I need to do a race report, and I will soon but first I felt that there are a lot of emotions that I wanted to wrap up so that the race report can be more focused on the race.
A little background on me, I was NEVER considered athletic, in fact I was down right scrawny throughout middle and high school. My siblings were both extremely athletic and used to physically remove me from situations if they found I was annoying. It was very powerful to be called an athlete and feel athletic as well to have my brother call and tell me that he was proud of me (then he called me crazy :0)
2012 I turned 30 and my best friend talked me into training for a half marathon and so started my fitness journey. I HATED the entire process and I knew I would never do another race ever again, but as we all know you should never say never. We did the diva half marathon in October and the minute I crossed that finish line I was hooked on the race endorphin high. I have never in all my other races hurt as much as I hurt after this first half marathon, I was sore for DAYS.
When the opportunity to start my tri journey presented itself I was worried and concerned about swimming as well as the bike but I decided that my 30s were a time to conquer fears. The first tri I signed up for was a half iron distance, 70.3 miles of swimming, biking and running perhaps not the recommended first distance but I like to really go for it when I sign up. Eventually my friend Jo convinced me to sign up for a mini tri so that I could get a feel for transitions and the tri experience.
September 2014 is when the journey to Ironman really started because I signed up for Chattanooga and I was wearing a walking boot unable to swim, bike, run or even walk very well. This is not the ideal situation and I don't recommend unless you are prepared to really throw yourself into training. The nerves really got to me at certain points because I felt I was missing valuable time to be improving my skills but trying to ensure I recovered properly from my stress fracture.
Doing an Ironman your second triathlon season is not something I recommend to the faint of heart. I am not a strong swimmer or biker and although my skills have greatly improved they caused some heartache during training about time cut offs. I got the option to upgrade my bike by winning a raffle in April and instead of going with a time trial (triathlon) bike I elected to go with a carbon road bike and add aero bars. This decision was smart because adapting to the carbon bike and aero bars was still difficult, the bike is much lighter and tends to be harder to control. I took two spills, including one only a month out from Chattanooga which really shook my confidence and limited my swimming.
Leading up to the race I felt very calm and settled because I knew I had put in the work and the day would be what it was but the training had already given me such a thrill. There were so many days I didn't want to cycle one more mile, the pool was the last place I wanted to be and towards to end all I wanted to do was sleep but I stuck with it. Just getting to the starting line of an Ironman, uninjured and ready to give it your all is an accomplishment and I was feeling very proud of myself.
Race day is about execution, following the plan and being able to adapt when things don't go to plan. Fitness only gets you so far which is actually a good thing for me! :)
Showing posts with label #happiness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #happiness. Show all posts
Saturday, October 3, 2015
Monday, February 2, 2015
Don't give up on a goal because of the time it will take, time passes anyway...
January 2015 is just a memory...are you happy with how the new year is going? Where do you stand with your goals?
I find it better to set small monthly goals rather than overall year goals at the start of the year. Breaking things into smaller portions makes you more likely to meet the challenges and remember it takes 21 days to build a routine!
January brought my new coach into my life which has started the path of consistent post foot saga workouts. I had my last round of biopuncture and have now started to see some promising results with the foot during swim and cycle work outs. The alter G has let me do some runs at up to 90% of my body weight and I wait to hear tomorrow that I can run on a regular treadmill. Progress is slow but consistent at least.
Recently I saw that some people were giving the year a word, sort of defining how they plan to look at the year. I have chosen patience because I believe it not only stands for my training but also my personal life. The title of this blog is a quote that has been on my mind a lot over the past years as I struggled with setting on a new path. The time will pass anyway, don't spend so much of your day looking so far into the future, live in the now where time is currently passing. Don't put something off because it requires too much effort or time because that time will pass anyway and you won't have an accomplishment to show.
It feels great to be getting to a point of "real" training and I can't wait, oh wait yes I can be patient to see the gains from training come slowly over the next months leading up to Big Sur which is my first race of the year. Sometimes we get so caught up in the future we don't enjoy the now enough and I'm going to try and be better. Racing tends to lead us to always look ahead to the next race but we need to recognize each work out and what it means to building us into athletes.
I set up nutrition tracking much to my chagrin but I wanted to at least track calories to make sure my training is fueled properly. I have started cooking my weekly meals again to make sure I'm not spending a lot of money to eat unhealthy food at lunch.
Here's to patience and my second word for the year, happiness. Patience with myself will lead to complete happiness. Patience with training and not rushing into things will make sure that my foot is fully healed. A wise man told me "in the scheme of 8 months, 2 weeks is a drop in the bucket".
What word describes your year? How can you set small goals to make that word a reality?
January Totals:
Swim: 9,801 meters
Bike: 43.46 miles
Run (AlterG): 7.16 miles
Total Miles: 56.71 (if my math is correct)
Total Workouts: 28
I find it better to set small monthly goals rather than overall year goals at the start of the year. Breaking things into smaller portions makes you more likely to meet the challenges and remember it takes 21 days to build a routine!
January brought my new coach into my life which has started the path of consistent post foot saga workouts. I had my last round of biopuncture and have now started to see some promising results with the foot during swim and cycle work outs. The alter G has let me do some runs at up to 90% of my body weight and I wait to hear tomorrow that I can run on a regular treadmill. Progress is slow but consistent at least.
Recently I saw that some people were giving the year a word, sort of defining how they plan to look at the year. I have chosen patience because I believe it not only stands for my training but also my personal life. The title of this blog is a quote that has been on my mind a lot over the past years as I struggled with setting on a new path. The time will pass anyway, don't spend so much of your day looking so far into the future, live in the now where time is currently passing. Don't put something off because it requires too much effort or time because that time will pass anyway and you won't have an accomplishment to show.
It feels great to be getting to a point of "real" training and I can't wait, oh wait yes I can be patient to see the gains from training come slowly over the next months leading up to Big Sur which is my first race of the year. Sometimes we get so caught up in the future we don't enjoy the now enough and I'm going to try and be better. Racing tends to lead us to always look ahead to the next race but we need to recognize each work out and what it means to building us into athletes.
I set up nutrition tracking much to my chagrin but I wanted to at least track calories to make sure my training is fueled properly. I have started cooking my weekly meals again to make sure I'm not spending a lot of money to eat unhealthy food at lunch.
Here's to patience and my second word for the year, happiness. Patience with myself will lead to complete happiness. Patience with training and not rushing into things will make sure that my foot is fully healed. A wise man told me "in the scheme of 8 months, 2 weeks is a drop in the bucket".
What word describes your year? How can you set small goals to make that word a reality?
January Totals:
Swim: 9,801 meters
Bike: 43.46 miles
Run (AlterG): 7.16 miles
Total Miles: 56.71 (if my math is correct)
Total Workouts: 28
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