Why Did I Even Sign Up?

Back when I did IMLT in 2013 I had a shoulder injury. I knew after that race I would have to have something done to fix it but I didn't know what that might be. I had spent the year of training trying to figure out what was wrong. I had been to SO MANY doctors, physical therapists, massage therapists, a chiropractor and wound up at the pain clinic getting injections to fight the pain. After the second visit there I decided that was NOT the place I wanted to be...

After the race was over I went down to Andrew's Sports Medicine in Birmingham and started at square one with them...initial consultation, PT, return visit, more PT...and then when I went for a guided injection they FINALLY found that I had a completely shredded biceps tendon. A very short time later they removed it completely! (There are 2 biceps tendons-a long and a short head...I'm 99% sure it was the long head they removed.) Rehab took about 6 months to really get back to mostly normal, and another 6 months to get all the way back. During that year I focused more on running and completed the Huntsville Grand Slam (Dizzy 50k, Rocket City Marathon, Recover from the Holidays 50k and Mountain Mist (I can't seem to find race recaps of Recover or RCM....I think that's because I ran with a pregnant friend who had not told anyone she was pregnant so I kept very quiet about the races since how I ran them was VERY guided by running with her!)

After those races were over I set my sights on IMChoo (2015). I was coaching a lot of adults and that summer I had a full team of kids. Looking back I think the symptoms of brain disease were already creeping in but I didn't see them.

My plan was to do an Ironman every other year. I wanted to do Louisville or Arizona in 2017 and the other in 2019. But my plans got totally derailed....

In 2017 my husband, brother-in-law and I did a relay at IM70.3 Augusta. We all signed up for the Chatty 70.3 that was going to take place in May of 2018. I don't remember why by BIL didn't race, but not only did Dwayne and I start directing the Rocket City Marathon, we were also both injured just before the race.  

I think truth be told, my fitness just wasn't coming back like I had hoped it would. Every time I started working even the slightest bit hard I had a bit of a flare of symptoms (the biggest of which was crippling fatigue). 

In July 2019 we pulled the trigger to race in 2020...but we all know what happened in March of 2020. I knew that race wasn't going to happen so I really stopped training. 

Then I had a very personal (and private) tragedy hit in May of 2020 that shook me to the very depths of despair. In the midst of the Covid shutdown I felt like life as I knew it was going to be over.

Slowly but surely I began to heal. 

We were all deferred from Chatty 70.3 to Augusta 70.3 in August but, again, I knew that race wasn't going to happen so I didn't train. When that one was cancelled we were deferred to Chatty 2021. In December Covid numbers spiked. Once again I knew that race wouldn't happen so I didn't train.

But then in like early May it became obvious it WAS going to happen after all...by then it was too late to train! One month earlier I started eating "functional food". (The Functional Food Center defines this as: “Natural or processed foods that contain biologically-active compounds; which, in defined, effective, non-toxic amounts, provide a clinically proven and documented health benefit utilizing specific biomarkers, to promote optimal health and reduce the risk of chronic/viral diseases and manage their symptoms." (The food I was consuming was whole food in a capsule.)

I fairly immediately started feeling better. My iron (which had been low enough that I had gotten 3 infusions in the previous couple of years) actually went UP for the first time. I was sleeping well and feeling great. So I decided I would just start the race and see what happened...

On NO training, I finished. It wasn't pretty but it was within the cutoff time! That experience emboldened me. But following that race, I was (once again) up and down with fitness...then we went to Colorado Springs for 6 weeks. Just before we left I needed another iron infusion. While we were there I tried to build up my running miles because we were signed up for the Boston Marathon (I was doing the virtual on the course, Dwayne was doing the real race)...it was held in October last year due to a postponement from Covid.

Shockingly, with my longest run being about 13 miles I finished in my best marathon time since before the brain disease!!

With that success in my back pocket, I signed up for the Little Rock Marathon the following spring. But, thanks to VERY bad information at the pre-race early start meeting, I ended up DNFing.

Fueled by a DNF fire, I started swimming again consistently in April of 2022 thinking I would sign up for another 70.3 but I wasn't sure which one. Then I started running more consistently. 

And my fitness FINALLY seemed like it was going to catch on! 

Several friends were headed to Memphis for the 70.3 so in May I decided to pull the trigger and sign up...and actually TRAIN.

See, I don't like to let adversity stop me. I don't like to let circumstances stop me. I believe completely God created me for endurance sport. I LOVE it. I love everything about it. I don't always love training because sometimes that is hard. And I have been very scared of flaring up the brain disease...I NEVER want to go back to that again and I NEVER want to have to be back on steroids again. Until the day God impresses upon me to stop I will keep running the race set before me with endurance so as to win the prize.

I keep pressing, even if I end up falling a bit behind with each step...hoping eventually my efforts will result in forward progress!

This is why I have already signed up for IMChoo 144.6 in September 2023. Ten years after my first full IM I will (God willing) complete my third.

Memphis 70.3 race recap coming up....