after much deliberation that this race was my best shot.  I’m already signed up and my bike even has transportation to Canada.

But today, four months after the end of that amazing ride in 2011, I’m a bit of a physical wreck.  The entire left side of my body, hips down, is not working right.  I have a hamstring that never stops hurting and has no power, a pelvis that is utterly wonky, the back of my knee is so tight it feels like there is a tight wad of cotton stuck in the joint and my calf hurts when I run.  My PTs have me relegated to the pool, aqua jogging and swimming but only with a pull buoy (my arms are going to be so fierce) in hopes of keeping my pelvis in alignment for just one week.  Everyone thinks this all stems from my pelvis.

Being a person who likes control and who doesn’t like the fact that her two year plan is not going according to plan, I’m trying to remain calm.  It feels dire, unfixable, possibly impossible. If it IS possible, at what cost?  I can’t defer the race to next year.

While having a pity party earlier in the week I told my friend that this is a pretty hard fall from grace.  Her response, “Don’t worry, it’s going to be ok, you’re just on a grace hiatus.”

I think I’m going to try that on and see how it feels for a while…a Grace Hiatus.

Summer 2011: Day 46

Team Bitch Slayer

Originally uploaded by sellke

Jon, Nate and Becca take on the 70.3 for the first time.

I took on back to back 70.3 races.

We all made it through unscathed.

Congrats Team Bitch Slayer.

Racine Race Recap

For all of you just dying to know the details of last weekends race, here it is.

The swim:  I started right on the front line.  This can go one of two ways, you can get run over and smacked around or you can stay out of
the way if you are fast enough.  I’m just cocky (or stupid) enough to take the risk and it paid off.  I stayed away from the mosh pit and had a fairly easy non bumpy swim.  The one draw back for me in going off the front is that I then know how many people are ahead of me, I knew there were at least 8-10, this is where I become a head case, I need to let them go, not chase them down and just race according my race plan not try to hunt them down at this point.  My race plan was to just simply get into a good rhythm in the swim and at about 3/4 kick it in.  It was going to be too hot of a day to lay it all out in the water.

People were idiots getting out the water.  It was so clear and so shallow for so long that people stood up and ran through the water for waaaay too long.  I hadn’t hit my watch so I had no idea how my swim even went. I was tired but not spent so checked that leg off as good.  The run to T1 was a long way up a sandy beach and into the transition area.

The bike:
Hoped on my bike, legs felt a little tired from the start which is always normal for me.  My hope is that the feeling will just go away
after I start moving.  It did.  My goal was to avg 21 something.  I knew I had to catch some of the woman in my AG so I just hunkered down and looked for them.  The problem was I couldn’t find many.  The winds picked up depending on which way you were riding, head wind, cross wind then you had wind at your back and had to take as much free speed as you could.  There weren’t many hills and if there were they never really had a big down hill, which was a bummer for the way I bike.

My nutrition plan was going along just fine until I didn’t feel like eating anymore.  It was about mile 30 I started to get sick to my
stomach, I realized I wasn’t sweating anymore, I got chills up my legs and I didn’t have to pee (I usually pee 3 or 4 times at a 56 mile race).  I got passed by 3 woman in my AG, that just pissed me off.  I tried to stay with them, couldn’t, then just decided to stick to
my plan and my pace and came in right where I wanted to be time wise. I started stretching my legs out with 5 miles left and my quads
started cramping.  At that point, I knew the run was going to be hard.

The run:
I started running out of the shoot and my legs seized up.  My hamstrings and quads just locked up and I had a side stitch on my left
side.  I stopped all together and stretched and tried to remain calm. My first 3 miles where suppose to be 8’s and then 7:40’s for the last
10.  I was dragging my legs through mile one at 9:45’s.  Then the next 2 were at 9:30’s and I knew it was not going to get much better from there.  I never have ever thought about DNF-ing (did not finish) a race but at that point I knew it was over.  I knew there was no way I would have the legs to get top three, it was done, it was over, itwasn’t going to happen.  Why bother?

Mile 3 I decided to recalibrate my thinking, I was going to just run the best I could for the day and call crossing the finish line of this
one good enough.  I walked through every water stop and couldn’t take in enough fluids.  At this point I’m still feeling like I going to
throw up, I could get liquids down but if I even put an ice cube in my mouth I would gag.  I just kept running from water stop to water stop
and trying to fill back up what I was loosing every step of the way. The last three miles I picked it up, ummm not much, and then crossed
the finish line not even know how long it took me and not really caring.

That race was rough on all levels.

Di ended up taking 3rd in her AG!  We hung out for the awards ceremony and then waited for her to get her roll down slot to Vegas, she only needed it to roll down once.  They started calling my coaches AG for roll downs and it rolled down to him and he  got in.  I was still thinking there is no way that was going to roll down hill far enough…but it did, I started crying.  And then Di got her turn.

It has been a lot of hard work ALL YEAR to get to this spot and for all of us to somehow get to the World Championship 70.3 race in Vegas is crazy and awesome.

Summer 2011: Day 41

Racine at it’s best.

Summer 2011: Day 40

It is always so fun to be done! Nice work team. Racine 70.3, check it off the list.

Summer 2011: Day 39

Oh hell yeah…a birthday race number!!!

Woot woot!

Summer 2011: Day 38

Vicki, Di and I have made it to Milwaukee…cheers to that!

Di brought this and it is hang’n out on the dashboard.

# 614

And so it’s here…the big race of the season.

I am packing up to head to Racine later today. The race is Sunday. My wave kicks off at 7:30 am. My bib number is 614, that feels lucky!

I have spent a lot of time training, I’ve come a long way this season, maybe even more mentally than physically.

This race…it will be a fight, a fight for how badly I want to go to Vegas.  The planets, the training, the weather, may it all come into perfect alignment.

Of course there are people who think I’m crazy and in no way can attain my goal. To you, I hope to prove you wrong.

The hard work is done, now it’s time to put it all together and have some fun.

As my coach simply put it:  “YOU CAN DO THIS.  Believe in yourself.”

Summer 2011: Day 20

Started the day with the City of Lakes Tri Loppet!

Ended the day with KP’s last baseball game of the season and his best buddy Pete!

Summer 2011: Day 6

Liberty 1/2 Ironman Race

For how freaking hard I thought this race was, things turned out pretty well for me.

5 hours and 8 minutes after the gun went off, I took 1st in my age group, 3rd over all woman and 47th out of all the participants.

Sweet!