What Just Happened

 I remember my first and only real car wreck. I was taking my kids to see Pocahontas. It was a Monday. We'd all been in a bit of a funk all day. My husband had gone to work at the Sherrif's department (as a dispatcher). We got to the end of our road and my not-quite 3 year old son told me to turn left! Grandma's house was left, the movie theater was right. I remember being in shock that he knew "left". I told him we were turning right to go to the movies. As we were driving it started to rain, REALLY HARD. The road went down a hill and curved to the right, but my car wasn't turning to the right...we were going basically straight...and headed straight toward an 18 wheeler coming the opposite direction! I remember saying "oh no oh no oh no" and then CRASH. That was 26 years ago. I can still hardly believe it happened the way it did.

I think Sunday's race will be like that for me as well.

If you had asked me a couple of months ago if I was going to toe the start line I would have told you I didn't think I would. I have been battling exhaustion and NO POWER. At that time I hadn't been able to swim more than 1000 yards, all with fins, broken up into 50 or 100 yard intervals and all of them VERY slow. I haven't been on my real bike AT ALL in I don't even know how long. (I just looked at my data-it was March 3rd and it was a 45 minute trainer ride.) I had not been running much at all, and no more than a few miles at at time (walk/run). If I were coaching me I would have told me it wasn't a good idea for me to attempt at 70.3 with my lack of training and preparation. 

But I knew I wouldn't push to the point of risking injury. I believed the worst that could happen would be a DNF. That would be bad, but maybe not as bad as the feeling of giving up on myself before I even started! A couple of months ago I wasn't sure.

But then in the middle of March I started eating Juice Plus. After about a week I seemed to have AMAZING energy. I didn't capitalize on that energy for training because I still wasn't sure I would attempt the race I had signed up for about 18 months ago. I used that newfound energy to work in my yard every day, still not knowing if I would toe the line. 

I noticed that my swims got a little better, my runs got a little better and my Spin class power got a little (or a lot) better, but I didn't have time to "train" so I still wasn't sure if I would attempt the race. I've never experienced a DNF but I've seen what it has done to friends. At the same time, it's not like I had been giving all I have to training so if I didn't finish then I would say "well, of course I didn't finish...that's what happens when you don't train!"

So I pulled the trigger and put it out there that I was absolutely going to at least start the race and see what happened. I don't remember ever being THAT nervous before a race. It wasn't so much that I wouldn't finish...I was afraid that I would get hurt. More than that I was afraid that I would give up. But I wouldn't know unless I tried.

I was incredibly thankful to have friends and family with me for the whole thing-pre-race, race day and afterward. I was just as thankful for all the friends and family who wished me well on Facebook and via direct messages.

I'm still processing all that happened before and during the race, and working through all of it will take a little while (and several blog posts!) but, unlike the way I felt after my car wreck, I feel AMAZING today! Yesterday (the day after the race) I didn't even physically feel like I did a hard thing, other than 2 blisters on the bottom of my right foot. Today my shins are just a TAD sore.

Oh...and I can't even begin to process my brother-in-law finishing his first 70.3 in just over 7 hours on almost no training at all! (He's a BEAST on the bike but he had COVID several months ago and had some lingering cardiac symptoms from it. He had done two short practice swims in open water but this was his first triathlon. Did I mention he has really bad knees? And my husband was only about 2 minutes behind--and ran the last couple of miles at like a 9:00 pace! (He did train, but NOT the way I would have coached him!)

We all finished. I'm not in shock they finished. They are both VERY strong. Like I said, my BIL is a BEAST on the bike and my husband trained. I am in shock that I finished and within the cutoff time!

I'll break it all down in the coming days. Thanks for stopping in and sticking around!