Confessions of a Triathlete: The Pandemic Edition

Welcome to the Pandemic zone.  As we all know, the past week or so has been crazier than anything I could even dream up to write.  Obviously, like much of the world, my life has been in a constant state of upheaval for the last two weeks - there's no school, my husband is out of work, all the races are cancelled, and we look out the windows with a sense of trepidation...and at our news outlets with the "Alright, WTF we doin' now" sense of disbelief.

It's been unreal.  Welcome to COVID-19.  While I am in no way, shape or form, fit to give anyone advice on how to make it through this time, I've learned a few things along the way about living for the moment, appreciating the small things, and taking deep breaths.  We could get into a great discussion about that.  But it wouldn't really be my style, would it?

One of the things I really am grateful for is the ability to run and bike and swim.  Aside from the fact that all pools closed as of Saturday and I'm not (quite) nuts enough to jump into the lake, I am still in full swing biking (indoors) and running (outdoors, as long as they let me!). I'll be honest...last week I had a few days of WTF am I doing out here, as all of my 2020 races are uncertain.  What am I training for??  Then I realized how damned much I love what I do, and rather than training for an event, I was Training for LIFE.

 I went on a gorgeous 14 mile run yesterday, and in the sunshiney goodness, I spent a few glorious hours reflecting and thinking about how darned lucky I am.  And I also realized....it's gonna be okay.  I'm gonna be okay.  I'm sure you all will be as well, but I have to be honest here, as a triathlete, I have a set of very specific skills that make me a primo candidate for pandemic survival.  It's just science.*

You know what it's time for....some good ole confessions!  It's been a long time since I've posted a confessions blog, so in case you forgot (what a dork I am) here are a few goodies:

Confessions from an Ironman Mommy (Then vs. now)

Confessions of a Triathlete with a baby!

Confessions of a (Very) Pregnant Triathlete

And now, it's time for Confessions of a Triathlete: The Pandemic Edition

I posit that MOST triathletes are well equipped for Pandemic Survival.  Here's why:

1. We Social Distance EXTREMELY well:  You all know I'm an introvert.  I can happily not talk to anyone for days.  Honestly, this is true for most triathletes (as far as the ones that I know!)  We ride for 4-6 hours at a time, solo, lost in the middle of desolate roads, usually with very few cars even passing by.  We spend hours in the basement, riding a bike trainer, ALONE, and NOT GOING ANYWHERE.  We disappear for two plus hour long runs without a word to anyone.  We log solo miles on the hampster wheel treadmill.  When forced, we also spend hours at the pool, where its pretty much impossible to talk to anyone during a 10x200 set on the 3:10 send off (I've tried.  It doesn't end well).  Social distancing for us is....uh...normal life.

2.  Our Sport Mandates that we go at it alone for the largest portion of the race.  During a triathlon, we can swim right on top of each other (though most athletes really don't get into deep conversations while jockeying for space in a small lake), we can run together (albiet by the run *most* of us don't care to really carry on conversation (I do.  But I'm weird.  You knew that)), but the longest portion of our race is the bike leg, which, according to triathlon rules, you must keep 12 meters of space between your bike and another athletes bike unless passing them (which you must do within 25 seconds).  So, for an Ironman bike of 112 miles, we practice excellent social distancing for 5 plus hours at a time.  We have plenty of practice to prevent the spread of this virus!

3.  In general, we really don't like the swim anyways.  One of the first steps taken during this outbreak was the closure of all gyms...aka....pools.  Triathletes were sad about this for maybe 30 seconds until we realized that most triathletes suck at swimming and are, in fact, horrible swimmers to begin with.  This provides a great excuse to escape the most hated discipline of the sport and focus on the other two that we actually do prefer to do....bring on the biking and running....sorry coach, I really CANT swim!!
 (Note:  I actually miss the hell out of the pool.  I'll turn in my triathlete card now.)  
(Note 2:  Out of the three sports, I prefer the bike the least.  This pandemic has given me no absolutely no excuse to opt out of that one...in fact...I'm now biking six days a week. Whoops.  So much for #3).  

4.  As runners, we figured out the "No TP" thing a long time ago.  It's a matter of fact.  When you run, your mid section gets....um...jostled.  Especially when you run fast...or long...or both.  Every runner has a story of a long run potty stop gone wrong.  (Mine just happens to be better than most, as it involved using Poison Ivy as TP.  Note: I DO NOT recommend this).  Either way, we have all popped a squat or used leaves as emergency TP (even if most people are, um, smarter than me with their choice of leaves).  Lack of TP does not stop us.  I should mention at this point that most of us a pretty gross anyways and lack any sense of normal human decency like wearing real clothes or showering at regular intervals.  I do feel sorry for our significant others (but that's another story entirely).

5.  We are Highly Equipped for this whole "Work from Home" thing.  We basically hate pants.  We have no fashion sense.  Most of our wardrobe consists of race shirts, anyways.  With the lack of expectation to go to an actual office, we can justify wearing our workout clothes 24/7.  Showers optional (see above for the whole "pretty gross" reference.). 90% of my work wardrobe consists of running shorts, a sports bra, and some marathon shirt from 2011.  Why do you think they call me "Pants"?  (That's um....actually another story too. But now's not the time for that).

6.  We can live off of food that expires in 2033.  Our entire diet basically consists of sports drink, Gu's, and other pre packaged "Sports beans....gummies..." etc., AKA simple sugar digestibles that last forever.  We can subsist off of these...um...culinary delights for up to 17 hours at a time for an ultra, and of course, use them judiciously in training sessions so that we can prep our stomachs for racing.  Clearly, we also have a highly developed palate.  Or...not.  But we can certainly survive off of whatever scraps the masses have left behind at Wegmans.  I'm also not afraid to eat the powerbar from 2011 I found at the bottom of my tri bag. True Story.  I'm not that bright.  You also knew that.

7.  When we F*ck Up Social Distancing, at least its only with Avatars.  Right now, our state is on lock down and you MUST exercise alone.  I did a great social distancing run in the snow and sleet this morning.  Seriously, not a soul out.  Score.  My husband (who really is smarter) decided to stay warm and get his workout in indoors on the bike trainer.  Let's just say that these guys on Zwift....don't follow social distancing well.  At all.  Look at those avatars.  Riding right next to each other without a care in the world. At least the Corona doesn't spread virtually.  Yet.  (Oh no...).

Aside from all the jokes, I hope everyone is doing as well as can be right now.  It's been a tough time and at our home, we are dealing with it with a ton of togetherness, understanding, deep breaths, laughs, and as much snuggling as we can (we live together.  It's ok).  We also really are practicing social distancing and following the guidelines set out by the CDC and NYS as they come out.  We will all get through this together (separately, in our own homes) and I am here (virtually) if anyone needs to chat, vent, or a bad meme to get them through this (I'm really good at the last one.  Please pick that one. )

Stay safe!

*Note:  All "Confessions" posts are meant to be tongue in cheek.  Iswear I'm not this big of a jerk in real life.

**Though....to be fair.....you'll have to take my word on that for a pretty long time #socialdistancing

Step One: Base Building

So, I'd like to personally thank you if you made it through that last post.  Seriously.  I owe you one.  That post was nothing more than the transition to write the post I really wanted to (this one).  Somehow the whole move from Sunrise to Webster felt unfinished in blog format, so a bit more navel gazing and boring life rambling was in order (as if my posts are ever any different. But I digress.).

Moving on....it would seem I have somehow promised some good stuff to come, and here we go!  (The pressure.  It's on).

Over the past few weeks, my life has somewhat settled down from the mess I created in 2019.  The whole process of our move really threw a wrench in all my fine tuned plans with respect to how I had laid out my short and long term goals, and I walked away with a lot of anxiety, plenty of unhealthy coping mechanisms, and in the midst of (finally) working through some reflection, a few preliminary conclusions.

I'm far from any real conclusions, but it seems rife for some blogging, as I am sure that many of you have gone through the same things.  I remember last year at this time, looking at everything I wanted out of 2019 and just going for it.  I also remember being inordinately pleased with myself through all the perseverance, hard work, and results.

Boy, have I been humbled this year.  I look back at 2019 and realize that all the goals and dreams I had might have been big and scary in my estimation at the time, but they all had one thing in common - they were within my control.

This year, so far, has been filled with things that no matter how hard I try to work through, are completely beyond my control.  And I found that when I can't make a plan, organize a way to overcome something, and just go for it, that I spiral into a pit of anxiety that makes it difficult to accomplish anything - I let it affect me physically, mentally and emotionally.

The past few months of training have been dismal (note: not everyone agrees with my assessment on this, but, my body, my call here).  I finished last years season in high spirits about everything.  Do ALL the races.  Have ALL the PR's.   I signed up for a spring marathon to BQ, an early summer 70.3 to PR, a summer Ironman to PR, and a fall 70.3 to break 5 hours (hey, remember when I doubted breaking six)?

Slow down, killer.  Riding off of the high of 2019 that was filled with amazing new friends, training buddies, awesome PR's, an insane amount of fun, and bad life decisions that easily made it the best year I've had in decades - I was totally unstoppable.

Not only did I forget that race season is cyclical, so is life.  And that there is a natural order of ups and downs that happen in every aspect of it.  I went from a super high filled with all of the fun things - outside fun time weather, get togethers every single weekend, killing it at all the races, and feeling so full of spirit with my whole life - to....reality.  Or, actually, less than reality. Cause the higher the highs...the lower the lows, right??

My buddies went to work double shifts.  Stopped visiting every weekend for races and debauchery.  I got caught up in over time and busy season at work. Our text threads about racing came to a halt.  It got cold. Life got stressful.  I started to internalize everything that was happening in my life that I couldn't "fix" and had daily anxiety bouts.  My former way of coping with life - to go for a run - somehow didn't fix things.  It was no longer a release.  It was somehow only an addition to my anxiety - my heart rate soaring, breathing difficult, and every single run akin to race effort (even when running "easy pace"), culminating in some runs where I would be holding a 9 minute mile, gasping for breath, with my HR way above race pace.

I got slower in the pool.  My bike remained stagnant, mayyybee slightly improving, but I think that has more to do with being stubborn than anything else - it all hurt, but since the bike is my kryptonite, it served as a small piece of salvation to my 2020 "vision"  in a training world of shambles.

Thank God for the support of my crew, or I might have tanked totally.  With a great combination of tough love, daily check ins, and the unfailing support of my friends and family with the array of my bullshit, I might have totally thrown in the towel and cried into my bowl of cheetos.  (Well, I did that a few times.  See the prior sentence about how damned lucky I am to have such a great support crew).

I did a few intelligent things here.  I dropped the idea of a BQ from my Spring marathon. I then dropped the Spring marathon to a half marathon, as I realized the big goal for 2020 was triathlon, NOT BQing.  I took a few days off from running (that has everything to do with the fact that my coach has a level head.  At least I had the brains to hire him).  And I closed my eyes to my HR on my runs and tried so very hard to listen to my body.

Last week, I finally climbed out of the hole and had a string of good workouts.  Success!!

And I'll take it.  The moral of the story here is....base building.  The every day background work of the off season - whether its a get down to work in terms of life (moving, setting up a life in a new area, getting back into a "routine") or the base building coming off of an off-season to prep for the big dance of a new season of racing. It's all necessary work, though its really tough to wrap your head around it.

Base building is the work that happens behind the scenes.  It's the daily grind of skill building, creating a sustainable base  of strength and fitness (yeah, there has to be a better word, but it failed me) of steady work to support the big goals you have for the season.

It's not fast work.  It's not flashy work.  It's not the Instagrammable "look what I did" work with impressive splits and a smiling, sweaty selfie that garners external validation. It's internal.  It's your "why" that you keep telling yourself when it gets hard.  It's mind strength.  It's quiet, unsexy work that allows you to pop out those summer races and ride the high of the sport to the potential you are capable of when it REALLY matters.

As I go through this base building phase, I'm brought back to my original roots of this blog - back when I called base building "Adaptation Stage One".  It's the same concept.  It's looking ahead to what you want to accomplish, taking seven zillion steps back, and then making that dream a reality, one baby step at a time, making it stick.

It's doing the work.  It's putting yourself in the environment you need to make that happen.  It's the 6am bike rides with the scenery of the basement walls.  It's going out for runs in the rain with a 20mph headwind.  It's sitting poolside at 4:30pm on a Friday when all you really want is a good drink and some simple carbs after the shitty week you've had.

It's maintaining those relationships with those that understand you best, and being aware that, as life cycles, so will the friendships - and that there will be another summer of fun, of racing bikes, of open water swims, of post race bonfires.  And that, like any part of life, the base building you are doing now will pay great dividends down the line for all of that fun.

So I'll do the unsexy workouts.  I'll check my ego.  I'll wallpaper my phone and computer with reminders of what I'm aiming for, and keep them on the horizon as I choose to drink water over soda, pick out foods to help make me strong, or decide to turn my phone off at 9pm to nail that high powered bike on tap for the next morning.

Because this is where the magic starts.  And this year....is gonna be pure magic.  

Running On Empty

So, if you know me at all, you know I function on three things - running (and sorta biking and swimming), sarcasm, and caffeine.  It's science.  Or being a mom.  Or having a ridiculously crammed full life where I refuse to stop for a second to breathe.  Ever.  Something like that.  The last few weeks have been a fine mix of all three - which one is saving my sanity, I'll never know, but I suspect they all play their part.  Whatever it is, I keep running, that's for sure.

New Adventures in the new home!

When we last left our hero (me?) I was busy running from one crazy scenario to another - even though I continually posit that life is gonna calm down in 2020, I sure don't help make that happen.  Greg and I moved out of our first home a few weeks ago and launched into life in our new dream house, fraught with all of the wonderful ups and downs that go with new home ownership - shitty sellers, random glitches with school schedules, new routines and even though it's only 15 miles from my old house - new grocery stores (don't get me started on this), utility companies, and neighbors.

New House Toast!

Whew.  Luckily, we have a cache of amazing people that made the whole actual move possible - come move day we had a dozen friends who showed up for twelve hours of manual labor with minimal bitching and all they asked for (ok, we gave it without asking) was carbs and beer (which is technically a carb but deserves it's own credit!)  We woke up at Sunrise Dr at 6am and went to sleep at our new home at 11pm - a whole house moved in one day with minimal glitches (thanks for your sense of humor, guys!)

Marcus, always our lucky guy :)

That was two weeks ago - the end of a little chapter that took the better part of the last four months of our lives and upended it into something totally unrecognizable.  I haven't blogged much about things since then, because to be blunt about it, I'm having a tough time managing to keep all my balls up in the air (TWSS?). Post move,first I got sick.  Then Greg got sick. Then the kids did.  And since then we have had a slew of issues related to work, the house sale, injury and training, and a million other small things that have crept up, throwing our world off kilter. I'm not alone on this one - it seems that even when you claim to be an endurance athlete, you have your limits.  And I found that when I hit them, I hit them hard.  Everyone's got a breaking point where they run out of reserves.

Which led me back in time. Back in 2011, Greg did his first Ironman at Lake Placid.   If you aren't familiar with the area, its a damned gorgeous venue - I've done the race twice and it never fails to amaze.  The swim is pristine, the bike has amazing mountain views, and the run is iconic.  The race finishes at the Olympic Oval, and one of the tests of the marathon is at mile 24 (which is mile 138 of mile 140 of the whole race) you turn right on the course - 400 yards from the finish - and have to do a mile out and back before you can become an Ironman.  This feature is both inspiring (you are almost there!  You can hear the finish line!  You WILL be an Ironman!) and also disheartening (you are almost there!  You are NOT YET THERE THOUGH!)

The finish line of an Ironman is a party.  More so at Lake Placid than any other race I've ever seen.  There's music.  There's shouting.  There's dancing (not usually by those finishing, but hey, it happens).  Nine years ago, Greg was a 14:40 finisher.  At mile 24, he could see the finish line.  He could hear the music.  Ironman, in their infinite wisdom to encourage athletes, when Greg hit upon that pivotal mile, chose the tune "Running on Empty" by Jackson Browne as music inspo to blast on the loudspeakers for all competitors in proximity to hear.

Yep.  You heard that right.  WTF.

I don't know where I'm running now, I'm just....running on...running on empty

Super appropriate.  Super unnecessary. Talk about having to dig deep in your headspace, as EVERYONE at mile 138 is literally running on empty! And somehow, he finished those last two miles of the race and had his moment of glory. He got through it and tasted victory.  He WAS AN IRONMAN.

And that's me right now.  Somehow I know I'm at mile 24.  I can see the finish line.  There, is, in fact, light at the end of the oval tunnel.  After months and months, some of the pieces are falling into place.  The kids are in school.  Half the boxes are unpacked.  For the first time in months, I'm able to set aside the crazy anxiety that the last four months have been and have a decent run (which is really important, as the season officially starts in two weeks at Running of the Green 5 Miler!)

Training in Webster with my new crew - they keep me on my toes!

So, I'll keep running on
- running on empty
- running blind
- and running into the sun.... somehow it'll get me to the finish line of this phase of life, and onto the next Ironman - this one really lasting 140.6 and no more!