"It ain't how hard you hit; it's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward."Rocky Balboa (2006)
Rocky (Sylvester Stallone)
Thank you, Rocky. A perfect jumping off point for my last tri report of the season, though it wasn’t much of one. I had 10 events in my sights in early March, but due to
injury was only able to complete 3 of them. However, I podiumed in my age group in 2 of the 3, so . . . hey, that’s a happy fact I’ve got to keep tacked prominently on my mental bulletin board.
(Photo: 3rd AG Lake Minnetonka Tri hardware)
Having
taken all of July off from racing and the training schedule, I felt very out of sorts going into Turtleman. It seemed I had been out of the loop for a year, rather than a month. During that time, I thought about triathlon surprisingly little, other than to ponder whether my heart was really in it anymore. So sue me - 3 years of chronic injury will do that to a person. You may start out feeling like a warrior bent on victory; however, after hurting and being down for that long, the idea of waving that white flag from atop the injury battlements starts to appeal. But my plan over the last 4 weeks had been to lay low so I could hopefully make some progress on healing and participate at Turtleman, and by gum, I was gonna do it! (Battle cry here.)
Which did not stop me from minute-to-minute waffling in the week leading up to the race.
Amendment to battle plan: If - IF I finally received my new tri top from our AWOL Velo Bella clothing order before race day, I would
have to race. Of course Wednesday’s mail brought my new duds. (deep breath) Okay. Guess I’ve gotta do it.
Which again, didn’t stop me from waffling as I stood in line for over 30 min. at packet pickup the afternoon before the race. Yeah, but - no, but - yeah, but . . . hmmmmm. After much hemming and hawing, evening did find me performing the ritual Readying of Detritus in preparation for the event. Watching the opening Olympics ceremony was the perfect preamble. Breathtaking, awe-inspiring and, most importantly, distracting.
Swim: Water temperature reading FINALLY came in about 30 min before race start at 77.9 degrees. Guess they played Dunk the Thermometer until they found the deep hole in which our magic number was hiding. Wetsuit-legal, yea! For unknown reasons, really, my right pec/shoulder had been pissy and painful for a week, and my babying it made me unusually crappy at swimming a straight line. I was pulling harder with the non-pissy side, therefore needing to frequently correct resultant zig-zagging. Ugh, what a time-waster. The last half of the swim, my
SIJ surprised me by twinging a number of times. Crap, not already?! By the turnaround point, I’m usually really pushing my pace in to shore. Today, I just held steady while thinking, sheesh - I’m tired out here! Way too soon the water became overly shallow to keep swimming. I stood up and slogged through the muck foreeeever, ‘til finally hitting solid shore to run to T1.
Bike: Yaowch! Tempo and intensity totally not familiar to these legs anymore. No one passed me for aaaages except the younger, big-gun males, giving me a false - tho welcome - sense of buffness. Nice! I glanced down at my heart rate from time to time to find it 5-10 beats lower than I was accustomed to seeing. Weird. I pushed myself to keep going at a somewhat steady pace, while the effort felt in my legs had me worrying that I might leave too much on the bike course to have a decent run. Oh well. All too soon my injured side started sending me the not so subtle message of "HEYTHATSENOUGH!" Merde. Just before the 15 mile mark, I glanced over at someone passing me and - drat, a woman this time. Her age was no longer legible on her calf, but she looked like she might be in my age group (turned out to be the age group under mine). Oh, well. It was bound to happen sooner or later. Bubbye illusions of buffness. Thank you for taking this long to go *poof.* Heading up Hodgson Road to the park is one of my least favorite parts of the bike leg. A headwind from up the hillette is usually present to make things a bit more challenging. Today - hurray! - a whisper of tailwind. Passed several people going up the hill, and next thing I knew I was in the no-pedal zone, and heading down into transition.
Run: I had felt quite light-footed in the other tris this season, but apparently the month off from bricks had taken its toll. I felt slow, heavy and TIRED. Ack. 5.2 miles to go. I had run the distance once the week before to prove to my brain and body I could still do it, but it hadn’t felt good. Now coming off the bike . . . I found myself daydreaming about how happy I would be later, lying on the couch, drinking a celebratory beer in the A/C and watching the Olympics. I passed the first mile marker and glanced down at my watch. Erg, slower than I’d run all season. Mile 2 passed at the same pace. Well, I was running an even pace if not a zippy one. The sun was now out in full force, making for a cheery but hot course. I gave some guys with a spray hose the thumbs up and won a liberal frontal and rear-al soaking. Ahhhh. As usual, I was passed by lots of guys and more than a few women, running fast and light, as if they’d done nothing else all day. It was at once inspiring and depressing.
The miles passed much the same and I just hung on, again noting a much lower heart rate than usual. Wtf? Normally, this would inspire me to push harder but I was too uncomfortable to do anything about it. By now, my left pelvis was so far out of true that my left glute and leg were pretty much out of the game, leaving it to the right side to work twice as hard to take up the slack. I thought about laying down for a moment to try and get things back into place, but decided that the time lost doing that would be about the same as just trudging along as-is. Such is the non-logic of decisions made in the heat of battle.
After several decades, I hit the grass leading up to the finish line. In my relief to have made it that far, it never even occurred to me to see what I had for a kick in. I heard the announcer mention my name and some good finishes I’d had, which was nice. One volunteer took off my chip, another pointed me toward the fantastic cold multi-shower machine. I made a beeline for it - if a bee were to have a head injury, bum wing and heavy load of pollen.
Eventually, I staggered out of the shower - then went back again - then staggered out a final time to head toward the food. On the way I spotted the results printer thingie. I looked at my printout and stopped. What? Next to division place it said "2." No way. That can’t be right. At about that time, the hubby found me. I showed him my soggy printout, telling him it couldn’t be right. I’d have to come back and check the results in a little while. I wouldn’t believe it until I saw my name on the actual results sheets. But sure enough, when I checked back there was my name in the 2nd place spot. NO way. One more printout had to go up before I really would believe it. Next sheet went up and nothing had changed. I won second place in my age group!!! I had crawled up onto the freakin’ podium!! Absolutely surreal. (Hardware below - "commemorative cowbell" with a plaque-thingie on the back.
Stats: 2:13:57
2/23 AG; 42/288 female
AG: 3/23 swim (26:38); 1/23 bike (1:03:03/20.4 mph); 7/23 run (42:12/8:17 mi.)
A most happy ending for this non-season of triathlon. Going into the event, I wasn’t sure I wanted to keep on tri-ing; in fact I was pretty sure I didn’t. But having finished, finished well and
enjoyed it has renewed my desire to get back to being one solid, healthy piece again. Some days that seems possible, others it quite honestly doesn’t. But I’ll keep moving forward somehow. How? Well, as always, the answer to every one of life’s questions can be found at the movies:
“Where does the power come from to see the race to its end? From within.”Chariots of Fire (1981)
Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson)
Spycam, along with me and a few Bellas, went to a St. Paul Saints game last week. There's a real good-clean-fun and nostalgic feeling to these games, what with the silly goings-on between innings, wacky promotions, etc.
This was one of the greeters as we entered the stadium. After all, it was "Caps Off to Nurses Night," presented by the Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota. I pitied her - it was hot and humid. It's a miracle she didn't suffocate in that mask and keel over. Oi. Well, it would have been a good night to do so, what with all the healthcare folks about.
And this, this is Mudonna, the Material Swine. One of the mascots.
It pains me to have to tell you that this is none other than Boarack Ohama, the other Saints mascot. This hard-working pig's jobs are: Come to all St. Paul Saints baseball games and entertain the fans; carry baseballs out to the umpire between innings; and spread the St. Paul Saints message that “Fun is Good” wherever he/she goes.
Spycam has saved the best for last - a walking, talking, dancing urine sample cup.
