Life

May the 4th be with you!

Star Wars Day is fast approaching! Yes, that’s a thing.  In the movies, the Jedi say “May the Force be with You” to wish someone well.  So, May the 4th (get it), is Star Wars Day!  Being the Star Wars geeks that we are, we always acknowledge it, but it doesn’t go much further than that.  This year, however, it so happens that May 4th is the day I’m having my partial mastectomy.  Seems like all this should be happening in a galaxy far, far away, but unfortunately it’s happening right here in my little world.

When I started this blog, I really more intending it to be full of my goofy triathlon adventures.  I had searched the web when I started training and found a handful of blogs of people who were “regular” folks.  They had full time jobs, spouses and kids, and were training too.  Their stories were helpful and encouraging.  I wanted to provide the same thing for someone else out there, and I also wanted my kiddo to be able to go back and read about his mom’s struggles and triumphs.  I told myself that no matter what, I’d be honest.  Yes, I try to put a fun spin on some of my follies, but when I am scared of the swim, I am scared of the swim.  If it’s an embarrassing chafing story, so be it.  I never really gave it much thought until this whole situation came about.  This time, it’s hard to be honest.  It’s hard to be vulnerable to family and friends.  But, it’s part of my adventures, so here goes.

The last few weeks have royally sucked!  When we got back from NY (which was the best trip!), I knew I had about 30 days until surgery.  I told myself I was going to make the most of it.  I talked myself up so much, I was ready to crush each and every day.  I told myself I was back to clean eating, pumping iron and was going to swim even more than my coach prescribed in my training plan.  I was going to go into surgery feeling amazing.  A couple of weeks laid up, and I would be back at it.  No problem!  I was going to be one of those people who took something that sucked, and made the most of it.  I was going to be a badass!!!

It was a nice thought.  Sometimes what you want to be, and what you are, are two very different things.  We got back from the trip and I felt completely drained.  I chalked it up to travel exhaustion.  I gave myself the benefit of the doubt and slugged through my workout.  Dang.  I really wanted to crush that first one.  Oh well, there is always tomorrow.  At least, that is what I told myself.  The next day came, and I felt blah again.  Then the next, and so on for several days.  What is wrong with me?!  I could not figure it out.  I slept in some, thinking I needed rest.  I told myself it was ok to skip the workouts here and there.  Then, I would regret not doing them and end up slugging through them after work.  I got ready to go to the pool and I felt like I did years ago, when my mom had to pry me out of the bed to swim at summer camp.  I wanted to kick and scream and cry….I don’t want to go!  Sure, I have had days where I didn’t want to swim, but this was borderline ridiculous.  I decided not to go, but it didn’t really make me feel any better.

When the alarm went off, I was starting almost every day with this inner dialogue:  I’m going to get up and crush it today!  UGH What’s the point?  I don’t know,….there isn’t one.  I’m going to be laid up soon anyway.  Ok, I am sleeping in then…. and I’d sleep in.  I also wasn’t sure why it was affecting me so badly.  I was mad at myself.  I’d gained weight.  I’d already begun to lose fitness.  The inner dialogue would continue: Stop being a baby!  You should be grateful.  Stop whining.  This isn’t that big of a deal!  I know there are people out there far worse, why was I letting this affect me?  Then, half the time I’d end up doing the workout in the evening which made me feel a little better.  I felt like a crazy person.

The more I thought about it, the more I started to get to the bottom of things.  I was frustrated.  Part of me still has a hard time accepting that I even need this procedure.  I mean, they say I don’t have cancer, so why do I need to cut a big chunk out of my body?  I know it sounds crazy but it would have almost been easier to accept if I did.  At least a drastic move makes sense at that point, right?  I am conflicted.   One part of me wants to be this total badass.  I want to train hard, eat right and make every day before surgery the best it can be!  On the other hand, all I kept thinking was “why bother?”  Part of my problem was that I was trying too hard to be gracious about it.  I kept beating myself up for being upset because so many people have it so much worse than I do.  Truth be told, I was upset!  It sucks!  It took me a few weeks and several conversations with unbiased people to realize that I can feel both things.  Acknowledging that for me, this is really sucky, doesn’t take away from the fact that I am still grateful it isn’t worse.  As hard as that is, I have to try to accept that it’s ok to feel that way.

It didn’t totally fix things.  I had a couple great days and I’ve had a couple sucky days.  We went to Disney and I got to run with my kiddo in his first 10k!  The next day, I ran the Star Wars half marathon with my hubby.  Although it was painful due to a foot injury and big blister, I was still happy I did it.  I had a solid training plan going into a trail run I had planned for Sunday.  I planned to try my best to train hard over the last week, but got a bad cold.  I had to cancel dinner with a friend in an effort to try to rest and recover.  They won’t operate if I am sick, and the last thing I want to do is reschedule.  I’m just under a week away, doing my best to get over this cold.  I am trying to enjoy the good days, and find some good in the bad days.  As much as I don’t want it to affect me this way, it does, and all I can do is accept that.  I am starting to realize that every badass had to struggle at some point.  If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be badass, would they?  So, maybe after all this is over, I can try to come out the other side a little more badass than when I started.  Only time will tell.  I’ll post as soon as I can after the procedure and share what went down.  Until then, May the force (or 4th) be with you!

“There is good in everything, if only we look for it.” – Laura Ingles Wilder

Triathlon

Panic, Pause, Proceed

Last Sunday was the Las Olas triathlon.  I wasn’t sure how this one was going to go given the fact that I  missed some training days because of the biopsy and I was stressed out and just didn’t care about it.  The other variable was mother nature, which is never a guarantee anyway.  Last year, all seemed picture perfect until a storm rolled in.  It changed the tides, monsooned for at least an hour, thoroughly soaking all equipment and bystanders, and made for a really rough time.  This year was kind of a crap shoot.  A month before the race, the beaches were covered in Portuguese man of war jelly fish.  I had planned several weekends of open water practice, but the invasion of these pests put those plans off completely.  There was no way I was going in with the amount of them that I had seen out there.  A big nor’easter came into the east coast and brought with it a lot of rain and a change of wind direction.  Thankfully it cleared up the pest problem, but brought some nasty weather in with it.  I watched the beach conditions almost daily, hoping to see green flags.  They post a colored flag every morning to represent the conditions.  Green means you are good.  Yellow, it’s rough and Red it’s unsafe.  They also make a note if there are rip currents, etc. and will add a purple flag if there are pests, like the jelly fish.  The swim conditions were red, day after day.  No more jellies, but rip currents galore!  There was even talk online of the race having to cancel the swim.  Then, just about three or so days before the event, things calmed down and the flags started showing yellow again.  Well, yellow is better than red.

The morning of the race, things seemed pretty calm at first but as the hours passed the waves began to crash.  It was about ten minutes to start of the first group when they announced that the swim was being cut short for the international distance athletes because the conditions were just way too rough.  What about the sprint distance? I thought.  It didn’t exactly make sense to me, seeing as the international athletes are more likely to be experienced if they signed up for twice the distance and the poor sprint people (me) were less experienced.  Nonetheless, we sprint folks were doing our regular swim, apparently come hell or literal high water!  I was really concerned when I saw the elite group run out at full speed only to be sent back a few feet with every attempt to advance.  All I could do was watch and wait my turn and hope that it looked way worse than it was when you finally got in.

I made the decision before starting that I was going in wide and slow.  There were way too many people expending tons of energy for speed they didn’t get, once the waves hit.  I also saw way too many people start too narrow and have the current pull them too close to the buoy and they had to backtrack to not get disqualified.  The gun went off and I stuck to the plan.  I headed out wide and as calm as I could.  I was off to a great start until I got pounded by wave after wave.  I lost my bearings for a moment, swallowed a butt ton of water and thought to myself “what am I doing this for?”  I mean really, why was I even here?  Yes, I like training, I love it in fact, but I can honestly say I have never truly enjoyed a race.   I have smiled, yes.  I have felt great at parts of it, yes.  Finishing is always good.  Do I truly enjoy it the way I hear other people describe it? Nope.

I started to swim and then got hit some more, swallowed some more water and figured it was time to throw in the towel.  Then I slapped myself.  Not literally, the waves were doing that enough for me.  I just yelled at myself internally to stop being a wimp, and figure out the best course of action.  I reminded myself of how thankful I was to have the physical ability to do this.  To have the fortitude to even try being as fearful as I was, and to just stop panicking.  There was no way I was going to quit.  I took a deep breath, swallowed some more water and turned the first buoy.  I tried to swim but kept having to stop and gasp for air.  The lifeguard was shouting to everyone to swim breaststroke.  He said to keep your head up so you can see the waves and it was too choppy to swim freestyle.  Can it ever be too choppy to swim properly?  I didn’t know the answer to that, all I knew was it wasn’t working for me.  Maybe I was timing things wrong, maybe I just didn’t practice in the ocean enough (that was definitely part of it).  I took his advice, but turns out, I have no skills in breaststroke.  I decided to swim on my side so I could keep an eye out for the waves and the buoys.  I did flip to my back once to try to just calm my legs some because I knew I was kicking a lot more than I had planned and was getting pretty gassed.  I finally made it to the last buoy, but I was just shore side of it, and it is required to go around it.  I grabbed the buoy itself and used it to propel myself around it and head into shore.  I thought that the waves would carry me home, but every time I got two paces towards the shore, the ocean pulled me back what felt like three paces.  It was like being in a washing machine.  I swam hard to try to stop being pulled back in and finally made it to where I could stand.  I finally made it….and I wasn’t the last one out of the water!  I watched as big dudes fell over just as I did, trying to get out of the pull of the waves.  Everyone struggled.  I’m calling this one progress because I wasn’t the only one who struggled and I got myself to calm down and keep going.  Now, if only I could get my legs to move faster.  Transition was a long way away from the swim exit and I needed to get moving!

I got to my bike, kicked off the wetsuit and put on my cycling gear.  I grabbed my trusty steed and sprinted to the bike out area…. or maybe not.  I went the wrong way and had to turn around and go back the other direction.  Dang, there goes a fast transition time, along with my little energy burst.  I was already tired, but reminded myself to be grateful once again.  I hopped on the bike and got going.  I was headed north, into the headwind.  That sucked, but I knew there were several turns.  When we turned left I was really surprised to be greeted by yet another headwind.  What the heck?  How can the wind be coming from all friggin directions?  I don’t know if it really was, but that’s what it felt like.  I had brought some sports drink to replenish me, but found that it just burned my throat because of all the salt water and coughing.  The bike was challenging but I will admit, I did have fun.  I do love riding through the park there, surrounded by nature on mostly smooth roads that are blocked from traffic.  I wasn’t as fast or strong on the bike as I would have liked, but I made it and call it progress.  I did better on handling without getting panicked and passed more people than I ever recall passing in other races.  I got back to transition, dismounted and headed in to get ready for the run.

Running is my thing, but the run was difficult.  It was only a 5k, but I cooked up my legs some and realized about a mile in I was getting blisters.  Not sure if it was the wet shoes (it rained a little) or some residual sand, but it sucked!  There was also no wind.   Where did all that headwind go?  When I made the u-turn at the halfway point, there it was!  The cool breeze was magic for me!  I doused myself with water at the water station and soldiered on.  I tried to slow my pace a bit because the blisters were really killing me.  I’ve never had blisters before from running.  I’ve run in minimalist shoes, shoes that were too small, and soaking wet shoes for a 10k no less, and not a single blister.  First time for everything.  Much to my surprise, my time was a lot faster than I thought it was by feel.  I crossed the finish line, ecstatic to finally be done!

It was a bitter-sweet moment.  Darin and D2 had a scouting event, so they couldn’t attend.  I really loved being on my own in the morning.   I didn’t have to make them get up at an ungodly hour, or eat on the go like I did.  I didn’t have to worry about what conditions they were sitting in for several hours waiting on me. I didn’t have to worry about anything but getting myself going.  It was great, until the finish line.  I missed seeing their smiling faces, feeling their warm hugs and hearing their congratulations.

I took some time when I got home and showered, to reflect and try to figure things out.  Do I enjoy racing or not?  I really don’t, but I was not sure why.  I was really kind of excited for this race, up until the morning of the race.  Then, I wondered why the heck I was doing it.   Up until then, I pictured myself enjoying the whole thing, from start to finish.  The morning of, all I did was dread the start and question why I bothered.  It only got worse as I got closer to the start, but why?  If I had to narrow it down to one thing that keeps me from enjoying race day, it’s a lack of confidence.  I doubt myself and let my head get in the way.  I tell myself to go out and just have fun, but the truth is, I don’t want to have fun.  I want to kick butt!  I’m not talking about getting a podium spot (not that I would turn that down), but I want to finish a race feeling like I pushed myself hard and did everything I could.  I also want to feel like I did well.  The swim is still my weakest point.  How can a race start off well if you dread the first part of it?  I have lots of take-aways and things to work on, but I feel a renewed energy for it.  This time, I gave myself credit (new for me).  If that ocean was chill, I think I could have done the swim mostly correct, if not all of it and I did push pretty hard on the bike.  I think the issue is that I have yet to come out of the water feeling good.   So, until I do, I will keep signing up for races.  I will keep struggling, and I will keep pushing on.  One of these days, it’s going to happen and that is when I will truly know if I enjoy racing.  If I don’t at that point, fine, I don’t have to race to train, but something tells me I will enjoy the heck out of it when I do!