Not This Year - and I'm Okay With That

After much back and forth and weighing the pros and cons, I've decided that this year will not be my Ironman year after all. A number of things contributed to this decision: the first year of opening my practice full time and the time and energy that consumes, my off and on depression that has been so sporadic and unpredictable that I could never tell from one day to the next if I would have the energy and motivation to train, my lack of physical training due to the depression, and most of all not feeling mentally prepared for this long day.

My feelings about the long training days and the race itself have been so erratic that I wasn't sure or confident in how I would feel come race day. Would it be a good day, or a bad day? Would I ever feel confident in my abilities to do this, or would there forever be doubt? One day I would be on top of the world enjoying a nice ride or a good run, and the next I'd be dreading it - just counting down the miles or minutes to when I'd be finished. Maybe this is normal in Ironman training, I don't know. Even if it is I'm not equipped at this time to cope with it appropriately, and feel I need at least another year to build both my mental and physical stamina to conquer something as large as a 140.6 mile race.

When I signed up last October I had high hopes. Probably too high considering the only triathlon I had done in the prior three years had just taken place a month before; coming in the form of a sprint in which I placed second to last. And although placing near or at the back of the pack was never an issue for me (I've come in dead last in two Olympic tris and a 10k trail run), I don't think I was prepared for how mentally stressful and fatigued training for an Ironman can be.

If and when I decide to try my hand at the long course again, I want to be fully ready for it. I want it to be a fun experience - or, at least, not one that I dread. Someone said to me in the past few weeks, "I bet you're looking forward to October." I responded that I was only looking forward to it being over, and getting my life back. Little did I know, they were referring to my Destin vacation while I was referring to IMLOU. I don't want to have that kind of attitude going into it. I want to be able to enjoy myself and enjoy the process and appreciate the fact that I have the physical capabilities to complete such a great feat.

When I finally made the decision this past weekend to pull out, I was 10% sad and 90% relieved. This tells me that I've made the right decision for myself. In the meantime, I do plan to continue training. I've come a long way to just give it all up now, and want to keep what I've gained in order to complete a 70.3 or two next year. My goal is to continue to build my physical stamina and strength and to take things day by day in order to determine what the future holds. Will there be a 140.6 in my future, who knows. But before I make that decision again I plan to be as prepared as possible.

Rose Colored Glasses Indeed

I had my longest swim ever yesterday at 3500 meters (2.17 miles) in 1:37, which is good enough to meet the swim cutoff and then some, pending any catastrophes. Once again, I broke it up by 7x500 alternating with the pull buoy and without. Felt great, probably could have pushed it a little more, but I was trying to pace myself more than anything. Once again, it was more boring than difficult but I’ve decided that comes with the territory and it gives me time to think – possibly too much time to think – but with my newfound optimism it hasn’t been a bad thing.

This is why I was actually looking forward to today’s long bike ride. There was an 80 mile option to do with the Landsharks, but not knowing the route and not wanting to get dropped I opted to go it alone out on the IMLOU course. My plan was to start at 7:00, but I ended up lying in bed fully awake between the hours of 2:00 and 4:00 a.m. so I opted for a later start. Luckily, in terms of Kentucky summers, it was a somewhat mild day with lower humidity – although the sun was beating down from the start.

My plan was to start at Prospect Kroger and complete at least one loop, sans 1694. I didn’t mind going out alone because I planned to take it easy as I was contemplating a possible second loop depending on how I felt. Not only that, I’ve never taken it easy on this course before as I’ve always been so concerned with being left behind and keeping others’ waiting (although I’ve never heard anyone else complain of this), and I wanted to see what it felt like to ride without any self-enabled pressure.

My ride started out great. I headed up 42, passed 1694, and was enjoying the course immensely for the first time ever! Instead of thinking about how long of a ride I had ahead of me, the upcoming hills, and the mid-morning sun I was singing tunes in my head such as “Easy,” by Lionel Ritchie and Chumbwamba’s “Tubthumping.” When I turned onto 393 I made a mental note to re-count the number of hills and, sure enough, there are 8 total rather than 7 as I previously thought (#2 is the toughest, by the way, while #7 is the easiest). Why is this important you ask? Well, I’m a number’s girl. When faced with sports of the endurance type I find it helps my mental state to break things down. When running a half marathon I tell myself at mile 4 that I have “just a little over two more of what I just did,” left to go. For this course, knowing that 393 is 5 miles long isn’t enough – I needed to count the hills so that I could click them off in my head, one by one, knowing how much more in terms of incline I would have to endure before that sweet, sweet break on 146.

Something else that was new on today’s ride: I took notice of my surrounding and really paid attention to the beauty of the course. Not only that, but I stored a few mental notes on sections of the course that are a bit “easier.” For instance, the stretch of road between the first and second hills on 393 is a gorgeous, tree-lined, shaded area that offers a nice little break from both the sun and the ascents. And on 146, just before turning left onto Ballard School Road, there is a lovely downhill that allows a break from the constant peddling. It was nice to actually “experience,” the course rather than merely, “survive,” it as I had been doing.

By the time I stopped in Sligo I was feeling the effects of the heat, even though I made sure to continuously drink from the bottle I strapped between my aero bars as was previously suggested after last week’s dehydration fiasco. I took a small break at the corner store, grabbed a water, a bag of Frito’s (80% of which went to waste), and a 12 oz. Coke. At this point I had already consumed about 20 oz. of Infinit and probably 10 oz. of water, so I downed most of the Coke, refilled my aero bottle with some more Infinit I had on reserve, and replaced my warm bottle of water with this new chilled one - which I promptly drank from after ingesting a mouthful of Napalm. I met some guys who were finishing up their second loop, as I was still toying with whether or not I would go for another round. I figured I’d see how I felt once I got going again, and make a decision further down the road.

So here’s where that whole numbers game comes in again. 393 is approximately 10 miles from the store. 1694 another 3 miles, and River Road another 7 miles past that. That’s a long stretch without any turns when you’re looking forward to finishing up for the day so, I made a deal with myself to not look at the Garmin and instead enjoy the rest of the day for what it was – just a slow, peaceful journey with my thoughts and surroundings. My legs were still feeling okay for the most part, and thanks to the removal of the visor from my helmet a few weeks ago, my shoulders and neck weren’t in nearly as much discomfort as they had been on prior long rides. The songs continued to play in my head (“Rose Colored Glasses,” by John Conlee), and the miles continued to click away. Even the hills didn’t seem as bad as before on the trip back. Rather than telling myself, “I hate this,” I reminded my quads that the inclines only make me stronger, that the hills are part of the IMLOU package, and that I GET to do this!

As I got closer to the car I noticed that I still had 25 minutes left of my 4 hour ride to complete. I took a leisurely jaunt down some backroads off of River Road before making my way back to the parking lot for what turned out to be a 3:50 ride with 56.27 miles. The interesting thing is, although I took it easy on this ride I still came out with the same average (14.7mph) that I see on rides where I feel like I’m really pushing myself. Not only that, but my average heart rate stayed approximately 10 beats below what it normally does. This is actually great news because what it shows me is I can get the same outcome with less effort and hopefully feel better physically by the time the run comes around.

Even though I never got around to that second loop today, it’s still a mental hurdle that I want to achieve as my training continues. I have upcoming rides of 5 and 5.5 hours prior to the two century rides I signed up for taking place in mid-September, and I’d like to get up to 80ish miles at the very least prior to taking on those monsters.

Overall I’d say that this was the most decent ride I’ve had this training season, and I honestly believe that the reiki I had last week had a lot to do with it. It’s so nice to finally be in a place where I am ENJOYING the experience and the training rather than dreading it. I have another appointment with Kim this Wednesday for another session, and still being unfamiliar with how exactly this all works, I’m assuming we’ll re-evaluate where I am with everything and continue to do work on residual things we may have missed last week. Until then, I’m loving life on so many different levels right now, and look forward to seeing how far my body and mind can go.