Keep believing

For months I’ve been training for my 7th IRONMAN 70.3 and let’s just say the training has been wrought with challenges.

I’ve experienced and continued to battle issues with my GI system, I’ve tried elimination diets to see what’s causing the issues and I’ve dealt with extraordinarily low energy (like struggle to get out of bed in the morning low energy), COVID, hip and Achilles pain and lots of work travel. Each of these challenges impacted my training and therefore caused me much angst about my preparedness and my ability to complete the race well, let alone, just complete the race.

I made it a conscious effort to turn to my mental training and focus on the positive and what I could control. I thought about how this is supposed to be fun – I started and continue to race IRONMAN because I love it…I shouldn’t focus solely on the outcome. I told myself to do what I could training-wise while trying to heal my body – after all my body was the most important component. If I had no energy or wasn’t feeling well, it wouldn’t matter how much I had physically trained.

Because I took this approach, I was able to regain energy slowly but surely and was able to have a few good weeks of training leading up to the race. This certainly gave me a mental boost of encouragement, but deep-down questions about my ability to go out and have a great race were percolating. As race day approached, I remained positive about the training I had done, knowing it would be enough for me to finish. This past weekend, I went into the race with 3 goals – the first and most important was to finish and have fun.

The race was challenging. It was perhaps the most aggressive swim I’ve ever encountered, with people hitting, pulling and dunking me. During these moments, while I was very frustrated, I found myself focused on my breathing to remain calm and clear headed. The breathing techniques I’ve practiced as part of mindfulness really came in handy and I was able to weather each blow without panic.

Once onto the bike, I quickly realized while climbing one of many hills, my bike derailer wouldn’t drop my chain into an easier gear for climbing. This could have made for a really difficult day, but I decided to stay focused and calm. Because I had done reconnaissance the day before, I knew there were 3 tough climbs. Before each of the 3, I strategically picked up my speed to gain as much momentum into the hills as possible, which limited the amount of climbing I had to do. I’m grateful for the scouting I did ahead of time and for the ability to roll with the punches.

And on the run, I began experiencing unexplained knee pain. In training I had problems with one of my Achilles and one of my hips so I was expecting those to resurface, but I never expected the knee pain. It started to nag around mile 9 and really started to hurt when bending the knee. I was having a good run and really didn’t want to slow but opted for short walk sets to calm the pain and stretch the surrounding muscles. This strategy allowed me to keep moving forward towards the finish line.

With each of these challenges, I found myself naturally troubleshooting and adjusting. Each little adjustment kept me calm and allowed me to think more strategically about how to tackle the challenge at hand. I realized at one point, I was doing it without stressing and was having fun doing it.

Looking back, the challenges I overcame during training honed my ability to face and tackle the difficulties during the race without impacting my love of racing. It’s telling that in most of the race photos I am smiling and having fun! I crossed the finish line feeling excited about the race and began immediately planning my next race. I love that I rolled with the punches during training and in each leg of the race and that I kept believing in myself and in my training, both mental and physical.

I know this is heavily skewed on racing…but these are lessons I’ll carry with me in everyday activities. Just keep believing!