Ironman 70.3 Coeur d'Alene IN THE BOOKS!
Where do I even begin? I am still riding the wave of post-race euphoria at this point... I finished, and I finished strong!
Leading up to this race I had thoughts of a DNF plaguing me. Constantly. Of course now that the race is over and I finished, I laugh at that but it was truly a worry I had. It's easy in retrospect to wonder those things, but I had never put my body through anything this difficult before and had no idea how well it would withstand it.
Swim: 40:09
Bike: 3:43:47 (potty break included)
Run: 2:15:57
Overall time: 6:56:21
I will share more about the race itself later. I am just enjoying the satisfaction today of having finished the race so strong and so well. I am amazed at the human body and what it can withstand. How strong and resilient it is. Three years ago when I turned 26, I told myself that my late twenties were going to be better than my early twenties. I was tired of how unhealthy I felt, how slow and sluggish I felt. I started with 2-mile walks. That was all I could handle. Much has happened between now and then to get me where I am... but here I am three years later, 29 years old and swimming 1.2 miles, biking 56, and running 13.1! All in succession! The human body is incredible!
Today is a total recovery day. And I'm going to enjoy it.
Monday, June 27, 2016
Wednesday, June 22, 2016
Life has been sort of up and down these days.
I turned 29 last week. I was able to spend parts of it with three of my best friends. Brunch with Haley, three-hour FaceTime with Bela, and dinner and drinks with Julia. I am grateful for the people who made me feel special and loved.
But my birthday was also hard this year. I can't quite put my finger on why. I am not sad about growing older... I don't see the point in that. I see each year as a gift, one that is easily taken away in the blink of an eye. Getting older doesn't worry or scare me. And since I actually FEEL younger than I did just a few years ago, I really don't let age get to me anymore.
This year I just felt... lonely. The last twelve months have been a generally lonely time for me, and my birthday just kind of capped that off. I love Spokane. I love my friends here, and I love my job. But I am growing more and more weary of solo living with no family nearby. I'm beginning to wonder if soon it will be time to make a move to be closer to family. I have no intentions of going back to Florida, but even just to be a day's drive away would be nice. I'm not in any rush about it, but I won't be surprised if within the next year or so I am making plans to move.
I've been thinking a lot about the beginning of my time here in Spokane, and why I chose to stay here. Many of those reasons still hold true, but are not really enough to keep me here forever. Like I said, I'm not about to make drastic changes tomorrow, but life is certainly moving in that direction I believe.
In other news... only four more days until my Half Iron Man and I am freaking out!! This week is a major taper. At this point, I'm not stressing about my time because I feel like I've done all I can do to be ready. What will be is what will be. Simply making it to the start line is huge for me. Sixteen weeks of training for this has been one of the hardest things I've ever done. No matter how things go, I'm still proud of myself and how far I've come. The miles run, biked, and swam. Persevering through many difficult days of training... and most of it while working night shift. So no matter what... I've done as much as I can do and have not given up.
I turned 29 last week. I was able to spend parts of it with three of my best friends. Brunch with Haley, three-hour FaceTime with Bela, and dinner and drinks with Julia. I am grateful for the people who made me feel special and loved.
But my birthday was also hard this year. I can't quite put my finger on why. I am not sad about growing older... I don't see the point in that. I see each year as a gift, one that is easily taken away in the blink of an eye. Getting older doesn't worry or scare me. And since I actually FEEL younger than I did just a few years ago, I really don't let age get to me anymore.
This year I just felt... lonely. The last twelve months have been a generally lonely time for me, and my birthday just kind of capped that off. I love Spokane. I love my friends here, and I love my job. But I am growing more and more weary of solo living with no family nearby. I'm beginning to wonder if soon it will be time to make a move to be closer to family. I have no intentions of going back to Florida, but even just to be a day's drive away would be nice. I'm not in any rush about it, but I won't be surprised if within the next year or so I am making plans to move.
I've been thinking a lot about the beginning of my time here in Spokane, and why I chose to stay here. Many of those reasons still hold true, but are not really enough to keep me here forever. Like I said, I'm not about to make drastic changes tomorrow, but life is certainly moving in that direction I believe.
In other news... only four more days until my Half Iron Man and I am freaking out!! This week is a major taper. At this point, I'm not stressing about my time because I feel like I've done all I can do to be ready. What will be is what will be. Simply making it to the start line is huge for me. Sixteen weeks of training for this has been one of the hardest things I've ever done. No matter how things go, I'm still proud of myself and how far I've come. The miles run, biked, and swam. Persevering through many difficult days of training... and most of it while working night shift. So no matter what... I've done as much as I can do and have not given up.
Friday, June 10, 2016
We're closing in fast on my triathlon... only 16 days to go! Motivation ebbs and flows these days, which I am pretty sure is normal. I have a hard time getting in some of my shorter workouts, (but I'm doing them!) because I am just so ready to be done with this training plan and have my life back. I have no intentions of quitting running when I am done, but I think I will probably put my bike away for at least a few weeks. But I don't know. I think going on a bike ride as part of cross-training (instead of always pushing to be a little faster or grinding up those hills until I can't breathe) is going to be much more enjoyable than what I have been doing.
All in all, training is actually going pretty well. I talked in my last post about my hope for a break-through with the bike. I can't actually say I had a break-through, but I felt stronger on my 60-miler yesterday than I have on any other long bike ride so far. I think part of it is that I haven't let myself skip any of my shorter bike workouts for a couple of weeks, and sometimes it was easy to let those ones fall to the wayside (usually on work days-- sometimes sleep is as important as training). So yesterday I biked 60 miles. I think for the first time I actually felt like a cyclist out on the roads. I felt very comfortable in aero, speeding down the hills was effortless (for the most part... sometimes I still have to slow down a little), and I rode out in traffic like a pro.
The ride didn't start that way, however. So Spokane has this awesome bike trail called the Centennial Trail. I'm not sure how far out it goes, but it's at least 60 or 70 miles long, sometimes designated as a bike/running trail only, and connected by roads at other parts until you get to the next portion of the trail. For instance, probably ten or so miles of yesterday's ride was out on the roads in traffic, although still on the Centennial Trail.
So anyway, in the first mile-- actually, the first half mile of my ride, as I started going up a hill, upon changing gears (using the left/front derailleur... I know better and don't know what I was thinking looking back on it) the chain slipped. And of course instead of just unclipping my shoes right away and stopping, the fight-or-flight took over and I started pedaling furiously as if that was going to make any difference. Once my logical side kicked in I knew I needed to unclip, but by this time my bike had pretty much come to a stand-still and next thing I knew I was falling over. Thankfully I just walked away with a bruised and scraped elbow, but I was so mad I almost turned around and decided to just put off the ride until today. I didn't, and ended up having a great ride! It's funny how something so simple as a fall made me want to quit in that moment. I think just being irritated and then the prospect of SIXTY DAMN MILES to go just made me feel very frustrated.
As far as the new day shift life goes... it is AMAZING! I can't believe the difference I feel. I've transitioned so easily to it. I have been asleep by nine almost every night, I don't generally sleep in, and I just feel great overall. It is weird to get to about 7:30-8:00 in the evening and realize hey, it's time to start settling in. I've created somewhat of a bedtime routine, which is nice. Coming home from work and going to sleep easily and STAYING asleep is just so wonderful. Incredible what sleep can do for one's quality of life. Especially for my recovery between workouts. So much of muscle recovery happens when you sleep. I was losing out on a lot of that because my sleep was so erratic and short.
Anyway, I feel I have written a novel here, but since I haven't kept up well with my once a week posts, I had some ground to make up for! Happy Thursday!
All in all, training is actually going pretty well. I talked in my last post about my hope for a break-through with the bike. I can't actually say I had a break-through, but I felt stronger on my 60-miler yesterday than I have on any other long bike ride so far. I think part of it is that I haven't let myself skip any of my shorter bike workouts for a couple of weeks, and sometimes it was easy to let those ones fall to the wayside (usually on work days-- sometimes sleep is as important as training). So yesterday I biked 60 miles. I think for the first time I actually felt like a cyclist out on the roads. I felt very comfortable in aero, speeding down the hills was effortless (for the most part... sometimes I still have to slow down a little), and I rode out in traffic like a pro.
The ride didn't start that way, however. So Spokane has this awesome bike trail called the Centennial Trail. I'm not sure how far out it goes, but it's at least 60 or 70 miles long, sometimes designated as a bike/running trail only, and connected by roads at other parts until you get to the next portion of the trail. For instance, probably ten or so miles of yesterday's ride was out on the roads in traffic, although still on the Centennial Trail.
So anyway, in the first mile-- actually, the first half mile of my ride, as I started going up a hill, upon changing gears (using the left/front derailleur... I know better and don't know what I was thinking looking back on it) the chain slipped. And of course instead of just unclipping my shoes right away and stopping, the fight-or-flight took over and I started pedaling furiously as if that was going to make any difference. Once my logical side kicked in I knew I needed to unclip, but by this time my bike had pretty much come to a stand-still and next thing I knew I was falling over. Thankfully I just walked away with a bruised and scraped elbow, but I was so mad I almost turned around and decided to just put off the ride until today. I didn't, and ended up having a great ride! It's funny how something so simple as a fall made me want to quit in that moment. I think just being irritated and then the prospect of SIXTY DAMN MILES to go just made me feel very frustrated.
As far as the new day shift life goes... it is AMAZING! I can't believe the difference I feel. I've transitioned so easily to it. I have been asleep by nine almost every night, I don't generally sleep in, and I just feel great overall. It is weird to get to about 7:30-8:00 in the evening and realize hey, it's time to start settling in. I've created somewhat of a bedtime routine, which is nice. Coming home from work and going to sleep easily and STAYING asleep is just so wonderful. Incredible what sleep can do for one's quality of life. Especially for my recovery between workouts. So much of muscle recovery happens when you sleep. I was losing out on a lot of that because my sleep was so erratic and short.
Anyway, I feel I have written a novel here, but since I haven't kept up well with my once a week posts, I had some ground to make up for! Happy Thursday!
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