Thursday, September 23, 2010

Closing the loop.

After my last post I was pretty fired up and ready to go. My how things change. There were times during the last 3 months where I considered deleting this blog entirely. However, since you are reading this it's evident I didn't which I think is a good thing.


Flashback to June. I just finished the weekend double and am feeling good. I still plan to do the full iron distance at Cedar Point and am ramping up my training. Then, Cameron ends up in the hospital for a week during which time I do NO training followed by another 7-10 days where I do very little. I am having serious doubts about whether I will be ready to do the full iron and more importantly whether I really even want to. Plus, the half iron at Musselman is quickly approaching. Panic.

I almost backed out of Musselman entirely. As late as the morning before, when I needed to get up at 5 to head to NY, I wasn't going to do it. I was tired, undertrained, heavy (I gained 8 pounds while Cam was sick), and angry. I turned off my alarm and declared I wasn't going. The burden of training for the full iron was actually demotivating me! Luckily Susan gave me some encouragement and I decided to head to NY to see how I could do in a half iron.

I drove to Geneva, did pre-race stuff, slept well, felt good on race day, and had a good swim and pretty good bike. Then, I quit. I didn't even really attempt the run. I ran about 1/2 mile then stopped and turned in my timing chip. And, it was all mental. I actually started planning to quit with about 5 miles left in the bike. As I mentioned I didn't really want to go to begin with, I was tired at the end of the bike, I wasn't looking forward to 13 miles in the heat and the hills (it's a tough run course), and the final straw was that my kids were leaving for camp the next day and I wouldn't see them for an entire month. At that point it didn't take much to get me to stop. I did the math in my head and decided if I skipped the run I would be home in time to eat dinner with them and spend the evening together. So, I quit. I stayed until Josh and Katie finished but was on the road 5 minutes later. And I don't regret it one bit!

Quitting Musselman, for whatever combo of reasons, was the best decision by far. It took a lot of pressure off me and made me realize that I didn't really want to do a full iron (at least not now). I decided to quit worrying about training and start exercising. I started to run regularly again, I added in some of the other cardio stuff I like to do, and I swam or biked whenever I found time. I also e-mailed the Rev3 folks and switched to the half iron distance for Cedar Point.

Over the next 6 weeks I lost the weight I had gained, got my legs under me for running again, and enjoyed myself. When the time came I headed to Cedar Point feeling good and actually looking forward to the race.

I am going to write a race report and for that I thank Josh. He just posted his and it's actually what motivated me to write this entry and to follow it up with at least one more. He also suggested that I might need to change the title of this blog. And while I don't imagine I'll ever want to train for a full ironman, I'm going to leave it up. You never know.....