on the way back from flag, dave and i talked and talked. last night i realized for the first time that for some reason i'm mourning triathlon. 2009, my first triathlon season was so very promising. my then coach pushed me super hard and gave me crazy shit workouts which i thrived on. the races i did that year were damn good, i put up decent times in everything i did, and i showed constant improvement. when i got hit, it seems like all that went right out the window.
since the "accident", i've done many races. granted, i'm not at all bitching about the fact that i can't race at all because that's clearly not the case. but i can't compete in anything. i still can't run a mile straight without having to walk. my bike and swim are both slower than they ever were that first year. i'm a good 25 pounds heavier too. i know that plays into it.
but every race, i'm just there. i'm just going through the paces, knowing that nothing i really do matters because i'm not competing. i'm miles from being able to compete against anyone. there's a fucking 86 year old walker man who beats me every damn ARR race. hell, his wife even beat me this last saturday.
as much as i'd like to get back to what i was in '09, something's holding me back. i can't figure it out. i think i'm resting on the excuse that hopefully we'll be pregnant soon. but that isn't even a valid excuse because the healthier i am pre-pregnancy, the better the pregnancy will go. and i fully recognize the absurdity in that.
i think the thing that's getting me right now is that i'm spending $130 a month for a cross fit gym membership. well, any time spent there is time i should be swimming/biking/running, not making some big ass rope do some snaky thing or jumping on boxes. not to mention that all it takes is one screwed up move in one of those classes and my knee is toast. i don't feel like those workouts are doing anything for my triathlon life. dave thinks that any workouts right now would help me in triathlon simply because i'm not doing anything right now. which to some degree is true.
i feel like i'm at this drawn out Y in the road, but the long part of the Y is just getting longer and longer. the decision is coming, i know it, but i can't get there. it's driving me crazy.
about me
- cj
- DISCLAIMER: for anyone who knows me, you'd agree a disclaimer would be wise. i cuss. a lot. for those who say people who cuss just lack the ability to intelligently verbalize their thoughts, i say kiss my ass. you see? kiss my 'butt' just wouldn't have sounded right there. my views/thoughts/ramblings aren't intended to piss people off. and hey, if they do, write your own blog. if you'd like to leave a comment, please do. i'm all ears!!!
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
race reports - ARR #4 and mountain man tri
oh lordy do i have stories to tell. ARR #4 was officially my most miserable 5k experience EVER.
it's officially monsoon season here in AZ. the average day is somewhat humid - 30-60% with temps 105-113 degrees. then when the evening hits, so do the thunderstorms and flash floods. that sets the stage here.
saturday morning: 86 degrees, 70% humidity at 6:30am. this race was in tempe, so it wasn't too bad of a drive. we got there and parked in the wrong parking lot. unfortunately there was no time to re-park it, we needed to get to the start. which meant we had to run. we were at least 3/4's of a mile away from the start. by the time we even bellied up to the start line, we were already drenched with sweat. it was disgusting. i'm a sweaty girl when i workout, always have been. but this was just unreal. it was difficult to breathe, you couldn't really get in a deep breath. and that's crazy because i've lived in san antonio and new orleans, but this was just unlike anything i've done.
the race itself sucked. a little over the first mile marker i started shivering. that scared me because i knew my electrolytes and glucose and glycogen stores must be doing something funky. by that time the course parallels the finish shoot with just a parking lot in between. i can't even tell you how badly i wanted to just bow out and go cheer for dave.
my finish time was a despicable 46 min, but i tell you, i'm proud of it. that was the hardest damn race ever. i've never seen so many shirtless men and women. way beyond suckfest.
we went back home and showered and packed for flagstaff, then got on the road. we knew it would be cooler in flagstaff, likely in the high 40's - low 50's come race morning. but i didn't plan on the thunderstorm that hit exactly as we got there, and stayed until we went to bed. i told dave that if it was still raining come race morning, i'd be cheering from the sidelines.
dave's boss Jon and his co-worker (and now also coached athlete of dave's) Mike both signed up for this race. mountain man tri is interesting. july they have the super sprint and the sprint, then in august exactly a month later they have an oly and a half. this was dave's second race ever, so he's been looking forward to it since he signed up months ago. i knew the altitude would suck, but with my asthma i was super curious to see how it'd affect me. this was Jon's and Mike's first tri ever. saturday night we had a lovely dinner with a few of my family members (locals of flag) and jon's family and mike.
sunday we got up and it was 51 degrees. on the drive out, it was completely overcast and foggy. we got there super early, about 5:20 even though our first racer went off at 7 (dave). i'm still amazed at the transition game. we got there an hour and 40 min knowing that transition was a free-for-all and we wanted a decent rack. but you still had those athletes that show up at 6:45 and act pissed off when you tell them "no, there's no room for you here". yeah, those words were said. shocker - not by me for once.
dave and i both opted for our sleeveless wetsuits, although it wasn't the best idea to choose those and not take longs too. because lemme tell ya, the water temp may have been 71 degrees on saturday morning, but with that rain, sunday was significantly cooler. i was expecting that eerie feeling of water warmer than the air, but everything just felt damn cold. and it was my first time in the sleeveless. the swim was really interesting. i wasn't short of breath really, but i couldn't wait to breathe every 3 strokes as usual. i ended up having to breathe every second stroke, so it looked like R-L-R(breathe R)R-L-R(breathe R)R-L-R(breathe R)L-R-L(breathe L). i'd breathe 3 times on each side and then site. and even then i'd have to breast stroke it for a little bit. everyone was on their backs before the first buoy. after the "accident" i can't really do backstroke anymore - makes me nauseous. so i just had to keep doing what i was doing. think the swim took me 24/25 min or so, but i didn't run up the boat ramp, i walked it.
the bike was a bit chilly, as i knew it would be. i'd actually contemplated wearing my long-sleeve shirt to ride in, but i didn't see anyone else really doing that so i decided not to. it was a rolling bike course, but it wasn't too bad. the altitude was interesting here too - i could get in a deep breath, but i was constantly short of breath. aero position just wasn't happening - couldn't open up my rib cage enough. i couldn't really drink on the bike, but i'd decided at the turnaround i'd at least take a gu and get some water down. at mile 5 there was a man down on the side of the road. i didn't see his bike close enough (bottom of a downhill so i was flying). all i saw was a stupid construction worker looking guy standing over the athlete with his stop sign. not talking to him, just staring at him. i thought i should stop, but i didn't. i had guilt for the next mile for not stopping. at the turnaround there was a sheriff. i told him "a mile back there's a guy down. he's on his back, and he's not moving much. he's definitely not going anywhere and needs an ambulance." he got on his radio. i now know the part i left out of that statement was that i'm a nurse, fully capable of making that call correctly. i'll know for next time. when i came back by him, there was now a truck parked on the other side of the road and an additional guy standing over the athlete. i pulled over and did my nursing thing. he was fully awake, in a lot of pain and unwilling to move much. his clavicles were both covered by lycra/spandex but the left one wasn't really visible - his right was easy to see so i knew he at least had a broken clavicle. the lady in the truck had some ibuprofen so i made him take a good dose of that. we kind of repositioned him a bit because he was complaining of the road rash to the shoulder. otherwise i just kept him talking. i knew he was in a lot of pain - 60 year old man groaning isn't indicative of just mild pain. i asked the lady in the truck to call 911. she said they had shitty service out there, but that the sheriff had already been contacted. at which point i said "screw the sheriff we need a damn ambulance". i kept him talking about random stuff. he asked me a few times to just go on with my race, but there was no way. i was staying until he was in the ambulance. pretty soon a sheriff showed up. he didn't even talk to the guy before radioing in an ambulance. in total, this guy was on the ground for about 45 min before the f'ing ambulance got there. i was so angry. i had a lot of guilt for passing him the first time, but i thought i'd been redeemed when there was a sheriff at the turnaround that i could report to. didn't happen. didn't expedite the situation whatsoever.
the ambulance finally came, and my one redeeming moment came when he rated his pain. he said "well, now it's about a 7" indicating that it was higher before their arrival. so at least the ibuprofen took the edge off. my second redeeming moment came when they asked if he wanted an IV and morphine before they moved him and he told them he felt he could walk now. of course they didn't let him and put him in a c-collar immediately. he thanked me for being there, and i'll always remember how he reached out with his good hand and thanked me by name. that was good enough for me.
by the time i got back on the bike, a good 20-25 min had passed. i was cold. internally and my legs. which weren't helped by the wind i was now facing. soon i began contemplating the run. i thought that if i'd passed a few people and a bunch of super-sprinters then i'd go out on the run. i was dismayed to only pass 3 people on the way back in. and no one coming out. which meant i was 4th to last bike finisher. i'd resigned myself to no run for the day - i never got to eat, i was cold and not warming up too much, my legs felt like lead so evidently i hit the ride out a bit harder than i realized. so then i decided that if nothing else i'd turn in a good bike split. so i hammered a bit. that felt good. i got back to transition and saw dave walking through, medal in place and eating. ugh. i told him what happened, and that i was bagging it. i was back and forth 100 times so i finally just took my chip to the stand so i could be done with it. then i cried. i was bummed for some reason. PMS maybe. but i held (still do) a ton of guilt for not stopping when i first saw the guy. and now i didn't get to run because my fat ass is too slow. but then i was bummed because i honestly wasn't sure that i had enough fitness to finish the race. then i cried because i realized maybe i was bowing out to avoid defeat. the negative self-talk was running rampant!!!
it all kind of cleared when dave informed me that he'd placed 7th in his AG. his swim was damn fast, he gained like 40 spots in transition alone, put up a super fast bike split and an even faster run. his first "legitimate" (as he calls it) top 10 finish. that made me cry all over again. we got the pic below after everyone regrouped:
all photos thanks to jon's wife sara!
it's officially monsoon season here in AZ. the average day is somewhat humid - 30-60% with temps 105-113 degrees. then when the evening hits, so do the thunderstorms and flash floods. that sets the stage here.
saturday morning: 86 degrees, 70% humidity at 6:30am. this race was in tempe, so it wasn't too bad of a drive. we got there and parked in the wrong parking lot. unfortunately there was no time to re-park it, we needed to get to the start. which meant we had to run. we were at least 3/4's of a mile away from the start. by the time we even bellied up to the start line, we were already drenched with sweat. it was disgusting. i'm a sweaty girl when i workout, always have been. but this was just unreal. it was difficult to breathe, you couldn't really get in a deep breath. and that's crazy because i've lived in san antonio and new orleans, but this was just unlike anything i've done.
the race itself sucked. a little over the first mile marker i started shivering. that scared me because i knew my electrolytes and glucose and glycogen stores must be doing something funky. by that time the course parallels the finish shoot with just a parking lot in between. i can't even tell you how badly i wanted to just bow out and go cheer for dave.
my finish time was a despicable 46 min, but i tell you, i'm proud of it. that was the hardest damn race ever. i've never seen so many shirtless men and women. way beyond suckfest.
we went back home and showered and packed for flagstaff, then got on the road. we knew it would be cooler in flagstaff, likely in the high 40's - low 50's come race morning. but i didn't plan on the thunderstorm that hit exactly as we got there, and stayed until we went to bed. i told dave that if it was still raining come race morning, i'd be cheering from the sidelines.
dave's boss Jon and his co-worker (and now also coached athlete of dave's) Mike both signed up for this race. mountain man tri is interesting. july they have the super sprint and the sprint, then in august exactly a month later they have an oly and a half. this was dave's second race ever, so he's been looking forward to it since he signed up months ago. i knew the altitude would suck, but with my asthma i was super curious to see how it'd affect me. this was Jon's and Mike's first tri ever. saturday night we had a lovely dinner with a few of my family members (locals of flag) and jon's family and mike.
 |
| fog on the water |
 |
| body marking |
the bike was a bit chilly, as i knew it would be. i'd actually contemplated wearing my long-sleeve shirt to ride in, but i didn't see anyone else really doing that so i decided not to. it was a rolling bike course, but it wasn't too bad. the altitude was interesting here too - i could get in a deep breath, but i was constantly short of breath. aero position just wasn't happening - couldn't open up my rib cage enough. i couldn't really drink on the bike, but i'd decided at the turnaround i'd at least take a gu and get some water down. at mile 5 there was a man down on the side of the road. i didn't see his bike close enough (bottom of a downhill so i was flying). all i saw was a stupid construction worker looking guy standing over the athlete with his stop sign. not talking to him, just staring at him. i thought i should stop, but i didn't. i had guilt for the next mile for not stopping. at the turnaround there was a sheriff. i told him "a mile back there's a guy down. he's on his back, and he's not moving much. he's definitely not going anywhere and needs an ambulance." he got on his radio. i now know the part i left out of that statement was that i'm a nurse, fully capable of making that call correctly. i'll know for next time. when i came back by him, there was now a truck parked on the other side of the road and an additional guy standing over the athlete. i pulled over and did my nursing thing. he was fully awake, in a lot of pain and unwilling to move much. his clavicles were both covered by lycra/spandex but the left one wasn't really visible - his right was easy to see so i knew he at least had a broken clavicle. the lady in the truck had some ibuprofen so i made him take a good dose of that. we kind of repositioned him a bit because he was complaining of the road rash to the shoulder. otherwise i just kept him talking. i knew he was in a lot of pain - 60 year old man groaning isn't indicative of just mild pain. i asked the lady in the truck to call 911. she said they had shitty service out there, but that the sheriff had already been contacted. at which point i said "screw the sheriff we need a damn ambulance". i kept him talking about random stuff. he asked me a few times to just go on with my race, but there was no way. i was staying until he was in the ambulance. pretty soon a sheriff showed up. he didn't even talk to the guy before radioing in an ambulance. in total, this guy was on the ground for about 45 min before the f'ing ambulance got there. i was so angry. i had a lot of guilt for passing him the first time, but i thought i'd been redeemed when there was a sheriff at the turnaround that i could report to. didn't happen. didn't expedite the situation whatsoever.
the ambulance finally came, and my one redeeming moment came when he rated his pain. he said "well, now it's about a 7" indicating that it was higher before their arrival. so at least the ibuprofen took the edge off. my second redeeming moment came when they asked if he wanted an IV and morphine before they moved him and he told them he felt he could walk now. of course they didn't let him and put him in a c-collar immediately. he thanked me for being there, and i'll always remember how he reached out with his good hand and thanked me by name. that was good enough for me.
by the time i got back on the bike, a good 20-25 min had passed. i was cold. internally and my legs. which weren't helped by the wind i was now facing. soon i began contemplating the run. i thought that if i'd passed a few people and a bunch of super-sprinters then i'd go out on the run. i was dismayed to only pass 3 people on the way back in. and no one coming out. which meant i was 4th to last bike finisher. i'd resigned myself to no run for the day - i never got to eat, i was cold and not warming up too much, my legs felt like lead so evidently i hit the ride out a bit harder than i realized. so then i decided that if nothing else i'd turn in a good bike split. so i hammered a bit. that felt good. i got back to transition and saw dave walking through, medal in place and eating. ugh. i told him what happened, and that i was bagging it. i was back and forth 100 times so i finally just took my chip to the stand so i could be done with it. then i cried. i was bummed for some reason. PMS maybe. but i held (still do) a ton of guilt for not stopping when i first saw the guy. and now i didn't get to run because my fat ass is too slow. but then i was bummed because i honestly wasn't sure that i had enough fitness to finish the race. then i cried because i realized maybe i was bowing out to avoid defeat. the negative self-talk was running rampant!!!
it all kind of cleared when dave informed me that he'd placed 7th in his AG. his swim was damn fast, he gained like 40 spots in transition alone, put up a super fast bike split and an even faster run. his first "legitimate" (as he calls it) top 10 finish. that made me cry all over again. we got the pic below after everyone regrouped:
Monday, July 9, 2012
all clear
friday's surgery went well. it took 6 IV sticks to finally get one in though, so i look like a really inefficient crack whore at this point. i would've been ok had they been using like 22G needles, but of course they were trying to shove 20Gs in me. anesthesiologist finally had to come, and it still took her 3 sticks. i wasn't very happy, and by the time they wheeled me back, tears were flowing freely. going under just really does me in. knowing as much as i do about the (sometimes) failures of anesthesia scares the crap out of me.
my cervix was severely scarred though, it took them a couple passes to get through. oh the irony. my uterus was in relatively good shape after they made it past my cervix. "best case scenario" states my doc. they put in a balloon, but that didn't last. the damn thing blew. i cramped a bit over the weekend, vicodin helped considerably. aside from a little residual cramping, we should now be good to go!
on to the next obstacle!
Thursday, July 5, 2012
race report - arr #3
dave and i had to get up at 4:30am for this race on the 4th of july. the race was being held in peoria, which is an hour's drive from where we live. when is say i did NOT want to get up, i mean i really did NOT want to get up. dave got up pretty easily, i seriously didn't want to go at all. this week has been overshadowed by my upcoming surgical procedure which we found out about on monday, so i'm not really in a race kinda mood. we went anyway.
they said this race series is now up to over 1000 participants. there's a ton of high school track and field teams that participate, so it's always fun to see a bunch of kids out to race. well, fun in that it's awesome to see them so excited to run, not fun to watch them at the start and then NEVER SEE THEM AGAIN because even the slowest high schooler is faster than me.
anyway.
i went out thinking i'd try the 2:1 running to walking. it worked well for me through the first mile, but i hit it 2 minutes earlier than i should've, so i knew i was running too fast on my run spurts. at mile 2 i hit the turnaround and it was a bit windy - that accounts for the ease of running and the super hot feeling. it was pretty humid and the sun never showed, but we got lots of rain that night so the humidity was pretty high. not fun.
the course was not bad. the out felt pretty much downhill and the in felt uphill, makes sense. i made it in under an hour, not too bad. i was pleased enough for not wanting to be out at all. the endorphin high didn't last very long. they had yummy watermelon at the finish though so that was awesome!
next race on july 14 in tempe! yay
they said this race series is now up to over 1000 participants. there's a ton of high school track and field teams that participate, so it's always fun to see a bunch of kids out to race. well, fun in that it's awesome to see them so excited to run, not fun to watch them at the start and then NEVER SEE THEM AGAIN because even the slowest high schooler is faster than me.
anyway.
i went out thinking i'd try the 2:1 running to walking. it worked well for me through the first mile, but i hit it 2 minutes earlier than i should've, so i knew i was running too fast on my run spurts. at mile 2 i hit the turnaround and it was a bit windy - that accounts for the ease of running and the super hot feeling. it was pretty humid and the sun never showed, but we got lots of rain that night so the humidity was pretty high. not fun.
the course was not bad. the out felt pretty much downhill and the in felt uphill, makes sense. i made it in under an hour, not too bad. i was pleased enough for not wanting to be out at all. the endorphin high didn't last very long. they had yummy watermelon at the finish though so that was awesome!
next race on july 14 in tempe! yay
back to the OR
so. dave and i have been having issues getting pregnant. we've been trying now for over 7 months. i miscarried once awhile back, so i've always had this nagging feeling something was wrong with me. ironically dave felt the same way about himself. so i made the appt and found a great repro doc here in chandler.
long story short (and in effort to NOT share way TMI), i've now had 3 very painful imaging procedures. i have pretty substantial scarring from my D&C from my miscarriage. it's called Asherman's Syndrome. the problem is, we don't know how bad the scarring is in my uterus because my cervix is so scarred, they can't pass a scope through it. that's pretty bad. there's a funky shape to my uterus, one of the horns is collapsed down. we now strongly believe that it's due to at least one band of scar tissue pulling it closed.
tomorrow i go in for surgery. i'm scared. there's a few ways this can go. 1) it could be minimal, they could just snip out those bands all the way up and it'll be over. 2) it could be a bit more substantial, they could find tons of scarring in that horn. 3) they could find so much scarring that they can't safely snip them and have to use a separate scope site to insert a camera, and then use light to make sure they don't puncture the wall of the uterus. for 2 & 3 the most likely result will be a balloon inflated in my uterus. the worst case is to go in and have all that snipped only to have the uterus collapse back on itself and heal closed. the balloon will stay in for awhile (depends on how bad the scarring), which means i can't swim. which of course is a bummer considering we have a race in flagstaff next weekend.
in my research, some women haven't even felt the balloon. others have cramped for the duration. he told me cramping is normal and it could be severe enough to warrant narcotics so he's already called in the script for narcotics. that doesn't bode well - i don't really have much cramping monthly so i'm not used to it. i've had a bunch of cramping with these 3 procedures though and it hasn't been fun.
my overall worry with all of this - the endometrial lining can't grow over scar tissue. which means that if a huge portion of my uterus is scarred, that's that much less of a chance a baby has to latch on somewhere. when i brought that point up to my doc today in our pre-op meeting, he sort of brushed it off saying he didn't think this would greatly impact our fertility. although it already has. before now he gave us less than 5% chance of conceiving naturally. so maybe those numbers will change after tomorrow.
update to come after tomorrow! might be a good one - vicodin is one of the GUUUUUUUDDDDD drugs...
long story short (and in effort to NOT share way TMI), i've now had 3 very painful imaging procedures. i have pretty substantial scarring from my D&C from my miscarriage. it's called Asherman's Syndrome. the problem is, we don't know how bad the scarring is in my uterus because my cervix is so scarred, they can't pass a scope through it. that's pretty bad. there's a funky shape to my uterus, one of the horns is collapsed down. we now strongly believe that it's due to at least one band of scar tissue pulling it closed.
tomorrow i go in for surgery. i'm scared. there's a few ways this can go. 1) it could be minimal, they could just snip out those bands all the way up and it'll be over. 2) it could be a bit more substantial, they could find tons of scarring in that horn. 3) they could find so much scarring that they can't safely snip them and have to use a separate scope site to insert a camera, and then use light to make sure they don't puncture the wall of the uterus. for 2 & 3 the most likely result will be a balloon inflated in my uterus. the worst case is to go in and have all that snipped only to have the uterus collapse back on itself and heal closed. the balloon will stay in for awhile (depends on how bad the scarring), which means i can't swim. which of course is a bummer considering we have a race in flagstaff next weekend.
in my research, some women haven't even felt the balloon. others have cramped for the duration. he told me cramping is normal and it could be severe enough to warrant narcotics so he's already called in the script for narcotics. that doesn't bode well - i don't really have much cramping monthly so i'm not used to it. i've had a bunch of cramping with these 3 procedures though and it hasn't been fun.
my overall worry with all of this - the endometrial lining can't grow over scar tissue. which means that if a huge portion of my uterus is scarred, that's that much less of a chance a baby has to latch on somewhere. when i brought that point up to my doc today in our pre-op meeting, he sort of brushed it off saying he didn't think this would greatly impact our fertility. although it already has. before now he gave us less than 5% chance of conceiving naturally. so maybe those numbers will change after tomorrow.
update to come after tomorrow! might be a good one - vicodin is one of the GUUUUUUUDDDDD drugs...
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