Patricia Brownell: Diabetic, Celiac Triathlete

Thank you

2012-01-28T13:22:00.001-05:00

http://tripeej.com/2012/01/28/thank-you/

Other blog is updated

2012-01-24T12:11:00.002-05:00

What's it like to have type 1 diabetes? New post at http://www.tripeej.com/.

Another request to update your links please

2012-01-21T11:21:00.002-05:00

New Post on the other blog: http://www.tripeej.com/

New post on the other blog

2012-01-13T08:32:00.002-05:00

TriPeej

Another new post

2011-12-17T19:13:00.000-05:00

On the other blog.

http://www.tripeej.com/

Please update your links

2011-12-09T10:42:00.000-05:00

This blog is soon to be discontinued! Another new post over at www.tripeej.com!

New Post

2011-12-07T15:05:00.002-05:00

New blog post - short and sweet. But you have to go to new blog to see it!

Tripeej.com

I've moved!

2011-11-08T20:30:00.000-05:00

Or I'm in the process of moving. The site is a work in progress, but check it out at: http://tripeej.com/.

I have a lot on my mind and a lot to blog about, which is what facilitated the move. So along with a better site, I promise to start posting again -- very soon!

Rev3 Anderson Oly Race Report

2011-10-12T19:41:00.002-04:00

Before I go into the boring details of my race, I have to give a shout out to the REV3 organization. This was my third Rev3 race this year and my 2nd Inaugural Rev3 race - both Anderson and Portland were first year races. Every single race was fantastic. You would have never known that any of them were first year races. From race registration, to the race, to the volunteers (who are always friendly and courteous, even when the type A triathlete traits most of us tend to exhibit are at their worst – race morning) to the awards ceremony, to the prize purse and everything else in between - everything is done with the athlete in mind. I actually had REV3 representatives contact me after this race to ask for any input I had and if there was anything that could be done to make it better, far cry from the “screw you, you’ll do as we say, pay us a million dollars and like it” attitude I’ve received in the past from “the other” triathlon race organization. Anderson was no exception. REV3 earns an A from me, yet again. If you haven’t yet raced a REV3, do yourself a favor and sign up for one next year. You won’t be disappointed.

I arrived in South Carolina on Friday afternoon, meeting up with my teammate Bradford. We picked up our rental and ventured to Whole Foods near the airport in Greenville before driving to Anderson. Once in whole Foods, it was clear I wasn’t in Boston anymore. I was blown away at how nice people were! I couldn’t find the gluten free bread so I asked an employee who proceeded to give me a personal tour of the entire store, giving me recommendations as we went. People smiled and called me Miss or Ma’am. If I looked confused, I was asked if I needed help. I almost didn’t want to leave the store! But we did leave, which is where we eventually ran into the weirder part of South Carolina nice, a guy playing the banjo on the balcony of our hotel. His first words to us as we’re lugging our bikes and luggage into our rooms were “Excuse me. Ya’ll don’t happen to have any WD40, do you?”

Moving on, race morning we woke up to chilly temps and a strong biting wind which would shape a lot of the day for most people. It was one of those weird mornings where there were waves of cold and waves of humidity where you were sort of hot. Strange. The half iron race started first and we cheered on the pros from transition. An hour later it was our turn.

The gun went off and I had a bit of a rough start, not making the front group of girls. I did, however, hang onto the 2nd group and found my comfort zone, despite the slight chop in the water. I was slightly worried before the swim because the course was laid out a bit strange – you couldn’t see the finishing arch from the start, but once you were in the water it was fine. I swam comfortably and for the first time ever, did not feel fatigued towards the end. I finally feel like I’m getting somewhere with the swim. I have a way to go, but at least I’m going somewhere. I was almost 2 minutes faster for this distance than I have ever swam. I wanted to swim sub 30 minutes but missed that by 7 seconds. Close!

I came out of the water in 7th place in my age group so, as usual, I had my work cut out for me. I made quick work of T1, stuffing my wetsuit in the bag they gave us (2 separate transitions) throwing on the new helmet I had purchased at the Expo as mine broke on the flight over and I was off.

Onto the bike, right out of T1 there was a large hill that I was able to use to my advantage. Since I’m a good climber and hadn’t wasted too much energy on the swim, I was able to hammer that hill and pass a few women right out of the gate. The wind was freaking strong and, at times, really mentally daunting. For the first several miles, every time I looked at my speed I was going 15 mph. All I could think was that if that continued, I was going to have my slowest Olympic race ever. Luckily, the course would turn several times and when the wind was at my back, I found myself geared out and pushing over 30 mph on the flats – nice! I was also able to use that to my advantage as I noticed that a lot of people chose to chill out and rest during the times the wind was pushing us along. I decided to push harder during those sections to gain a speed advantage. I felt like I was flying by people as if they were standing still. Had it not been for the wind (which I hate being a smaller rider), this course would have been my dream course. It was challenging and hilly (around 1300 feet of elevation gain) but not over the top hard like Quassy. I really enjoyed it. And by the end, I had biked myself into 3rd place in my age group. Bike time: 1:12:32 (20.7 mph)

T2 was quick. Helmet off, shoes on, GO! As I was leaving, someone yelled at me “15 seconds!” People don’t yell stuff like that at you if you’re not at the front of the race so I knew I was in a good spot.

I was worried about the run prior to the race. I had run a total of about 30 miles over the past month due to some ongoing shin issues and wasn’t feeling very confident. I generally feel pretty good going into the run the first few miles coming off the bike but all I felt were dead tired legs but knowing I was in the running for a podium spot gave me motivation to keep pushing. The course was a bit confusing and wound through a windy park so you could see your competition but couldn’t really tell how far ahead of you they were but I saw very few women so that was more confirmation that I was at the front of the race. Around mile 1, I caught up to a woman in my age group. She didn’t notice me there so I backed off and let her run ahead of me for a bit as I was tired and didn’t want to alert her of my presence. But at mile 3, I decided to make a move to pass her. She immediately responded to match my pace and we would spend the next two miles running side-by-side. I’m telling you, that was absolute freaking torture. I felt like we were Macca and Ralaert at Kona 2011 (only with bigger boobs and running much slower). I have never wanted to let a person go so badly in my life I felt so awful! It was clear that we were both running as fast as we possibly could, pushing each other to run just a bit faster, but I could tell she was struggling, too, so I kept going, remembering how hard I’d worked to get to this race and wanting that podium spot. The course had a bunch of smaller undulations but around mile 5 we started up a bigger hill with a water stop at the bottom. I was thirsty and really wanted water so bad, but she was running on my left side (next to the water stop) and I would have had to drop back or surge ahead quickly to get water, neither of which I was willing to do. But when I saw her slow a step to grab water, my instincts kicked in and I decided to make a move. I surged ahead as fast as I could and got a sizable lead on her. She started to respond but slowly faded. I slowed a bit too but constantly checked over my shoulder to make sure she wasn’t bridging the gap. I crossed the finish line 45 seconds ahead of her. Run time: 45:54 (7.24 min/mile).

Total time was 2:31:50, I won my age group (I was 2nd but the 3rd place female was in my AG so I was bumped to 1st) and was the 5th overall female, which was good for another Age Group Nationals Qualifying spot for 2012. I told myself after Nats this year that if I happened to qualify at this race that I would do it again next year but that if I didn’t, I wasn’t going to chase the spot next year. So I guess it’s fate. Hopefully the third time will be a charm at Nats! And my teammate, Bradford, had a great race as well, taking 2nd in his age group, so the rest of our weekend was fantastic as we were both in great moods. Go Team Type 1!

Oh, and this has to be mentioned. I know Chrissie Wellington earns the award for gutsiest/badass performance ever at Kona, given her injuries, but if there is a second place prize for amazing performance of the weekend, one would have to give it to pro racer, Meredith Kessler. She took 3rd place female in the half iron race. Sounds like no big deal until you hear that her freaking saddle fell off her bike at mile 38 and she rode the last 18 miles STANDING UP! Holy badass!

My shoes are cooler than her socks! :)

Best Award Ever!

Dover-Sherborn Sprint Race Report

2011-09-19T12:36:00.001-04:00

I love, love, love this race. I like to think of it as “my” race. The swim is in the pond I do all my open water swims in and the roads the bike course follows are my training grounds – I ride them every weekend. The distances also suit me – short swim but longer bike and run distances than most sprints. And it’s hilly, hilly, hilly – and hills are where I shine. See? MY race!

I’ll admit, I do well at this race and considered signing up for the Elite wave, but I was worried that I’d be stuck swimming alone, so I didn’t. Turns out I should have.

The Elite wave went off and the race began. 4 waves later, it was my turn. My wave was pretty big as it contained all women 18 – 40. It was an on shore start (you run into the water when the gun goes off) and I found myself getting a great jump into the water, diving in. I was at the front with two other girls until we hit the first turn buoy. At that point, the girl to my left kept swimming off course and pushing me to the side with her. After a few elbows to the head, I let her go ahead of me as it was costing me a lot of energy fighting her off. I exited the swim a little less than one minute down on the leader – a very good swim for me. Coach Jorge and I have been working a lot on my swim this year and it's finally starting to show.

T1 would come back to haunt me later. Temps were in the low 50’s so I decided to wear arm warmers. The God damned arm warmers. I couldn’t get the stupid things on for the life of me. At one point I actually threw one down on the ground in a tantrum-like fashion. Stupid! I should have just worn them under the wetsuit. I’ll remember that next time.

Onto the bike I was feeling great and I was killing it. My last few races have been a bit lackluster on the bike and I didn’t have that “I’m doing great” feeling. This was the opposite – I didn’t need to see watts or mph to know I was having a fantastic ride. This is a very hilly course, one climb right after the other, and has some steep descents that I knew others would be careful on because if you don’t know what’s coming around the corner, they are scary. But I had ridden the course several times over the weekends prior to the race, figuring out exactly how I had to take the turns to yield the fastest time, so I know what was coming around the corners and knew I could take the descents full speed to make up some time on others – that is until a car passed me and then got stuck behind some slower riders so it had to slow down and then I had to brake to not slam into the back of the car. Braking when you’re pushing over 30 mph SUCKS! The same car did this on both big descents – beyond frustrating! When the car finally turned off about 3 miles later, let me tell you, they were very aware of how displeased I was with them. But by the end of bike leg, I had passed 5 women in my wave and felt like I was all alone – there didn’t seem to be any other women to pass. And I have to say, the men in this race were AWESOME. So many would yell “Go get ‘em, girl!” when I passed them, which is not what I’m used to. In most races, girl passes boy, boy does all he can to not get chicked and tries not to let girl pass. It was awesome to have the support and it kept me motivated. Clearly, because I had the 2nd fastest bike split despite the “car issue!”

T2 was uneventful. I’m always fast in T2. Wish I could say the same for T1! Dave yelled at me that there was only one woman in front of me and that she was about 30 seconds ahead.

Onto the run I felt okay, but not great. I haven’t been running much due to some adductor and shin issues, so I knew I might have a difficult time pushing the pace. My stomach was also a bit upset – I could feel water sloshing around inside with every step. And just like the bike, the run went up and down – there is no flat ground to be found on this course. I could see the girl in front of me and I was making up time on her. We would go up a hill and I would get closer to her, then we’d go down and she’d pull back a few seconds. Around mile 3 there is a rather large climb they call “the Beast” and I gave it my all going up it. Two men who were running side by side who I was about to pass commented “whoever is coming up behind us knows what they’re doing!” and as I passed them they yelled “She makes us look like we’re standing still!” I was pushing so hard I didn’t have the breath to respond, but those comments really made me smile. Thanks, guys.

The race finishes on a track and by the time we hit the track (you run around it once, so ¼ mile), the girl I was chasing was half a track length ahead of me. I ran out of room to chase her down!

I tested my blood sugar at the end of the race and it was 260, which probably accounted for the way my stomach felt on the run. I had adjusted my insulin plan and taken a smaller bolus since I’ve gone low in my last two Olympic distance races. Moral of the insulin story: I need less of a bolus for Olympic distance racing but more of a bolus for sprint distance racing. Noted!

In the end, I won my age group and finished 4th female overall, 14 seconds down to the 3rd place female, who was in the Elite wave that started at the front of the race and 30 seconds down to 2nd place, the girl I was chasing on the run. All in all, it was a great day for me. Next year I think I'll race in the Elite wave so I don't get stuck behind cars (and I'll learn how to deal with my arm warmers more efficiently)!

About to step on the track at the end of the race picture and note to self: Patricia needs to stop eating so much Ben and Jerry’s!

Next up: Rev3 – Anderson (South Carolina) Oly and then it’s off season time!

What really matters?

2011-09-10T00:34:00.004-04:00

I’m feeling a little bit stuck, confused and pissed tonight. I apologize as this is more of a vent than a blog post, but it’s not all fun and games in the Brownell household, so I’m not going to pretend it is.

Shit is always wrong. Always. My poor hubby and I keep waiting for a moment in our lives that will be easy – not filled with some fucking issue. He asked me to marry him. I said yes. We were young and energetic (at least that’s how I remember it). We planned our wedding and honeymoon. Honeymoon turned into “hip surgery for PJ” (sure, we’ll do the honeymoon later). Life turned into every moment of the day filled with making my hips better while trying to still earn a living, train, race and be “inspirational” at the same time. That hasn’t ended. We had our 2 year anniversary last week. We still haven't had a honeymoon.

Then Dave got sick. We still don’t know what’s wrong with him. He has neuro stuff going on which we’ve been to "the doctor" (the all-encomapsing ten or so different specialists) about for over a year now with no resolution. There is nothing worse than having something wrong, having no explanation for it and having it for so long that you start to think you’re crazy. That’s how celiac disease was for me before I was diagnosed and it’s how this thing is for Dave. So now there are two of us with “issues.”

But we’re alive. We have happy moments. We love each other. We have jobs. We function. We’re not perfect but we’re here. And that’s better than a lot of people have it. And that’s enough reason for us to keep plowing through it.

Last weekend I attended the funeral (yes, another funeral) of a nine-year-old girl. She was the daughter of good friends of ours. She died of a rare brain cancer. And to this point in my life, I’m not sure if I’ve been affected so deeply by anything in my life. I sat through the ceremony, sad but PISSED.

How does that shit happen? How does a nine year old girl die? And don’t give me that “it was her time” BS. And really don’t give me “God had other plans for her” because I might punch you in the face if you say that to me.

So here I am. I’m having some motivational issues with getting pumped up for triathlon. It just doesn’t seem like a big deal to me right now. I’m also having a hard time being passionate about telling you how great your life can be as a type 1 diabetic if you only you do the right things. You have a choice. You can take care of it and be healthy or ignore it and have complications. Please, do the best you can to take care of your disease. You have a choice. You owe it to those who didn’t have a choice to do your best. It doesn’t mean being perfect. It doesn’t mean eating tofu and spinach every day. It doesn't mean an AIC of 5.whatever. It means making an effort; the best effort you can given the circumstances. Just try. If you don’t want to do it for yourself, at least do it for those who couldn’t.

You have the engine for so much more!

2011-08-25T23:40:00.002-04:00

Those were the words of my coach after Nats, "You have the engine for so much more!"

And he's right, I do. But it's nice to hear it from your coach.

My results at Nats, a race I've been training my butt off for for the last year, weren't so great. I don't really feel like giving a race report - I'm sorry about that. And I didn't do embarassingly horrible, but I didn't even come close to my potential if you looked at my training stats. I felt like crap, crap, crap the whole time, I had blood sugar issues and I just couldn't push the pace no matter how hard I tried. I think this picture best summarizes how I felt:

Since all anybody seems to care about these days are times and results, I will give you those:

My swim was embarrassingly horrible: 33:42. I have improved my swim a lot this year and expected to do better but given the nature of the course (current and a lot of turn buoys) I'm not insanely surpised at this time. But still embarrassed.

My bike was dissappointing: 1:13:22 (20.3 mph). To put this in perspective, I averaged 20.7 mph on my last HALF IRONMAN (twice the distance of this race). You can't compare one course to another and this course definitely had more hills than my last half, but it was still just bad. I just couldn't push any watts at Nats. I tried, it just wouldn't happen.

Run: 46:51 (7:34 pace). Realistically, this wasn't all that bad. I walked every water stop because my blood sugar was low and I had to make sure I was getting the Gatorade/Carbs into my body. Had I not walked the water stops, my time would have been decent. Not "on track" but okay. I should have run 6:50's.

I'm not going to dwell on this race. I woke up two days later with a sore throat and cold so that was likely the reason but maybe not. I just had a bad race! Yeah, it sucks that the 2 worst races I've had over the past 2 years happen to both be AG Nats, but it is what it is. Life goes on.

To cope, I spent my night crashing a wedding party. Some dude gave a speech to the bride and groom that went something like this: I loved your wife, I love your wife and I will always love your wife. So, naturally, I had to work my way in to find out what that was all about. Good times.

I spent today at the funeral of my husband's uncle, Harold (Jr). I didn't know him for very long but in the 4 years I knew him, he impressed the hell out of me. He had ALS. When he was diagnosed, everyone was worried about how he would handle his diagnosis. Turns out he handled it well and inspired many along the way, including myself. This morning I was talking to my father-in-law about Harold, his brother, who we were about to bury. He told me about all the things that Harold had hoped he would do before he died and I couldn't help but think about my life and all the opportunities that are sitting in front of me. I could almost feel Uncle Harold talking to me.

Life isn't meant to be understood, that much I know. One thing I do know is that if life slaps you in the face and points out a certain direction to you over, and over and over again, you should probably go with the flow and follow your heart.

I'm about to do that. More to come.

RIP, Uncle Harold. Thanks for touching my life.

Rev3 Portland Half Iron Race Report – and some other stuff

2011-07-16T23:35:00.001-04:00

First, yet another apology for my lack of blogging. I simply don’t have the time anymore. I wish I did because I miss it.

I signed up for Rev3 Portland because A) I love Rev3. Rev3 knows how to put on a race, down to the last little detail. In my humble opinion, this organization is exactly what triathlon needs - triathletes who put on races for triathletes and aren't greedy bastards, B) because the Portland area was where Dave proposed to me and we have good friends who live there so it was a win/win situation for us and C) the race was advertised as the hardest/hilliset course ever for a 70.3. I love me some hills.

So, when one of the towns who had originally agreed to the first iteration of the race course didn’t cooperate with Rev3 and the organization was forced to re-vamp everything, and the course went from being the hilliest to the flattest 70.3 course around. I was pretty bummed (I don’t fare well on flat courses) but hey, what can you do? In the end, it was probably good because I was quite undertrained for this distance. My training has been centered around short distance racing, not 70.3. A very difficult course may have hurt a lot.

Dave and I flew into Portland on Friday, leaving Boston at 4:30 PM and landing in Portland at 9:30 pm (so, technically, 12:30 PM our time). We landed, picked up our luggage (phew, my bike survived this time), got to the hotel around 10:30 PM, caught up with a few of my TT1 teammates and hit the sack.

I’ll fast forward through Saturday – it was fun. A lot of catching up with teammates, picking up our numbers and racking our bikes, etc.

Sunday: Race day! I felt pretty good, short of being pretty tired and jetlagged and my feet which had been bugging me since my 5k (blister/callous issues). Since I was undertrained for this race, my instructions were to swim comfortably and find feet, bike comfortably (IE, slower than what I’m used to for this distance) and then show my stuff on the run. Deal! Unfortunately, it didn’t work out this way.

Swim: (39:42) Grade: B-

Water temp was close to 73 degrees and pretty much perfect. Right from the beginning, I found some perfect feet and was swimming very well (for me). But right before the turn buoy, some very large chick who decided it was time to swim parallel to the swim course, swam right over the top of me, sideways. I lost my feet but was able to catch back up with them. But then same sideways chick, realized she was swimming sideways and decided to swim again, parallel to the course, back the other direction. I lost my feet again and was unable to find them. Shortly after that, the men’s wave behind us (pretty much all men) caught up and started swimming over me. That’s when things fell apart. I lost my confidence, had no feet and just had a hard time. But it was still my 2nd fastest half IM swim and I feel like I wasted a lot less energy than I have in the past, so I’ll take it.

T1: 5:55 Grade: B
There was a .4 mile run from the water to T1. I brought shoes to the shore (they gave us bags to store them in), which I think was a good decision because I passed a lot of people without shoes along the way. I gave myself a B because there was a lot of fumbling with my glucose meter (tried to test twice and got errors both times). Urgh.

Bike: (2:41:55): Grade: B+
This was a tough one for me to grade. My instructions from my coach were to ride comfortably, which I did. Not once did I feel like I was “pushing it.” It felt slightly harder than easy the whole time. That said, I wasn’t wearing a HRM, my powertap is yet to be installed (getting installed next week) and my bike computer wasn’t working so it was all perceived exertion. I should probably give myself an A because I think I executed this very well, but it’s hard to give an A for an “easyish” ride in a race.

T2: (1:45) F-
T2 was actually quite a bit longer than 1:45 as it shows in the race results. I had my Forerunner waiting for me in transition (I can’t get my wetsuit over it so I don’t like to wear it for the swim). First I fumbled around trying to get it on in transition and then when I finally did get it on and crossed the timing mat onto the run course, it immediately fell off and I had to stop dead in my tracks to pick it up and get it on. Annoying.

Run: (1:47:13) C
This was another hard one to grade. Again, I probably deserve an A for fighting until the end. I felt fantastic going into the run. I was ripping off miles in the low 7:00’s. But after mile 3, my feet hurt. And by hurt, I mean searing pain on the balls of them. Remember when I said they were bothering me after the 5k? Well that came back to haunt me, big time. At mile 4, I very nearly dropped out. I felt like I was running on shards of glass. Check out these pictures – you can totally see how I’m landing on the outside of my foot to avoid the blisters under the balls of my feet:

But at some point (around mile 7, I think) my brain made peace with the pain and I was able to suck it up and keep running. I stopped at every water stop to walk, which seemed to make things worse but I just needed a mental break from the pain here and there. But at mile 9.5 it got worse – my right knee started screaming and shortly after that, the right calf started cramping. It was the same thing over and over again: run fast, cramp, back off and shorten stride, run without cramp for awhile so increase pace, CRAMP!, back off, blah blah. Then at mile 11, my stomach decided that I had to poop. FANTASTIC! 2 miles of this hell left – can’t you just wait? NOPE! So the porta potty and I had a visit at the water stop there.

But somehow by the grace of whatever, I made it to the finish line with a 5:16:32 finishing time, which is an 8 minute PR for me and pretty much a miracle given the circumstances. I’d be pretty silly to say I was disappointed in that, but: I was pretty disappointed with it. I should have run around 1:40. I could have run around 1:40. But what can you do? Stupid blisters.

Speaking of blisters: here is a picture for you about 30 minutes post race. Pretty, no?

Also, a picture of a dejected me crossing the finish line. Can you see me saying “I hate you feet!” in my head?

So, onwards and upwards. I’m having some knee issues after the race. Not shocking, especially now that I’ve seen my race pictures and how messed up my gait was, but they are improving. Hopefully they improve quickly because the next big race is AG Nats! And it’s only a month away!

Lawyers Have Heart 5k (aka "run fitness test for PJ")

2011-07-02T10:14:00.003-04:00

BOOM!

Cohasset Tri Race Report

2011-06-28T10:46:00.003-04:00

Cohasset is one of my favorite races. It’s a sprint but it has the feel of an Ironman as there is a lot of media surrounding it and nearly 1000 people competing. JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation) is a charitable partner with the race and a HUGE amount of money is raised for the foundation because of the race, which makes it the icing on the cake for me so I was excited to be there again this year.

I came into this race with a bunch of question marks. A lot of my training over the last month has been in the form of fitness testing with Jorge. And the training that I have done with Jorge so far has been quite a bit different than what I was used to with John. Let’s face it, switching coaches in the middle of the season is never an easy thing so I didn’t know what to expect. It was kind of nice though, because it took the pressure off and I was just there to do my best – I didn’t really care what my best was as this wasn’t an A or even a B race for me.

The downside to racing a sprint with a lot of competitors is the amount of waves and the amount of times between each wave. The race began at 8:00 but my wave didn’t start until 8:55. I had a hard time judging when to take my insulin. If you’ve read my blog before, you know I get a very big blood sugar spike from the effort involved when racing short distances and need to take a shot before the swim start. Since I didn’t really know when my wave would start, and I would have to take the shot and put my wetsuit on with enough time to make it to the starting chute, it was hard to time that. I was there by myself (no Sherpa Dave) so I was going to have to ask someone to zip up my Blue Seventy wetsuit (which zips from the top down so I can’t do it myself) so I needed a little extra time than usual (and I can’t take my shot once my wetsuit is on and zipped up). I ended up taking it a little too early which made me a bit nervous but I made sure I had gel packets with me on the swim just in case.

The other downside to racing a sprint with a lot of competitors is the amount of people in each wave! There were over 100 women in my wave. That is a lot of people when you are only swimming ¼ mile! There wasn’t a moment spent not defending my space and trying not to get kicked. It may have only been ¼ mile but it felt like an eternity! I came out of the water in 17th place in my age group. Not a good swim but improvement for me as the swim is my worst discipline. I was in the top 1/3rd and I’m usually around the 50th percentile.

My 1st transition was terrible, mostly due to my transition spot. I was as far back as possible and right next to the swim exit so I didn’t have time to get my suit off while running. This lead to a slow transition (I also had a LONG way to run with my bike before the mount line).

My legs felt a little flat on the bike but I was flying by people so I knew I was biking decently. While the course isn’t super hilly, it’s very technical and the roads were in rough condition so it was difficult gaining any speed. In two places I actually got stuck behind traffic, leaving only a single file line on the shoulder for bikes to pass. Since I’d started in the sixth wave, there were many slower riders in front of me and I was trapped behind them for a good amount of time. That was so frustrating! I was also feeling a bit sluggish and didn’t have my blood sugar meter with me to test, so I ate an energy gel half way through since I was worried my blood sugar was low - turns out it wasn’t (more on that later). The 12 miles went by fairly quickly and I managed a pretty decent bike split.

T2 was uneventful and much quicker than T1.

Onto the run my legs felt heavy and tired. The temperature was approaching 80 degrees and it was humid and sunny at that point which wasn’t helping! I always forget how hilly this run course is, too, until I’m out there – I don’t know why I always think it’s going to be flat. But I was running decently and picking off a lot of people. Most of us started in the same wave and they hadn’t marked our ages on our calves, so it was impossible to tell if you were passing someone in your age group or not so I assumed that everyone in front of me was in my age group. I had been following two girls from the first mile who were staying in front of me but I was slowly making up ground on them on the uphill portions. I was pretty sure they were currently in 1st and 2nd in my age group and that I was probably sitting in 3rd. By the time mile 2.5 rolled around, I could tell the first girl in front of me was struggling as she had stopped for water at the last water stop. So with a quarter of a mile left to go, I made my move and surged ahead of her. She responded so I was forced to keep a pretty stiff pace all the way to the finish to stay ahead of her. I managed to beat her by 3 seconds but it turns out she wasn’t even in my age group! In the mean time, another girl did the same thing to both of us and sprinted ahead of us both right before the finish pushing the other girl I had been gaining on into a sprint finish between the two of them! I love competition like that – it’s great to have others to push you. It’s a race after all, right?

I ran right to my blood sugar meter at the finish line as I was feeling pretty terrible, and sure enough, I was 290. I think I pushed myself a bit harder than I’m used to!

The end result was good for 2nd in my age group out of 56 and my 2nd Age Group Nationals qualifying race. Qualifying twice makes me feel like I deserve to be there a little more. I was hoping they’d give me a bonus head start on the swim for that but apparently that’s not in the rule book!

It’s been fun getting to know my new coach and getting used to a different way of doing things. It has shaken things up for me and I’m positive, now, that I needed that to grow as an athlete. I’m looking forward to more of it!

Next up: A 5k on Thursday, which we will use for a run fitness test and Rev3 Portland half Ironman in 1.5 weeks, which is going to be a D race for me as I’m not, at all, trained for that distance. I’m calling it a “fun run” to take the pressure off. I’m mostly looking forward to hanging out with my team again as 75% of us will be racing!

Rev3 Quassy Race Report and Coaching Changes

2011-06-10T15:37:00.000-04:00

Last weekend was my first Team Type 1 event of the year. Let me tell you something – I forgot how much fun I have with my team. They are so awesome – every one of them. I spent the entire weekend laughing my butt off. I love my team! There’s nothing like putting a bunch of fast, funny diabetics together.

As for the race, let me just say PHEW! That was one tough course. You know it’s a tough course when you hear me saying that the swim was the easiest part!

Swim (31:43): Grade: D

The water was perfect. 69 degrees, clear and fantastic. As usual, however, I swam terribly and even managed to almost run straight into a floating dock thing near the finish. Blah. I am so tired of getting my butt kicked on the swim! I came out of the water 24th in my age group (out of 44). I had a lot of work to do.

T1 (3:10): Grade: F

I couldn’t get my blood sugar meter to work. The strips kept getting wet and erroring out. Luckily, Dave and teammate Casey were standing next to transition and I screamed “Get a strip ready for me!” which they did while I did normal triathlete transition stuff. My blood sugar was 116. PERFECT! I took 2 units of fast acting insulin and hopped on the bike.

Bike (01:22:18): Grade B

Man this was a hard course. 2000 feet of climbing over 24 miles? Yikes! But I felt pretty darned good on the bike. I probably would have biked better had I not had a 25 on the back – I was really grinding up some of those climbs, but I survived. I will definitely need to put a 27 on before Rev3 Portland – I’m told the course is even harder. I biked myself into 9th in my age group.

T2 (2:24): Grade F

A volunteer had to tell me to run the other way because I almost ran out the bike entry. I wasted a ton of time. Blah.

Run: (48:20) Grade B-

Did I say the bike was hard? Well the run was worse. It was all up and down. After a tough bike it was hard on the legs. I gave myself a B- because I am sure I didn’t run hard enough. Also, my blood sugar went low around mile 2 and I crashed a bit before my Hammer gel kicked in. But around mile 4 I passed a girl in my age group. She attempted to respond and stay with me so my “oh hell no” instincts kicked in and I hammered. What I realized at that point was that I felt fantastic at the faster pace and that my legs had a lot more of that in them. I probably ran the first 4 miles at a pace slower than what I was capable of. Bummer. But I ran myself into 5th in my age group so it wasn’t all that bad.

In summary, I was pleased with the results but not thrilled. I clearly have a lot to work on before Nationals! Which leads me to my next topic.

First, a big thank you to John Hirsch for being a fantastic coach for the last 3 years. He got me through my first Ironman (when I had no business doing an Ironman), took me from a newbie to many age group wins but most of all, has been one of the best friends an athlete could ask for. I will forever be CREW in my heart.

After yet another horrible swim on Saturday, I decided it might be time for a coaching change. I need someone local who would be in a better position to help me with the swim – that is too hard for John to do living several states away from me. After much deliberation, and a few meetings, I’m excited to say that I have decided to put my athletic life in the hands of Coach Jorge Martinez of E3 Training Solutions. I’m looking forward to seeing where the rest of the season takes me under the guidance of a new coach!

Happy diabetics.

Even happier diabetics (mmmm. DQ!)

I like this picture

2011-05-11T13:55:00.000-04:00

And it's a rarity that I like my race picures. So I'm posting it!

2011-05-08T23:34:00.005-04:00

So much to say!

Holy hell, where do I start? It’s been…months? I actually had to go back and read my blog to see when I blogged last. I concluded that we have a lot of catching up to do!

Most importantly, since I last wrote you all stressed out and high on my 5k almost PR, we’ve moved into the new house and we absolutely LOVE it! I’m still exploring all the training routes available to me (there are so many of them) so I’m sure it will only get better. I’ll admit the commute is a bit long for me in the morning (it has doubled) but I’m getting used to it and the trade off of being able to walk out my front door and hit the trails is well worth that commute. I only mention it because it’s the biggest reason for my blogging hiatus – I’ve lost more than an hour of my day to blog!

Next most important note: Injury! Since moving, I’ve been running on trails. As such, I’ve been running on trails in racing flats. While I knew this was stupid, I kept doing it. Reason being? Being sponsored by Newton Running and having lived in an area where only pavement was available to train on, I filled up my shoe orders with racing flats. I ordered some trail runners but in the mean time decided to be dumb and run over rocks and tree roots in shoes not designed for this task. This led to as “stress reaction” and having to wear this:

This was good news/bad news. I was convinced I had a stress fracture and every doctor I had seen (ART and sports med) suspected the same. Fortunately for me, an MRI revealed a stress reaction which is what happens before a stress fracture occurs. Basically, the muscles in my calves/shins had become so tight that they started yanking on the outer layer of my bone (called the periosteum) and it wore away. So it’s mostly a muscle/tendon issue, but having part of your bone worn away leaves you more susceptible to a stress fracture. So my orders were to wear the boot until walking stopped hurting. (But doc, I have a race this weekind?) Revised orders: Wear the boot for a week, race against doctors orders, wear the boot again until walking stops hurting.

Which leads me to

My first tri race report of the season! New England Season Opener – Hopkinton, MA (Sprint: Swim: .25, Bike: 10 miles, Run: 3.1 miles)

The race report wouldn’t be complete without a pre-race report. I was so sure I had a stress fracture and wouldn’t be racing that I didn’t take the time to get any of my race stuff ready. When I realized on Friday (2 days before the race) that I was going to be able to race, I also realized that none of my race stuff was ready. And by ready, I mean I didn’t even know where it was. My Zipps weren’t on the bike, half our crap is still in storage, there were no tires on the Zipps…the list goes on and on. Thank God for Landry’s in Norwood. I brought all my crap to them in a panic and Pat made it all work, including replacing a missing part from the Zipp. I am so thankful for their help!

Race report: I was nervous as hell going into this race with a bum shin but regardless, my blood sugar cooperated pre-race! For me, that’s the hallmark of “I’m going to have a good race.” Honestly – every good race I have had started with a good blood sugar. All pre-race I held steady at around 100. PERFECT!

Swim:

WATER TEMP: 57! Holy crap that water was cold!

I felt like I was swimming well but apparently I wasn’t. I have definitely improved from last year but I still suck. Swim grade: C (improved from D last year). I’m not going to dwell on the swim because it’s the only crappy part of the race report so why write more than I have to about it? It was cold. I swam. I got the job done.

Bike: I KILLED IT! This course was a lot tougher than I was expecting it to be. Terrain-wise it wasn’t all that bad. It had its fair share of hills but it was turny, pot-holy, and starting in the 5th out of 6 waves made that combo almost lethal in sections. It really sucks starting in the back, especially on a rough course. Let’s face it, the fast riders start in the front. If you are fast and you start in the back there are a lot of slower riders in front of you and they are not ready for someone to go whizzing by them at mile 5. That makes it hard to ride fast, especially when there is a pot hole every 5 feet. Anyhow, despite that, I had the 2nd fastest bike split overall (female). I missed 1st by four seconds. It appears all those puke-bucket-sitting-next-to-me –intervals this winter have paid off. And it appears my new FELT kicks some major butt.
Bike Grade: A+

Run: I also killed it (but not as much as I’d hoped – 4th overall). My legs felt like rubber coming off of the bike but as always happens with tri’s, it didn’t take long for that feeling to go away. Same as with the bike, we were greeted by a decent incline coming out of T2. I was surprised at how well my legs responded – I felt pretty good. I passed a lot of people during the first 2 miles…and then we went….off road? WTF? Grass/gravel..you name it. Let’s just say the last mile was all about surviving. But I survived. I just wish I would have known that was going to happen so I could have been prepared!
Run grade: B+

Blood sugar: Grade B : I was 250 at the finish, which isn’t great, but it was a different 250. It was an “on the way down” 250 as opposed to just a 250. If you are type1 , you get that. It’s going to take some time to figure out my insulin plan for my next race (which is an oly)

End result: I was 1st in my age group and I punched my slot to nationals….and that’s all that matters! Yay!

Next goal: To blog more often!

Next goal race: Rev 3 Quassy Oly. See you there!

First race of 2011

2011-03-20T11:32:00.002-04:00

I love racing. I love it so much it hurts not to race. It had been nearly 6 months since I've raced so when some co-workers and I started throwing around the idea of racing a fun 5k I was all for it. A 5k was perfect because a) it would help me scratch the race itch without setting myself back with recovery, etc and b) it would be a good test of fitness as I've done zero speed training this year and don't have a clue where I stand right now in the fitness department. I also haven't been running much as I've been working on my form and very slowly adding mileage in an effort to escape the injury wagon I seem to keep jumping on - my biggest week of running has only been around 20 miles.

We picked a 1st time race in Marshfield, thinking it would be a small local venue, which was just what we wanted. 1st time races are always pretty intimate events, right? WRONG! 1700 people showed up!

I'll spare you the boring details because a 5k is a 5k but here's the pertinent info:

1. There was a crazy, cold, biting head wind going out. The race was on the coast and being right next to the water didn't help. The first 1.5 miles HURT. I mean really, really hurt.

2. I screwed up my insulin dosing. It's inevitable that I will screw up my dosing on the first race because of year. I get a huge adrenaline spike from racing short distances and I have to take several units of insulin to combat that. But I was in the low 80's at the start, have some plantar fasciitis going on and I was worried I wasn't going to be able to run fast enough to spike my sugar (and would go low if I took insulin), so I only took one unit (I usually take 3 or 4). Lesson learned - trust your past experience. I was 350 at the finish and I felt it on the last mile.

3. I threw up at the finish line. That's a first. I am pretty sure it was mostly due to the high blood sugar.

4. I am happy with the results because I am 100% positive that I gave everything I have - I could not have run any faster. This is usually an issue for me with 5k's - I still have something left in the tank at the end.

5. My Newtons are awesome. I love these shoes.

6. I ran 21:21, was 5th overall female, 2nd in my age group & 37th overall! Out of almost 1700 people! Results here. While I was secretly hoping for a sub 21, this is still a good result for me for this early in the season. The conditions were pretty rough with that headwind, too, and I'm sure the high blood sugar slowed me down a bit. I don't think I'll be far off that sub 21 next time.

7. I take horrible pictures. :)

8. My friend, Barry, takes better pictures than I do (he took 2nd in his age group too).

Burn Out

2011-03-12T11:29:00.001-05:00

HOLY CRAP I’M BURNED OUT!

I don’t know if there’s a cumulative effect going on or what, but over the last month or so I’ve been realizing how tired I am of going, going, going 24 x 7. Tonight I threw enough of a fit to elicit a giant “it’s going to be okay” hug moment from my husband. The fit? It was because I had to cook dinner. TO COOK DINNER! I like to cook. It’s not a big deal. But it was 7:30 pm. It’s the Friday at the end of a heavy training phase and I got stuck at work an hour late. Again. I rushed home, taped my feet up (because I’m having some plantar fasciitis issues) and jumped into the 1.5 hours of core and PT on my schedule.

I haven’t stopped moving for days and days and days and I’m just tired. It’s okay to admit that right? I’m freaking tired! And I don’t think it’s the workouts that are killing me – it’s everything else. I’m tired of having to shift the earth’s crust in order to have time to hang out with friends. I’m tired of feeling like a boring, crazy stranger than my friends once knew. I slam Facebook, Twitter, personal e-mails – all that stuff, into my commute or in between my core/PT sets.

I’m tired of having to think about the indexer I need to configure in the next hour while I’m swimming – the time I have to leave to get to my ART appointment while I’m configuring the indexer – how much time I have left to work on the indexer before I have to leave to get my run done before midnight while I’m at my ART appointment – if I have enough non-dirty workout clothes for my workouts the next day while I’m running (and how much time I’ll have left when I get home to cook dinner and check on the indexer before I go to bed).

I’m two pounds under race weight. That’s not good. I can’t remember the last time I was displeased for being low on weight. I am so burned out that I forget to eat and when I don’t forget, I’m too tired to bother eating enough (or going to the store to have enough in the house to eat). I don’t sleep because my upstairs neighbors SUCK. I’m moving in 3 weeks and haven’t packed a thing.

But you know what I love? I love kicking my own ass. I love being totally exhausted, staring a workout in the face thinking “there’s no way I can do this”…and then destroying it. That’s been my motivation for the last 2 weeks – overcoming myself. And I’ve grown so used to this lifestyle that when I have a moment to relax, I have no idea what to do with it. I want to relax but I can’t.

But yet, here I sit, at midnight, exhausted (when I should be sleeping), complaining about being burned out. I should probably be relaxing, no?

I think it goes back to the whole “you can’t tell me what I can’t do” thing. I can’t shake it – I just can’t. Man childhood stuff sticks with you, no? I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes well over 20 years ago (I think I may have ignited a midlife crisis in myself just saying that). Diabetes was a different game back then. There were a lot of things I was told I couldn’t do. Then my parents got divorced and there was a whole host of other things I couldn’t do because we couldn’t afford it.

Oh man. The list goes on and on and on with the stuff I couldn’t do. But you know what? Here I am. I’m happy, exhausted, probably pushing myself way too hard but I’m not sitting on the couch not doing all the things everyone said I couldn’t do. Tired is worth it.

And as always, saving the best news for last: Check out my new kicks! Thanks so much to Newton Running for supplying me with the best running shoes I've ever worn. If you haven't tried a pair yet, you really should. These shoes have done more for my run than I can describe. I can't wait to start setting PRs in these bad boys!

Love at first sight

2011-03-01T08:55:00.004-05:00

I'll get better pictures at some point but here are some phone pics.

Speaks for itself

Swapped out the Vision crank for DA

So many wires involved with di2!

A Happy Me

And I think this about sums it up

This year just keeps getting better

2011-02-23T19:06:00.008-05:00

We sold our condo.

And we bought a house!

The condo has been on the market for over five months and we were starting to lose hope. Believe you me, it was a frustrating five months. Do you know what it’s like to show a condo every weekend (and sometimes several times a week) in the middle of Snowpocolypse when you have to ride your bike, indoors, hooked up to a Computrainer (which means hooking it up and unhooking it and hiding it for showings over and over again), for hours on both Saturday and Sunday? For five months, my weekend schedule has been:

Saturday:
6:00: Get up
7:00: Drive to North Attleboro (1 hour drive) for physical therapy
8:00 – 10:00: Physical Therapy
10:00 – 11:00: Drive back to Cambridge
12:00 – 1:00: Swim
1:00: Slam food.
2:00 – 5:00 (or later, depending): Ride bike
5:30 - 6:30ish: Prepare and eat food
6:30 – Whenever: Shower, start to clean house and drool on myself.

Sunday:
7:00: Get up
8:00 – 11:30: Clean house
12:00 – 1:00: Open house (I used that time to swim)
1:30 – 3:00: Grocery shop and normal people errands
3:00 – 5:00: Ride bike
5:30 – 6:30: Brick run
Repeat Saturday night schedule.

Thank God I'm not training for a full Ironman this year!

You see where this is going. There's been some stress and it was becoming increasingly hard to find motivation to keep it up when we kept hearing time after time again “We love the condo, but it’s just not for us!” Not to mention, my next race being more than a half of a year off throughout all this - it's also hard to find the motivation to keep training when I have so much other stuff going on.

Long story short, someone finally made an offer on our condo. We accepted. Then we went out to look at a few places, not expecting to actually make an offer on anything but much to our surprise, the 2nd place we saw was love at first sight. We made an offer which was also accepted.

And here it is:

- It’s brand new construction.
- It’s BIG (we are tripling our square footage).
- It’s got everything we wanted plus more – I won’t get too detailed.
- It’s got a hot tub (had to mention that little detail – I may spend hours in that thing).
- It’s got a big back yard.
- It’s next to great running trails and a short 5 miles from the roads we love to bike on, which was actually our major motivation for moving – we were spending our weekends commuting to those roads which just seemed silly.
- It’s a convenient location for both my hubby (who now does a reverse commute) and myself to get to work.

If all goes well (not everything is set in stone yet so hopefully I’m not jinxing myself here), we will be moving in early April. That’s in, like, a month!

Man, after this is over, I swear we are going to relax for a year. It's been a pretty hectic first two years of our marriage. We're really happy that we are starting to see some luck swing our way!

Good news/bad news and THE BEST NEWS EVER!

2011-02-10T09:26:00.005-05:00

Starting with the bad news:

From Pat at Landry’s: I have some not-so-good-news on the B2. I spoke with Felt yesterday about the availability of the bike and they've decided for 2011 to discontinue all size 48 bikes with 650 wheels from the B2 and DA.

While I was pretty disappointed with this news, it may end up working out better for me in the long-run and Pat came up with a solution that should achieve the same fit and a nearly identical bike, so it may work out better for me in the long run.

The solution is to go with the Felt B10, with some upgrades.

The major differences between the B10 and B2 are
The fork: B2 comes with an upgraded bayonet fork
The crank: B2 has FSA, B10 has Vision
Wheels: Slightly nicer on the B2.

Solution:
The fork: No solution. I will have a lesser fork.
The crank: Pat will swap out the Vision crank for a Dura Ace 165 crank/bottom bracket. This works out well because the B2 comes standard with 170 cranks and a 165 fits me better.
Wheels: I could care less. My Zipps are going on it anyway so these wheels will be training wheels anyway.

The B10 also comes stock with Di2, so basically this means the only thing I’m losing is the bayonet fork (and perhaps the awesome blue color but I don’t think the red is too shabby either).

And the best news ever?

My reaction when the Pack won the Superbowl was to bawl like a baby for a good hour afterwards. My husband’s comment was “what would you be doing if they’d lost?” I’m glad I don’t have to know the answer to that question! In evaluating these emotions, I realized how much this game meant to me. My last year seemed to parallel the Packers year with respect to overcoming injury and all that stuff and I saw a lot of myself in how they played that game. I kind of knew all year long that we were going to win, even when everyone else had forgotten about us and I never lost hope. Anyway, the win meant a lot to me and I couldn’t be happier about it. I love my team!

And the winner is?

2011-02-01T12:51:00.004-05:00

First off, I have to give props to Pat Flaherty (manager of Landry's in Boston) for helping me decide on the right bike for me. I had the opportunity to ride with Pat for a few days on a trip through Vermont last year and knew he'd be able to help me with my decision. I've always gone to Hussam at ATA in the past for my fittings, and he's done a great job for me, but ATA doesn't carry any of the bikes I was interested in where Landry's does. I was really impressed with Pat's knowledge and skills, especially when it came to 650c wheels and the issues shorties face (Pat isn't too tall, himself). He took the time to understand my issues, including the hip surgeries and took all of that into account. I'm looking forward to my final fitting with him after I get the bike.

After a thorough, 3ish hour fitting, Pat went through the list of bikes we had come up with before the fitting that might work for me to decide which were a possibility and which weren't. On the list were: Felt, Trek, Cervelo, Specialized, Kestrel, Cannondale and Parlee (possibly a few others).

I am kind of oddly shaped. I am small, yes, but my femurs are actually quite long and my torso very short. This means I need a bike with a long stack but a short reach. Couple that with the need for 650c and, well, my options are limited. Pat had actually set up a 48 cm frame Cervelo to do the fitting on but I couldn't reach the aerobars, even with the saddle jacked all the way forward. So right away, that one was out (and I started to get nervous).

But when all was said and done, there were three or four bikes that were a possibility and two that would work much better than the other two -- those were Trek and Felt (the Trek was actually slightly better than the Felt but by a hair). I could feel myself smiling the second Pat said Felt - and the decision was made:

The B2 wins!

I'm sure I'll enjoy another few months on the computrainer staring at it, hanging patiently on the wall. But I must say, there's nothing like a new bike to motivate you in the winter months - it's the promise of being able to get out there and kill that first ride on it, whenever that might be!

My month in pictures

2011-01-29T22:38:00.012-05:00

There hasn't been a ton to say over the last month mostly because there's only so much a person can say about swimming, running and biking indoors every day. I'm trying not to complain about this because let's face it, I'm running, swimming and biking which is more than I could say last year, so I'm counting my blessings and staring at gym/pool/basements walls for hours on end right now, telling myself that it will make me appreciate the spring/summer that much more.

To make up for my lack of words, here are some pictures. Let's start with the snow.

Here is the street I live on as of 2 days ago:

Here is a giant eyeless/armless/noseless snowman I pass on my way to work:

Here is Central Square on the day of the first big blizzard (note: I was walking down the middle of the street, taking this picture - on a normal day this would have gotten me killed within 10 seconds):

For reference, here is what Central Square looks like on a normal day:

This is a cool looking tree on the day of the first blizzard:

This is what I spend my weekends looking at:

This is how badly I'm in need of a haircut (note: I hate the feel of hair on my face so when it gets too "long" this is what happens):

This is what happens to my cat when Dave and I are bored and stuck inside because of blizzards:

This is my awesome new Splishy that I designed myself because I was stuck inside because of blizzards:

On the recovery front, things are going well. I am feeling pretty strong despite some nagging glute pain. I continue to see PT genius, Matt, once a week and am still seeing improvement. Over the last three weeks I have gotten in almost 50 hours of training. I think that speaks for itself with how much I've improved!

On Monday I getting fit for a new TT bike. Is there anything better than a new bike to pull you out of a winter funk? I think not! I don't know what the bike will be yet, the fitting will help deside that. I have one particular bike stuck in my head that I really, really want but I'm trying not to get my heart set on it as my main priority is getting the right bike for me (IE, one that fits).

Last pictures are of bikes in the running. In no particular order they are (well, maybe they are in a particular order - I'll let you decide):

Felt B2:

Women's Slice (note: I have to get the women's version because it's the only one with 650c and the correct geometry for me, which means I'd have to switch out the shit components they put on it because they assume small women must suck and not want nice stuff):

Cervelo P4:

And last but most definitely not least, GO PACK GO!

Anniversaries Worth Celebrating

2011-01-11T23:16:00.006-05:00

One year ago today I was recovering from my first hip surgery. One year ago today I didn’t know if I’d ever run or ride a bike again. One year ago today I had so much morphine and valium in me that I was probably pretty happy or at least sleeping at this time of night. :)

This anniversary popped up on me – I was looking through my calendar from last year when I realized that January 10th was the big day so I thought it would be a good time to take a step back, reflect and analyze.

I wish I would have taken the time to catalogue my feelings and achievements as I recovered from surgery because those milestones have been distorted and forgotten about along the way. When one has a long road of recovery, they tend to focus on the here and now. At least that’s where my focus tends to lie – I’m either healed or broken depending on how I’m feeling at the time you ask me; I tend to live in the moment.

The reality is that I’ve had hip issues for quite a few years. I had no idea they were serious until the end of 2009. Prior to that, I thought I was experiencing the normal aches and pains that any athlete experiences. For these reasons, I don't think I can accurately recall what it feels like to have a “normal” hip so it’s hard for me to tell you how much I’ve improved as I can’t recall a certain perfect feeling to compare it to. Complicating this is the fact that I had the same issue and surgery on both hips, so I don’t have a “good” hip to compare a “bad” hip to.

Do I feel good right now? I think so, but who knows?!? What is good?
Do I feel “normal” (normal defined as a person with no hip issues)? Probably not.
Do I still have pain? Yes.
Is my pain better than it was a year ago? Most definitely.
Would I go through surgery again? 100% yes.
Will I ever feel “normal” again? I don’t know. I don’t think I’ll ever be 100% but I think I’ll get close.

I’d have to say that as hard as it was to get through this (and I’m not done yet – still have a lot of work to do) that I’m pleased with the results. I’m not perfect (as if I ever was) and I suspect that in a few years they will perfect this surgery more so that it’s not so difficult to recover from but how can I complain? 1 year and 1 month ago, there is no way I could run and I was pretty sure my life as a triathlete was over. It wasn’t easy but I had a season and I think my best season is about to happen.

So yeah, Happy Anniversary to me. And let’s celebrate again in 6 weeks with hip #2!

My anniversary present (actually it was a birthday present from my hubby and in-laws but hip-surgery anniversary present fits into this post so much better, no?): a bike box I could live in! Yay for no more bikes destroyed by UPS!

Stuff to get excited about!

2011-01-06T13:23:00.002-05:00

Check out this press release about a partnership beteen Team Type 1 and Rev 3 next year.

What that means is that next year, I'll be racing all Rev3 and boycotting WTC. I'm really excited about that. My A races next year will be:

Rev3 Quassy Oly - June 4
Rev3 Portland Half - July 10
AG Nats (Vermont) - August 20
Rev3 South Carolina Half - October 9

And in other exciting news, we are sponsored by Newton Running next year making it all that much easier for me to continue to wear my favorite shoes! I've worn these shoes since hip surgery and I LOVE them. When I got the sponsorship news, I nearly cried with excitement!

Last bit of good news is that I had two weeks in a row of solid, steady, 15 hour training weeks. It's been awhile since I've been able to do that. I am feeling more and more excited by the day. I have raced the last two years with injuries and done decently. I'm looking forward to seeing what I can do when I'm healthy!

Oh, wait: a little more good news - Dave got me a PowerTap for Christmas! So bring on the watts!

The year that would never end

2011-01-01T22:54:00.002-05:00

Guess what? It ended!

I have come to think of 2010 as the year of the jinx and I don't think I'm alone in this. It was a terrible year for pretty much every person I know. Beyond a bad economy, which one would expect contributed to a lot of the negativity going around, some pretty crazy bad stuff happened to just about everyone I know short of a few lucky ones. I don't know where I'm going with this - maybe misery loves company?

My year ended with the news that someone I was once very close to died a few days before Christmas. It was a pretty rough blow for me and I'm still processing my feelings about it. I had some struggles with this person but his death, at the age of 36, made me realize that I spent so much time angry with him that I forgot to stop and realize the struggles he had in life, which were many. I don't know what else to say about it. Maybe in another post I'll have figured it all out.

I just deleted 6 or 7 paragraphs that contained all the reasons 2010 sucked. I was about to publish the post when I realized that it doesn't matter. 2010 is over. There is no need to focus on the bad.

Truth be told, I can't wait for 2011. Hell, it HAS to be better right?

I ran 7 miles mofos!

2010-12-21T22:34:00.004-05:00

First, thanks for the birthday wishes. I know I'm a dick for requesting them but sometimes a girl needs some love, right!?!

And now the important stuff- I ran 7 miles. SEVEN MILES! 7 miles of pure bliss. I was on a treadmill, which for me is hell, and it was approximately 9200 degrees in my gym, and I planned on running 3 but I just kept going. And I was the happiest girl in the city of Boston at that time because I was running and it didn't hurt. I watched myself in the mirror the entire time (and I can imagine how much an asshole I looked doing so..but again, don't care) and I gotta say, my form is coming along.

You know, I think back to when I started running, ect. and I can't help but wonder if my personality contribued 100% to what I'm dealing with right now. Some of you know this but prior to my athletic persuits, which started less than 5 years ago, I was a heavy smoker/drinker/bad diabetic. Then I met my first Boston boyfriend, who happend to be a (at the time whom I classified as a crazy athletic nutso person. In an effort to "impress" him, I decided to run my first 5k - having no clue what I was getting into. Little did I know there is a difference between a "trail" and a regular 5k and I'd signed up for a trail 5k.

Long story short, I finished in a time less than 29 minutes, nearly lost a lung and hated him with every ounce of my being. He won his age group and came back to run the last 1/4 mile with me...helping me to the finish. I wanted to kill him. A few weeks later that first Boston boyfriend broke up with me.

You see where this is going, right?

My reaction to being broken up with was to kill the shit out of every athletic pursuit that existed, which at the time meant running. I ran and I ran and I ran. Ir an 40 - 50 miles a week and it friggin HURT! I had no business running that much, but I did. DUMB!

Guess what happened? I landed injury after injury after injury. My body wasn't ready for that shit. Then I made it worse and decided to do an Ironman. DOUBLE DUMB!

Guess where I am now? Yeah, I finished an Ironman, won some races and shit but I've also had 2 hip surguries and spent more time in IR than anything else. Shit, I've done an Ironmand and today I am excited that I ran 7 miles not something i'd normally get excited for)! I've had 2 major surguries during the last year. I've had 4 stress fractures. This shit sucks! My life has been nothing less than a struggle for 4 years now. My point: DO SHIT THE RIGHT WAY! Don't be me.

Need more inspiration? I do approximately 6 hours of PT every week - I have for the last year. I've also spent an average of $200 a month in massage/ART dealing with compensation issues (not including insurance covered PT). Beyond the fact that I love my PT/ART/MASSAGE team, this SUCKS!

Anyway, you get the point. And since I've been asked repeatedly for specifics regarding my "hip support team", I'll leave y'all that info here:

My PT: Matt Rajotte

My Massage Therapist: Sarah Tufano

My ART Doctor: Kate Kelly

Cheers!
Peej

On cortisone shots, sore bums & high blood sugars

2010-12-17T14:28:00.002-05:00

So I got two cortisone shots this Wednesday – one into each glute medius. The original plan formulated by Dr. Kocher was to have two shots into the left hip, one into the actual joint and one into the left glute tendon attachment. The shots were to be administered by another doctor under ultrasound guidance. I was nervous as all get-out going into this appointment and very, very hesitant to get these shots, especially the one into the tendon. I’ve read so many bad things about the possibility of tendon rupture and/or weakness after cortisone shots and I just had a bad/bad feeling about this plan – I can’t explain it.

I approached this appointment/new doctor a bit differently than I generally approach Dr. appointments -- with guns blazing and armored with questions. I was hungover, having attended my work Holiday party the night before and I was in no mood to mess around (and my blood pressure showed that). Turns out I really liked this doctor. His son is an Ironman who has been to Kona and he, himself, is a runner – so he gets it. Before I even gave my feelings about the fact that I didn’t think a shot into the tendon was a good idea, he came right out and told me that. He also said he didn’t think I needed one in the joint. I discussed with him that since I had my initial appointment with Dr. Kocher that the right glute had been given me more problems that the left and that I was panicking about this as I knew there was no way I was going to be able to get back to Dr. Kocher to discuss this. He calmed me down, sat down and read my entire history, performed several diagnostic tests, gave me his thoughts and made me feel a whole lot better about what was about to happen.

The plan is this:
1) One shot into each glute medius muscle belly (done).
2) Continued physical therapy with PT Genius (doc was adamant that the shots will not cure anything, only get me over the hump and allow for pain-free PT that will solve things).
3) A follow-up in 4 weeks to do a full strength/gait/etc. analysis to make sure things are progressing.
4) There is still a question on whether the left glute tendon is torn or not so if it’s still giving me problems at 4 weeks, we will discuss the possibility of platelet rich injections into the area to promote healing.

I like this plan, simply because it’s a plan and I now have another Dr. on my side who I feel has my best interests in mind. I like that he didn’t just say “we’ll do this and it will fix it” but instead said “we’ll do this, see if it works and it if doesn’t, we’ll do something else.” Score.

So that was the good news – here’s the crap: Cortisone shots into the ass HURT! It wasn’t so bad during but once the numbing medication wore off – WOW! It’s now been 48 hours and things have improved but it’s still quite sore on the ole bum. My PT explained to me that the more muscle you have down there, the more it will hurt because as the medication moves around in there, it needs room to move and the more muscle you have, the less room it has. So, of course, I take that to mean I have a great muscular butt and that’s why I’m in so much pain. Yesterday was pretty awful though, I won’t lie. My butt, my back, my EVERYTHING hurt. Today is tolerable (though going up the stairs SUCKS). I think I’ll be good to go by tomorrow.

The other unfun side of cortisone shots pertains to diabetes – it makes your blood sugars go whacky. For the first 24 hours I was basically unable to eat because no matter how much insulin I took, my blood sugar remained high. It’s still whacky today – I’ve taken about 10 times the normal dosages I normally take. I’m told this will continue for anywhere from 48 – a week after the shot. I’m hoping for the former! That said, I think I’ve lost 3 pounds in 2 days. I’m not complaining.

Some other good news: My swimming is really coming along. I had a video analysis with Jesse Kropelnicki of QT2 and I have to say, it was one of the best things I could have done for myself. Jesse gave me a list of drills to focus on and I've spent the last 4 weeks drilling/drilling/drilling (with very little actual swimming) and now that I'm starting to add some swimming back, I'm truly amazed at how well things are going. Jesse is very good at highlighting the things you need to work on and if you need help with your swim stroke - I highly recommend this service. Believe it or not, I'm actually enjoying swimming now because I'm comfortable in the pool for the first time ever. It feels good to say that!

Things have still been a bit rough on a personal level and I think nearly everyone I know has a bit of the bah humbugs this year, including myself. But that just means onwards and upwards for 2011, right?

We’ll be heading to Maine for Christmas, hopefully home for my birthday (Dec. 26th) – that’s right, I’m dropping the "it's my birthday" card. Hope you all have a nice Holiday – especially those of you who wish me a Happy Birthday! ;)

I feel like a football player

2010-12-05T23:23:00.006-05:00

I’ve been watching the Steelers and Ravens battle it out tonight and as I watched Roethlisberger, broken nose, taped up broken foot and all, I couldn’t help but think of myself.

How many times have you heard this: Life is what you make of it…? While I agree with that statement, I think it would be more accurately stated with: Life is what you make of it unless you weren’t blessed with the ability to see the bright side and then you get screwed over and over and over again. Not everyone can see the bright side in everything and those that think they can, I suspect, could not had they been dealt a worse lot in life, myself included. I am not a starving child in Africa.

I’m rambling but I have a point. Someone close to me is experiencing some scary and uncertain health difficulties. I find myself in a weird position – I have never had to be the person comforting someone else with a medical issue and I’m having a hard time with it. I have a hard time with empathy because I haven’t had an easy life and therefore, I have a tendency to compare everyone else’s experience to mine with: “if only I had it that easy.” I’ve been thinking about this a lot for the last few days and I’ll be honest with you, the conclusion I’ve come to is that I almost think I’m better than other people because I’ve “been through more.” How messed up is that?

But the more I think about it, the more I realize that it’s probably a normal reaction for someone whose entire life has been wrapped around overcoming. Overcoming seems to be the thing that has defined my life – it’s what I do because having been dealt the crazy cards I’ve been dealt since I was young, I don’t know how to deal with life any other way. When bad shit happens to me I just keep plowing through it and every time I’ve plowed through life stuff, I’ve gotten praised for it – from the time I was in grade school until now. So when something bad happens to someone close to me, I have no idea how to deal with it beyond telling them to just plow through it. But plowing through stuff doesn’t work for everyone so, well, anyway….

MRI News:
Left hip: Superior Labral tear, gluteus medius insertional tear and/or tendinosis and bursitis.
Right hip: Bursitis.

I had a subsequent appointment with my surgeon, Dr. Kocher, to discuss these results. I had to fight to get past his front line to get an appointment with him but after hijacking his e-mail address and writing him directly, I managed to get squeezed in between surgeries to see him. I was certain my left hip labrum was torn again even before I saw the MRI results and then when the MRI confirmed those findings, it was hard not to fixate on them. But Dr. Kocher does not think the labrum is torn again – he thinks what the radiologist read as a tear is post-op changes (healing, basically) and at this point of the game, I have to trust my surgeon because I don’t know what else to do (my new, awesome PT agrees – more on that later). So the going forward plan is that on December 15th I will get 2 cortisone shots administered – one into my glute medius and one into my hip joint. Dr. Kocher thinks this will solve my issues permanently. That said, cortisone scares the shit out of me. I want nothing to do with them.

I’m still seeing my awesome PT and everytime I see him I leave feeling better and subsequent runs are completed with less pain. He also thinks that my labrum is not torn. I trust him more than I trust my surgeon at this point so I was glad to hear that.

I don’t know how to end this so I’m just going to end it.

PS: I felt like a football player cuz I can keep on truckin through shit cuz the result is all that matters. For them, it doesn’t matter if they’re hurt as long as they can keep scoring touchdowns. I get it. And I feel for football players.

PSS: Pittsburgh just won the game. Way to plow through it Roethlisberger.

Let it be known: something good happened to me

2010-11-13T23:46:00.007-05:00

It’s a really odd chain of events that led up to the good stuff. It started with a gradual worsening of my left hip. After the Scituate Duathlon (and during, in fact) things seemed to take a turn for the worse and as of last week, I was unable to run on the left hip without extreme pain. It got to the point where walking was torture as well, but only sometimes – other days it was just a twinge here and there.

All of this led to a frantic internet search for answers. Is it a stress fracture? Is it another labral tear? Is it a hip flexor strain? Of course I’ve experienced all three of these things, some more than once, but after a certain amount of afflictions, it becomes almost impossible to distinguish one from the other. And as you’d expect, I left the internet with all three injuries, some communicable diseases, a hernia, a stroke and a panic attack. At that point I figured it was best to call my doc, which I did, and she ordered an MRI for me. We suspected a psoas strain so we also scheduled an appointment for a steroid injection into the hip flexor as a diagnostic mechanism, assuming the MRI came back all clear for a fracture. I had the MRI on Friday and don’t have the results yet. The steroid injection is scheduled for December 15th, the earliest appointment they had.

Don’t fret, I haven’t gotten to the good news yet.

Part of my internet search for answers included finding a PT in Boston with ANY hip impairment syndrome experience and as part of said search, I ran across the blog of a PT who seemed to have exactly what I was looking for – knowledge and experience. Unfortunately, said PT isn’t practicing anymore. Not having anything to lose, I wrote this PT, giving him as brief a description as I could give about my situation, and asked if he could point me to any PT in the New England area who could help me. I was fully expecting to be ignored but much to my surprise, I got an e-mail back almost immediately with the name of a person. Unfortunately this lead to another dead end as the person I was referred to was also no longer practicing. But during the process of trying to find this person, I had to write a PT clinic to ask if this PT was still around to which I was told he wasn’t but that if I could describe my situation, maybe they could help. Dejected and cynical, I told my story with an emphatic “I am not interested in seeing anyone without explicit experience in this area. I have wasted so many hours trying to fix this and I just don’t have the time to do it anymore.” I was told that they had just the PT for me and asked if I was willing to travel. I wanted to say no – I am so tired of spending all my time doing this shit and now I have to drive an hour to do it? But something made me agree and I said I’d meet this guy at 8:30 am on a Saturday.

I am going to pause to note that I was within a few days of giving up and quitting triathlon altogether before this weekend. Frustration was at an all time high and it was getting to the point where it just wasn’t worth it anymore. I’m broken -- some things can’t be fixed. Beyond that, I have been miserable. It just sucks to be in pain all the time. At some point your brain accepts that pain as being normal but I promise you your psyche does not. It really hit me when within 10 minutes of my PT appointment today, Matt (my new PT) asked me where my pain was at on the pain scale, 0 being none, 10 being the worst. I shrugged and said “only about a 4 today.” He patted me on the back and said “only?” And that’s where we began.

I spent a little over an hour with Matt. I walked in wincing, convinced that I had another labral tear, and I walked out with no pain at all. I then rode my bike for over 2 hours with no pain at all. I can tie my shoes for the first time in a year without pain. 1 hour - that’s all it took.

I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself here, but I have to say for the first time in a year, I’ve been able to breathe a sigh of relief. I have confidence that this hip thing can actually be fixed. The amazing part is that all it took was some manual yanking of my leg/hip to get the femur to sit how it should sit as it’s currently rotated in the socket the wrong way. Because of this rotation, I’ve developed a lot of coping mechanisms which has caused my left leg to be longer than the right which has caused further issues down the chain of muscles that work when one ambulates.

Anyway, I’m not fixed yet but for the first time since surgery, I feel like I’m going to be and according to Matt, it’s not going to take too long to get there.

Sorry this was a boring post. I’m just so relieved and so happy and so in utter disbelief at how little it took to make me feel better, that I felt like telling the world (or the 2 bloggers who read this boringness).

In closing, check out the illustrations of my “homework” Matt drew up. It cracks me up that he puts smiley faces on the stick people. But what cracks me up the most is that I’ve spent approximately 6 hours a week trying to fix me with strengthening exercises. The stuff on this sheet takes less than 15 minutes a day to do – it involves stuff like pulling one leg one way while I pull on the other in the opposite direction. That’s it!

How crazy is it that it took me writing to a guy who told me about another guy who didn’t exist who’s ex-boss told me about this guy who I almost didn’t go see because I was skeptical. Definitely not a lot of education out there on hip disorders.

Hodgepodge

2010-10-31T22:40:00.009-04:00

UPS Bike Breakage Update: Still in Progress

In all fairness, after my prior blog post and an outpouring of help from Twitter, a UPS representative contacted me and was a HUGE help. By huge, I mean that without his help, I am positive that I wouldn’t have seen a dime from UPS. At every step this process, my claim was denied for one reason or another (at which point I would contact the UPS person who had stepped in to help and he would fix things). UPS didn’t seem to grasp the fact that my bike was made up of different parts and that some of those parts were broken while some were not. The end result of this, before my UPS savior stepped in to help, would have been that UPS would have called my bike a “total loss”, paid me $1000 (the amount of which the Velo City Pro Cycle in Tuscaloosa, AL insured it for – more on this in a bit**) and would take the remaining working parts of the bike back. Considering my bike is worth more than $5000, and the parts that are not broken are still worth a lot more than $1000 and are useful to me, it would not have been beneficial for me to follow through with this scenario.

Long story short: My UPS friend talked to whomever he needed to talk to and it appears as though I am going to be able to keep the working parts of my bike and UPS will be paying me $1000, the amount of which the bike was insured for.

Moral of Story: Have a friend at UPS.

NOTE: An official estimate of the damage done to my bike is around $1800.

** Velo City Pro Cycles (Tuscaloosa, Al): As I mentioned before, my bike was only insured for $1000. After the bike was damaged, I called Velo City Cycle to inquire about insurance and was told that they insured every bike that was shipped out from Age Group Nationals for $1000. Now, maybe it’s my fault for not checking but I was not once asked about how much I wanted to insure my bike for. All the shipping, etc. was set up in advance to save the bike shop time on race day (IE, I had given them the address, etc so that after the race, all I would have to do was drop off my bike and they’d have everything on file already). Given that they never asked, I guess I just assumed that they would ship the bike for *around* what it was worth (and let's be honest, who at age group natinoals is riding a bike that costs $1000? I would venture a guess that the "cheapest" bike there was at least $2500). Is this a bad assumption on my part? I don’t think so.

I find myself stuck between a rock and hard place because I don’t think this bike shop intentionally made any mistakes and they have been nothing but kind and helpful throughout this whole process. Part of me wants to ask for the additional $800 and part of me just wants to move on. What would you do if you were me?

International Bike - Boston/Allston: I would be remiss if I didn’t give a shout out to my bike shop, International Bike in Allston - they have helped me over and over and over again with this mess. In fact, after dropping Frankenbike off this weekend to have the borrowed parts transferred back to my road bike, I found myself figuring out how I would go about dropping off my bike with them to be serviced after I move to Needham (a good 45 minute drive away). After the way they’ve treated me throughout this whole mess, I can’t see myself trusting anyone else with my bikes. Thanks International!

WTC/Ironman Situation: What can I say that hasn’t already been said about this? If you don’t know what I’m talking about, watch these videos and you will:

Also, check out my coach's post on this -- he's been talking about this for the last few years and knows his stuff.

WTC pathetic apology

I do not, for one moment, think that WTC had the athletes’ best interest in mind. If they did, they would have recalled several decisions they’ve made in the past. I, for one, will not be racing a single WTC race next year. Not one. It’s all Rev3 for me.

Update on me: My left hip is kind of falling apart. But it’s off season and I’m working on it. I’d give an update but I don’t really know what’s going on so I’ll give an update when I know.

Scituate Duathlon and Season Wrap up Reports

2010-10-18T00:31:00.010-04:00

Today marks the end of the season. As such, I’d like to start by pointing out the most important details of my day today:

1) I ate fish tacos. A lot of fish tacos.
2) I ate deep fried tortilla chips with guacamole and salsa. Again, lots.
3) Lots of almond butter.
4) Lots of chocolate.
5) Lots of wine.

Yay, off season!
Forgive me in 2 weeks when I’m whining about my fat ass).

Let’s move on to the race report, Scituate Duathlon:

Keeping with the current format and starting with the most important detail: I took 1st in my age group which qualifies me for Age Group Nationals next year. This was not a goal of mine today. In fact, it was so much not a goal of mine that I hadn’t even thought of it as a possibility prior to the race. That is not to say that it wasn’t a goal of mine for next year. Let it be known that my goal for next year is to kick ass at nationals. But to have the qualifying part out of the way before the season even starts next year is pretty cool.

All that said, I got pretty lucky today – all the fast girls seemed to be in the age group above me. I had a pretty poor race, truth be told. First run (2 miles) was okay, although I think I took it out a bit too fast and would have been better served by A) warming up (ran out of time) and B) in warming up’s absence, taking it out a little slower. Bike (10.3 miles) was not great but considering I was riding Frankenbike and we had a bit of a headwind, it was okay. 2nd run (2.3 miles) completely fell apart. I finished on fumes. I have had some issues lately with both my hip flexors and a recent development with my calves which I won’t get into because if you’re anything like me, you hate hearing excuses. So instead I’ll drop a number, which people seem to like: my heart rate averaged 172 for this race. That is low for me for a sprint-type race. Considering I was tapered, it means there where was something wrong with my body which didn’t allow me to push the limits. And let’s not get into transitions. If there was a “Best of the newbies who aren’t newbies” award, I would have won it today (all dumb stuff, not even diabetes related). At any rate, I don’t care. 1st in AG and punching my ticket to nationals is not a bad way to end the season.

Season Wrap Up!
Surgeries: Bilateral labral tear/osteoplasty/psoas release (January/February). 1st overall in both. I am awesome, what can I say?

Swimming: 1st place in AG in one race! (luck)

Running: Two 5k’s. 2nd overall (1st in AG) in one and 5th overall (1st in AG) in the other. (not luck)

Triathlon
Sprints:
1st in Age group: 2
2nd in Age group: 1
3rd in Age Group: 1

Oly:
15th in AG at Mooseman
DNF at Age group Nationals

Half Iron:
36th in AG at Rhode Island 70.3

So let’s point out the obvious: It appears as though my decision to focus on the short races to give my hips a break from endurance training seems to have been the right one. It also seems to have been the wrong one as it made me realize that I have been training for the wrong races (long distance is where my heart lies). Better said, I like the idea of long distance but I’m much more suited for short-distance racing. Better said yet, if I can kick ass at short distance a few short months after hip surgery, what could I do after I’m fully healed (and let’s not forget that in general, short is better than long for my hips as I already have some arthritis on the right side)?

Note: I am not giving up on long distance. I still have an Ironman’s ass to kick. That will happen some day.

In all honestly, in January I didn’t know if I’d ever run again. And again in February, I didn’t know if I’d ever run again. I ran. So I’ll consider this season a success.

But, in my heart of hearts, I know I had more in me this season, surgery or not. I got lucky a lot with the age group numbers. I don’t like getting lucky . I also DNF’ed my most important race of the season. I HATE that! Out of my 6 triathlon races (that I finished) this season, there is only 1 that I feel I finished to the best of my ability and that was Dover. A week later I DNF’ed at nationals, so maybe it was a timing thing but 1 out of 6 isn’t good. I need to work on that.

THANK YOU!
Man, I so wouldn’t have made it through this year without the help of some really awesome people. I have been pretty unlucky at several points in my life and at times have been overwhelmed by that but this year has taught me how lucky I am. So very lucky.

First, Dave. It’s ironic, actually – the only person that knows how unlucky in life I am is the only person who makes me less unlucky than I think I am by virtue of him being there for me. My husband is the kindest, smartest, handsomest man on the face of the earth. I don’t deserve him and I have no idea what I’d do without him. Thanks, Dave, for dealing with the uncountable number of times you have saved me from losing my mind this year. I promise you that one year we will have a honeymoon.

Family: I don’t know why I’m putting this here because my family doesn’t read my blog but between my mom and step-dad, sister and in-laws, I’ve been showered with enough love to fuel the world. They don’t even understand triathlon but never cease to show up for my races and cheer or call and ask how it went. Thanks, guys.

Team Type 1: My experiences with TT1 this year have been so awesome this year. Having the opportunity to hang with such a competitive group of athletes who are just like me (endocrinely challenged) has been awesome. Can’t wait for more.

Coach J: Thanks for the confidence boosters and more dude. You believed in me when a lot of people wouldn’t have.

Muscle Help: Dr. Kelly and Sarah Tufano. Without the comibnation of these two ladies (and it should be known that Dr. Kelly kicked my butt in the duathlon today), I would not have survived this year. I am eternally grateful to them, for both their medical/holistic help and for lending an ear the entire time.

Triabetes Buds: I love you guys. Nuff said.

Blogger buddies: Sorry for the lack of blogging this year but thanks for being there when I did. Sometimes your words meant more to me than you know.

Jesse: Last but not least, I posted something earlier this year about a boy I never met, Jesse Alswager. Jesse died from diabetes complications. His unexpected death affected more deeply than I can explain. There were so many times during my training this year that I felt that Jesse was pushing me along – at a time when I needed it most. Thanks, Jesse. I didn’t fade away (and I haven’t burned out yet). My Road ID says: FOR JESSE on it. Next year is for you.

DNF, UPS Destroys Bikes and Life Isn’t Fair

2010-10-13T23:41:00.012-04:00

This post is a long time coming. I’ve thought about it for a long time and have sat down to write it a few times but the words have escaped me. In fact, they still escape me but I figured I can’t hide from it anymore, so here goes.

Let’s start with the worst news, the DNF. Age Group Nationals didn’t turn out like I wanted it to. I have struggled with writing about it for awhile because I’m trying to be honest about it, mostly with myself but with writing about it as well. And the honest truth is that I still am not quite sure what happened.

The facts are this: I had horrible blood sugars for 2 days prior to the race, running very high despite my efforts to control that. Every person with type 1 diabetes knows this story – there are just days when the unexpected happens and there is no explanation for it. Sometimes that happens at the worst times. I’m not a lucky person and have gotten used the worst case scenario so I tried to look past it and keep on keeping on. But then on race morning I struggled with low blood sugars, the opposite of what I’m used to. I always, always, always run high on race mornings due to nerves and adrenaline, so why, at the 2nd most important race of my life, I ran low, I don’t know. What I do know is that it wasn’t what I needed. The more time I have spent trying to process this, the more I realize that the reason I didn’t go high is because I just wasn’t into the race. I didn’t get nervous because I didn’t care. And the reason I didn’t care is because I’m flat out burned out.

All year I’ve had this chip on my shoulder to prove something to the world -- that I could be competitive after hip surgery and every ounce of energy I had has been centered around rehab, then training, then rehab and training. I trained every day, hard, up to the day of my first surgery trying to stay fit and strong so rehab would be easier. Then after surgery, I started with rehab immediately. Rehab continues to this day. And then at some point my job got busy. I mean really, really busy. I was working 10 hours days, training 15 – 20 hours a week, getting 1-2 massages/ART per week, doing PT and doing pilates trying to get over the muscular imbalances I have as a result of the hip surgeries. And then we decided to sell our condo and move to the burbs. That’s a story for another day but you see where I’m going with this. I am burned out. BURNED OUT!

So, race morning. I woke up with a blood sugar of 375. My CGM said I was 180. The day before was the same exact scenario. I felt terrible – tired and just not me. At that point I began ignoring the CGM and testing. Lots of insulin later, I was low. Then lower. I was averaging a blood sugar of 60 all morning. About 20 minutes before my wave was scheduled to start, things normalized. Fabulous, right? I was relieved. Then I realized that I was about to start a national championship race. I had been fighting with my blood sugar for so long that I hadn’t had time to process what was going around me or think of race strategy. Before I knew it, I was walking down a giant steel ladder to the river where the swim would begin. I jumped off the dock and found my spot where we would hang on before the gun went off. As I hung onto the dock, I could feel my feet being sucked under it due to the current in the river. I looked around me and everyone looked so confident. I was shitting my pants. Enter bad thoughts. I am a bad swimmer. I am not wearing a wetsuit. I don’t feel good. Then BAM! The gun went off.

Here I go! I start swimming and much to my surprise, I find myself at the front of the race….for about 5 minutes. At this point we were swimming with the current. The first ¼ of the race was with the current but after the first turn buoy we would turn around and swim the last ¾ against the current. Again, enter bad thoughts. I felt weak which I attributed to low blood sugar. I looked up and saw so few support kayaks and I got nervous…I’m not wearing a wetsuit so if my blood sugar goes low, I can’t just easily flip on my back and float while I eat a gel that I have stashed in my bra for emergencies. To make matters worse, I kept thinking about the turn around buoy – if I felt this terrible now, how would I feel when I was swimming against the current? And at that point, I made the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make – I swam to the shore and gave up. Then I walked the looooong ¼ mile back to the start. Remember when I said we had to walk down a big steel ladder to get to the swim start? Well the only way out of the river was to swim back to the dock and climb back up that ladder. Unfortunately, there were still several waves to go off behind me so I had to stand at the shore of the river watching all those waves go off, where all the spectators watching those waves looked down at me with “awwww, that poor girl” eyes, until one guy waiting for his wave to start decided to chime in “Number 120whatever, why did you quit? You looked great! You were right at the front and your stroke is awesome, we were all watching you!” So I said “I don’t know why I quit” (I didn’t know at the time). And he said “Just do the race. Have a good time with it. Wait for this wave to go off and then just go. You don’t have to win.” I was crying at this point and I said “You know what? You’re right! Thanks, dude.” And then I waited for the wave to go off and I started behind them. Then again, I started feeling like crap. I did the same thing. Bad thoughts, made it to the turn around buoy and quit. For good. As it turns out, I spent 3 hours after the race sucking down sugar to keep my blood sugar up which may have had something to do with it. Divine intervention of some sorts?

I could write a whole bunch more about the horror I became after the DNF but those are the facts. I cried a lot afterwards and regretted it immediately. I still hate myself for quitting. I woke up the next morning with a sore throat and the sniffles which turned into a cold as the week went on. So yeah, I was sick and maybe that was part of it – I just didn’t have the fight. To me, it felt like a great big give up and I still can’t explain it. I spent this year fighting and fighting to overcome a lot of stuff for one reason - this race. And then I DNFed it. I flew to Alabama to DNF. Maybe I couldn’t handle the pressure of such a big race with a difficult swim? I don’t know. But it is what it is. I had a good talk with Coach J afterwards and we chalked the whole thing up to burnout and sickness, but I’m still not sure about all that.

So, bad news number 2…cuz one is never enough for me….UPS destroyed my tri bike. Trying to save money, I had shipped my bike to Velo City Cycles in Tuscaloosa for the race. Of course, I shipped it for no reason since I didn’t end up riding it while I was there. Imagine my surprise when my bike shop in Boston that I had it shipped back to called me with “your fork is destroyed.” Keep in mind, this is my custom Aegis bike. Custom paint, custom everything. “Well that sucks!” was my thought, “but at least it’s just the fork.” My bike shop advised me to open a case with UPS about it, which involved calling the bike shop in Tuscaloosa to open the case, as it was shipped under their account. They opened the case/complaint for $500 for a damaged fork. In the mean time, I went to my shop to see the bike. Wow, you should have seen this fork. It’s amazing how damaged it is - smashed to bits and pieces. The box that it was shipped in was completely mangled and re-taped shut. Anyway, long story short, UPS told my bike shop that in order to process the claim that the bike shop had to send the bike back to Alabama, AS IS, in the destroyed box. Keep in mind, that my Zipp wheels, my frame and everything else, are still wrapped in bubble tape within a box that no longer resembles a box. If I were to ship the “working” parts of my bike back to Alabama, there is no way they would remain unbroken after that. And without unwrapping the other parts of the bike, there was no way to tell what other damage had occurred to the bike. And I have a race this weekend and kind of need a bike to ride for it (as opposed to no bike), so I made the decision to tell the bike shop to build the bike with a spare fork (from my road bike).

Bad news number 3: Call from bike shop after attempting to build bike: “Ummm, your front Zipp is destroyed”.

Bad news number 4: Call from bike shop after attempting to build bike: “Ummm, your aero bars are destroyed”.

Bad news number 5: Call from bike shop after attempting to build bike: “Ummm, your saddle is destroyed”.

So, there you have it. I will be racing my last race of the season on a green and gold bike with a black fork, one Zipp wheel, a spare grey ISM Adamo saddle and aerobars that were jerry rigged by my (awesome) bike mechanic to “make them work for one race.” Go Frankenbike!

I am 5’1”. I have bike fit issues. I can’t just buy any old TT bike. This bike was my baby. I spent a long time researching a bike that would fit me and when I realized that no bike on the market would fit me, I had one custom built for me. UPS can’t replace that. I hate UPS.

And as it turns out, the bike shop in Alabama only insured my bike for $1000. They were the sponsoring bike shop for Nationals. One would think that they would insure bikes for what they were worth, right? Lesson learned – don’t assume. My bike has well over $2000 worth of damage to it. My claim is still in process and it’s turned into a fight with UPS, but isn’t it fitting that my DNF would end this way?

So there you have it. DNF, broken TT bike and sad. The upside? Looks like Cannondale is marketing the bike that Mirinda rode at Kona. Thank you Mirinda Carfrae for being 5’1”. This bike fits me. A TT bike on the market that fits me! That’s huge. And I want it.

Lastly, a picture of my Zipp skewer after UPS "carefully" handled my bike. I mean seriously – that is metal. How is that even possible? There is a ¼ inch of metal shaved off of it! What must UPS have done to it to destroy a fork, aerobars, a wheel and shave metal off of a skewer? Jammed it through a conveyer belt? God I hate UPS!

I'm not sure I made it clear enough yet so I'll say it one more time: I HATE UPS!

Dover-Sherborn Boosters Tri - Warmup Race for Nationals

2010-09-20T11:25:00.005-04:00

I've always wanted to do this race but the timing has never worked out until this year. It covers the grounds I train on every weekend and is the type of course I excel at - hilly as hell. This course had no shortage of hills on the bike or the run, it was one right after the other. My tri bike is in Alabama so I competed on my road bike and I wore a speedsuit instead of a wetsuit so I could get used to it before Nationals so I was at a bit of a disadvantage. Result?

1st in Age group and 4th female overall. I felt great on the run for the first time in a race this year. What a relief!

I am as ready for nationals as I can be - I'm starting to believe I won't be last. Bring it on.

I’m alive!

2010-09-13T14:52:00.006-04:00

As usual, I haven’t had time to blog. In less than two weeks I am taking a break from triathlon for a month or so and my life will become drastically easier but until then, same old crazy schedule leaving me no time to blog.

Here’s a brief summary of the last few weeks.

1. I started doing pilates (private, 1-hour sessions followed by 2 weeks of homework until my next session) and it’s helping me immensely. My body is starting to work the way it’s supposed to work. It will take a long time to get there fully but I’ll take a start. My glutes are firing but when I get tired, the hip flexors still want to take over. Pilates is re-training my brain to stop resorting to the hip flexors. It’s amazing how small differences in the way I do my core work transfer to huge differences in my posture. My butt is tired all the time now. That’s a good thing. When it stops getting tired, I get worried.

2. The reason I started pilates is because I strained my TFL. The TFL is a small hip flexor that usually doesn’t get much limelight as the Psoas is generally the flexor that gives people problems. Well, when your psoas is weak (or when your surgeon cuts it in order to lengthen it during surgery), your TFL tends to take over and do the work that the psoas can’t – and this leads to all sorts of imbalances from the hips on down. My poor little TFL has been working over-time and it finally caved a bit. It is getting better, but is still tweaky. The best massage therapist in the world, Sarah, and the best ART practitioner in the world, Kate, have been a major help in helping me get over it and I’m hopeful that it will be back to full-strength by Nationals.

3. I am still going to masters swimming twice a week and it’s working. I won my age group/division (W 20 – 39/Wetsuit) in a 1-mile river swim race! My time wasn’t spectacular but the current in the river was strong and there was a lot of chop. I also swam way, way, way off course. Excuses for my time aside, it was still a good swim for me and I felt strong the whole way which is a huge confidence booster considering nationals will be in a river and I can't wear a wetsuit (water temp = 88 degrees. Ouch). And to top off the good swimming news, I had the opportunity to attend a private seminar with Bill Boomer, former head coach at the University of Rochester, and has worked with big names such as Jenny Thompson and Dara Torres. That’s right, I spent three hours on a Friday night listening to a whacked-out dude talk about swimming, that’s how committed I am to getting better! His approach is theoretical – a fundamentally different way of looking at swimming. I’ll admit that I felt pretty out of place listening as I was in a room with REAL swimmers and a lot of the talk centered around strokes I don’t have a clue how to do, but it was interesting and made me think of swimming a bit differently. And I don’t think it was a coincidence that the next day I got in the pool and swam 2000 yards straight (after having swam the day before & run a 5k hours before), 1.5 minutes faster than I ever have in a pool.

4. I ran a 5k and took 2nd place female overall! This was at the end of a (very) heavy 2 week training phase so I was pretty happy with the result. I didn’t have a final kick to beat the girl in front of me to the finish line (she beat me by 19 seconds) but I know that was only because my legs were SO tired. Again, another confidence booster.

5. My last hard brick is DONE! The day after the 5k/2000 yard swim, I had one more hard brick (4 hours on bike/6 mile run). It was raining, it was cold and I was tired but the Packers were on at 4 pm so I had to get on the bike and knock it out of the park to get home in time to watch the game. Talk about motivation! I survived the ride (not one of my best, however), had a fantastic run (don't ask me where it came from ??) and got home just in time to watch my Pack win. I love football season!

6. Next up: Dover-Sherborn Booster tri next weekend as a warmup race. This one should be interesting as my tri bike is already on its way to Alabama so I have to compete on my road bike and I will only have two days of taper going into it. I rode the course this weekend as it covers a lot of the roads I normally train on and HOLY SHIT IT’S HARD! Talk about hills, hills and more hills. It will definitely be a good race-prep for nationals which is the weekend after.

7. To add to the stress of daily living, working and tri-ing, we’ve decided to sell our condo and move to the burbs. Our seller’s agent tells us we should list it by October 1st in order to get the best price for it - fabulous timing considering my most important race of the season is out of state and 5 days earlier than the beginning of October! Needless to say, we’re going to take our chances with the market and wait until October to list it. There is just way too much to do, mostly involving getting all the bike equipment/computrainers, etc. out of there to open it up, before then. If we take a few bucks less, then so be it.

And that’s it for now. I hope to have time to check in more often in the near future (at some point with pictures of our new house) and news that I didn't drown in a river in Alabama on September 25th!

Sharon's Back Tri Race Report

2010-08-16T15:31:00.008-04:00

To quote my friend, Jen: Gotta love when a "pretty bad race" still nets an AG award!

I had been excited for this sprint for awhile. My running has been coming around and my swim has improved a lot, as has my cycling. My workouts have been good and as I finished my last hard run the Sunday before, I felt really good. But as has happened the last few times I’ve had any kind of rest week, everything starts to fall apart. I’ve been experiencing some numbness in my right quad which became more bothersome as the week went on. Even a massage and a pretty intense ART session didn’t fix it (it helped but didn’t fix it). I’m not sure what it is at this point – it may be a nerve thing but given how incredibly tight the quad is, I think it’s muscle and I suspect it’s caused by sitting in a desk chair all day which causes your hip flexors to shorten and starts a chain reaction of all sorts of muscular issues. Add to that hip surgery and a joint that is still recovering (which is obviously the root cause) and, well, it’s not good. So, race day rolled around and I felt like crap. This has happened a few times in the past and then went out for a run and felt better afterwards so I decided to go on with the race. That said, feeling terrible before a sprint is not a good way to boost your confidence.

Diabetes: My sugar was 120 and climbing going into the water. Right before the swim start, I took 4 units of short acting insulin and handed my insulin to Dave who was spectating. More on this later.

Swim (1/2 mile). I started in the front (wave 2). The horn went off and off we went. I was swimming fantastically – I had feet and was keeping up the large pack in the front until we approached the first turn buoy and WHAMMO! I got clocked right in the head, hard, and took a breath full of water instead of air. I began choking and hyperventilating and had to flip on my back to recover. By the time I was able to start swimming again, the main pack was gone (as was the lead pack of 3 or 4). I was totally flustered after that and swam way, way, way off course. I really wanted to prove myself in this swim but unfortunately, this race had other plans for me. But I finished and was at least happy with the actual swimming part of my swim. It will be better next time.

T1: Again, not good. This race has the racks that look like shelves on the ground and they don’t work with 650 wheels. Someone had tipped my bike a bit (easy to do with those racks) so that it was just leaning there and my sunglasses were strewn about. Add that to having to reconnect my CGM (continuous glucose monitor) which takes about 20 seconds to accomplish, and you have a looong T1. I didn’t want to take any more time to wait for my CGM to reconnect so I could see the number and attempted to jam it in my back pocket which didn’t go so well (the jersey was wet and couldn’t get it in there for the life of me). Ugh.

Bike (12.5 miles): Let’s start with this a plea to my fellow triathletes. For the love of God, please learn how to mount a bike before you attempt to race. Please? It’s not hard. The mount line was on a path, so there was only room for one person at a time to get on and go. Well, the dude in front of me (who started in a wave 5 minutes in front of mine) took up the entire sidewalk weaving back and forth, nearly crashing 3 times in the span of 10 feet. He knocked over the tape barrier that was separating the sidewalk from the spectators, nearly taking out a few spectators too. All I could do was stand there in amazement and wait for him to get on his stupid bike. One of these days I will swim like a big girl so I don’t have to deal with things like that. But moving on, I don’t have too much to say about the bike. I rode decently and passed a lot of people. I rode as hard as I could but came in more than a minute slower than I had hoped – some of that was from standing around waiting for the dude to stop falling off of his bike but not all of it. I don’t ride well on flat courses and I haven’t really figured out why. Beyond that, my quads get tired and I don’t run very well off of the bike because of it. This course was a bit technical as well and I’m not a good technical rider (yet). But like I said, the bike was okay and went by pretty quickly.

Diabetes: I checked my CGM once during the bike. It said 275 (what happened to those 4 units of insulin?). I had taped my insulin to my top tube and went to grab it to take a shot and guess what? No insulin. For the 3rd race in a row, I had managed to lose my insulin on the course. The insulin gods must hate me. I finished the rest of the race without looking at my CGM. I knew I was high but there was nothing I could do about it so why look?

T2: Who the hell racked their bike in my spot? For the love of God I can’t wait for Nationals if only to race with people who don’t fall of their bikes trying to get on them and then take my spot on the rack (in my mind I blamed it on the same guy even though that was virtually impossible since I’d passed him at the mount line). I had to rack my bike down a few spots and then come back to where my shoes were waiting. And of course, the stupid racks don’t fit my wheels so I couldn’t get my bike to stand up properly. So frustrating! Anyway, after another long transition I was off on the run.

Run (4.4 miles): At this point I had no idea where I stood in the race. I hadn’t seen any girls on the bike the last few miles and the run course went the opposite direction so I wasn’t able to see how many were in front of me. I took off quickly, hoping to catch a few women. I passed a lot of men but no women. I was running well but I was hurting. The right quad was screaming and my adductors (on both sides) felt really weak. It was going to be a tough run and I knew I was going to have to focus my mind away from the pain to get through it. And for additional misery, I had half a lake sloshing around in my stomach. Flashbacks from RI 70.3 entered my mind more than once (had it been more than 4.4 miles, I'm sure yakking would have occured). For a half mile, I passed a lot of men but no women. As I approached mile 1, I passed someone in my age group which gave me hope and then at mile 1.5, another woman in my age group but in front of them there was nobody. By mile 3 I was in a world of hurt and I got passed by a woman in my age group in Vibram Five Fingers. I won’t lie, it pissed me off. I could hear her feet flapping behind me and I didn’t like it. I tried so hard to stay with her but I just couldn’t do it. After that, I didn’t see another woman in front or behind me for the last mile and a half. It’s really hard to push yourself when you hurt and there’s nobody chasing you or within striking distance but I tried to give it my all until I crossed the line, still not having a clue where I stood in the rankings.

Diabetes: Finished at 310. Yeah, not good and not fun. It took me about 3 hours afterwards to get it down to a reasonable level as well.

Turns out I eeked out a 3rd in my age group and given the circumstances, I should be happy. It wasn’t a bad result but I still need work, especially with the diabetes game. It should have been much better.

Bike trips, masters and training fast

2010-08-04T11:30:00.013-04:00

I have been crazy busy with work, life and otherwise leaving no time to blog. But I found a few minutes so here’s a quick update.

Two weeks ago, Dave and I ventured into a crazy bike trip with a great group of cyclists in Vermont called Gambol II (no idea what that means but that’s what it was called). It was four days of riding, 75 – 110 miles(ish) per day with a lot of elevation. The last day consisted of a 106 mile ride that went over the Appalachian Gap. I put the profile below for your viewing pleasure. My Polar bike computer registered a grade of 23% at the top. After 3 days of riding, this was one tough ride but it was so awesome to do it. Here’s a pic of some of us at the top. I’d been there for awhile and I was FREEZING! (Disclaimer: I didn’t ride down the other side of the gap. I was too freaked out & my brakes are a bit worn so I drove the support van down it. I know, I’m wuss).

The best part about this trip, besides the company, was that I learned a lot about my strengths and weaknesses when it comes to cycling. Having not ridden that many days consecutively (especially with that mileage and terrain), I didn’t know what to expect. I learned five important things:

1. I am capable of keeping up with the fast guys in a pace line.

2. Keeping up with the fast guys in a pace line for the first two days of a four-day bike trip will make the last 2 days difficult on your legs (holy crap I was sporting bricks as feet/legs).

3. I am a definitely climber. It was difficult for me to keep up on the flats but when we hit those hills, I was gone. With the exception of day 4 on the Gap, when I had nothing left in the tank, I lead the climbs. Here’s me, about to “win the KOM” on day 2 (that guy behind me is an awesome cyclist and was my saving grace when I did stupid shit like pulled way too hard in the pace line, thus getting dropped when I pulled off the front – he always knew when it was going to happen and would drop back to pull me back up).

4. After 4 days of intense exercise, your body starts to do some crazy stuff with respect to metabolism/diabetes. It was also particularly tough to stop in the middle of some of these rides to have lunch. I often overdosed on insulin and spent the second half of the ride sucking down Dex4 to keep my blood sugar level up. By the time I had it figured out, it was time to go home. Live and learn.

5. My Freestyle Navigator was INVALUABLE on this trip (non diabetics: it is a continuous glucose meter that give me a real-time reading of my blood sugars). I don’t know what I would have done without it. In fact, I do know because half way through the last day, the sensor came off (the fifth day I’d been wearing it and the fifth day it was hot and humid so I’m surprised it stayed on that long) and I was lost. The peace of mind that this device gives me when I’m out there can’t be described. Love this diabetes tool!

It was a great trip with a great group of people and I can’t wait to do it again next year.

And onto topic number 2: masters. I sucked it up and I joined. I had to. I’m not getting any faster on my own so this is my only option. Yesterday was my first day. Practice starts at 5:30 (yes, a.m.) so I sucked it up and got my ass out of bed at 4:30 a.m. Let me just say that getting up at 4:30 a.m. to do something you absolutely hate doing is really difficult to do. I wanted to crawl back into bed no less than 200 times before I found myself walking into the Blodgett pool at Harvard University (I will admit, it’s pretty cool to have the opportunity to swim at such an awesome facility). The only upside was that I was so tired that I was incapable of processing the swim hell that was about to happen to me. In fact, I didn’t even notice the length of the pool (more on that in a minute). I wandered in, introduced myself to the 16-year old looking girl who was writing the workout on the board, and hopped in the slow lane – yes, the SLOWEST lane (out of 7 lanes). I said hi to the few other ladies in my lane and started to warm up. Within 20 seconds I found myself wondering “where the f*ck is the wall?” Oh yeah, long course yards. My first day of masters and my first time swimming long course. Awesome.

The rest of the story is a bit anti-climactic given that introduction. I survived. It was difficult and my arms were jello by the end. Myself and the girl that lead my lane were probably fast enough for the 2nd slowest lane but were happy leading the slow lane. I will attempt to make it a 2nd day of this on Friday. Good news/bad news: I learned I am as slow as I thought I was compared to other swimmers. I knew this, but there was always some hope that “maybe I’m not as slow as I think.” Hopping in a pool with real swimmers shot down any notions of that quickly. The good news: I’m finally making a real attempt to do something about it. Stay tuned.

Lastly, speed. I love it. I could get used to this short course training real quick. Coach J. came up with my schedule and I gotta say I am getting into it. It’s a lot of fast. I like fast. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever done anything slow, even when I was supposed to (with the exception of swimming of course but that isn't by choice). I ran 13 miles on hills on Sunday and it went quite well. My legs are starting to get their strength back. My hips still get sore and I still have a lot of compensation issues, but I have learned how to cope and there is still a lot of progress happening in that area. Then two days later (same day as the masters hell), I ran 6.5 miles with 3 at tempo+ pace. It was hot & humid, my legs were tired and my hips were cranky, probably to the point where I should have called the run off, but having had one of the worst days I’d ever had at work, I needed that run to release some stress. I started off easy for miles 1 & 2 and felt like hell. I had a side ache & nothing wanted to cooperate. But at mile 2, I hit the gas and approached high zone 2 & immediately started feeling better. Mile 3 came and I was feeling good so I hit zone 3, still feeling good. Mile 4, I hit the top of zone 3 and cranked along until I hit mile 5 and started my cool down. I felt great and my body thanked me for it afterwards. It goes against reason that a tempo run would make my aches and pains go away but hey, whatever works, right? And that third fast mile registered a 7.03 min/mile pace so my times are getting back to what they once were.

So that’s my update. Tonight is a time trial so I get to test the speed quotient on the bike. I am excited for it. I get excited for speed workouts so much more than the long/slow stuff. I don’t know – perhaps I need to re-evaluate this Ironman thing. I really want to do another Ironman and having considered myself an “Ironman triathlete” for several years, it’s hard not to think in terms of 140.6, but when what I enjoy is speed and I’m much happier training for it, is 140.6 worth it? Time will tell I guess.

Following up a bad race with a good race

2010-07-17T22:39:00.007-04:00

So I've been thinking and I've come to the conclusion that I built up Rhode Island 70.3 in my head so much, wanting to prove that even after hip surgery I could come back and kick major butt, that I shot myself in the foot by not concentrating on the important things that need to come together to make one have a good race. I also think I set unrealistic expectations, which is a post for another day but moving on.

You see, I can handle having a bad race -- everyone has them. But this one went so poorly that I was left wondering if maybe the naysayers were right. Maybe I'm not cut out for this anymore. Sure, I've had some decent results (not good, but decent) since hip surgery but I felt that RI 70.3 was my "real" test and I failed miserably. And with that, you can see how over the last week my confidence, mood, motivation and everything in-between was gone. I've been miserable.

Some of you might pause for a moment and wonder if perhaps I'm putting too much emphasis on this (and you're probably right if you are) but let me just point something out in an effort to make myself seem less crazy: Since January 10, the date of my first surgery (and really, the entire year before that), I have spent nearly every free moment I have concentrating on "coming back." I have been rehabbing, thinking about rehabbing, paying rehab bills, having surgery, forking out countless dollars on massages, training less, training more, evaluating whether I'm training too much & causing irreparable damage, evaluating whether I'm training too little and training through more pain than I care to admit, with the hopes that I could pick up where I left off last year and start to become the athlete I know I'm capable of being. This is my life and it has been so all-encompassing that I've forgotten what my life was like before it. So when I decided to make this half my "A" race and it didn't work out, I felt like I'd failed and that all those things that I've done were pointless. I'm a smart girl and I know deep down that isn't the case, but that's how I felt and it really sucked to feel that way.

So I took a week off of triathlon or at least I SAID I was going to take a week boycotting triathlon (I snuck in a swim on Thursday). When that still didn't pull me out of my funk, I sat down and thought for a minute. Why do I like triathlon so much? (Answer: Because I'm driven by competition & hard work). Why do I hate triathlon right now? (Because I failed at it after working harder than I ever have in my life at anything to succeed at it). Why did I fail? (I didn't. I just set unrealistic expectations, didn't pay attention to detail and had bad luck). How do I get over this? (Do better at your next triathlon). My next triathlon isn't for a month and what if I suck at that one, will I be devastated? (Good point). So how do I make this fun again/get my confidence back? (Sign up for something non-triathlon related that you don't care about because you won't be crushed if you suck at it but if you do well, you'll feel better).

And with that, I decided to run a 5k. And as luck would have it, it was 93 degrees and humid as a mother at 10 a.m. (race time). But I lined up anyway and I did well. I felt like I was breathing through a straw the entire time and my hips ached but I was loving life. I just ran and I ran hard. And it HURT! But it was a good hurt. And the end result wasn't so bad - 5th woman overall/1st in my age group. I ran a 21:45 which is only about 35 seconds off my 5k PR and given the circumstances/weather, that's not too bad.

Best of all, it was just what I needed. I'm feeling like me again. Next week, Dave and I are headed to Vermont for 4 days with a group of friends to ride, ride, ride. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to it!

Rhode Island 70.3 - AKA Total Disaster

2010-07-12T17:18:00.009-04:00

Before I get into the race report, I’d like to preface this post with this: I hate excuses when it comes to racing. I just want to qualify that. I had a bad race. There were a lot of things that contributed to it and I’m going to put all those in this report. It may seem like I’m making excuses but I’m not. They are things that happened and most of them were things that could have been prevented (some of them couldn’t). And with that, I bring you the race report I wish I could erase.

The good stuff?
- I met my only teammate I’d yet to meet, Ryan. Ryan is super fast and super cool guy. It was a pleasure to hang out with him on Sunday.
- I ate pizza.

The bad stuff? EVERYTHING ELSE!

Let’s start with the week prior. My hips hurt all week. I had a crazy hard workout on Saturday (a week before the race), a long swim on Sunday and then taper began. As the week went on, instead of feeling more rested, I felt creaky and the weather didn’t help. High humidity doesn't do good things for me and it had been pretty nasty here (in the 100's with lots of humidity) the entire week. Top that off with fighting a cold (I stayed home from work on Tuesday because of it) and it makes for a rough week.

Then the day before the race:
1. This is a point-to-point race so dropping your run gear off in T2 is mandatory the day before the race which I did around 12:00 p.m. Around 1:00 p.m. there was a torrential downpour. This will come into play later.
2. I didn't fall asleep until 11:00 p.m. which is no good when you have a 2:30 a.m. wake up.

Day of race:
Instead of high blood sugars, I had low sugars all morning. I'm usually all amped and nervous which gives me very high blood sugars. But I was talking to Ryan which, I think, took the jitters away. Unfortunately, I'd dosed my insulin for being nervous. I was hovering around 70 all morning so I was having to eat a lot and play close attention to my sugar levels. And it should be noted that the official temperature on the run course was 93 (not including the "feels like" temp - it was super humid).

Let’s do a list for the rest of the comedy-of-errors which occurred throughout the day, starting with the most comical:
1. I used the porta potty pre-race and when I went to squat, I heard something fall out of my back pocket of my jersey and into the hole. I started to freak out, thinking it was my CGM (continuous glucose monitor) receiver but when I looked down the hole (yuck) I saw a Gu in there. Phew! Only a Gu! WRONG! I learned later, after they closed transition, that it was my glucose meter (and a Gu). So, it’s 1 hour to race time and no way of testing my blood sugar. Any diabetic will get the gravity of that situation (for non-diabetics, just know that it’s very scary going into an open water swim not knowing what is going on with your blood sugar). So I ate two Gu's before the swim start and prayed. At least my CGM was waiting for me in transition so I would know what was going on after I got out of the water.

2. I forgot sunscreen so at the last minute, I asked a random person if I could use theirs. They gave me Banana Boat. Banana boat has gluten in it. My choices were to either get burned or risk getting glutened. I now wish I would have gotten burned as I think it contributed to some of my issues....

3. The swim was horrid. It didn’t look like it was going to be as bad as the year before but it was actually worse. As I approached the later buoys I was exhausted from fighting the seas. This was my slowest swim, to date (the best time in my age group was around 32 minutes which is far off what the best time usually is). I had a side cramp the whole time which didn't help and I swallowed a lot of salt water. A LOT of salt water. And let's face it, I swam poorly. Even more poorly than usual.

4. Got to T1 and checked the CGM. 150 with a straight arrow. PERFECT! Finally something is going right. So I take my usual 3 units of Apidra (the plan that has worked for me for EVERY SINGLE HALF IRONMAN I'VE EVER DONE!).

5. First 15 miles of bike are decent – not great, but decent (I learned later that the wind was coming from a different direction than the prior year so bike times were much slower across the board this year). My sugars were cooperating and I was concentrating on actually racing, not my diabetes for once. Then my stomach started to complain. Like, really complain. It was like there was both a cement brick and a gallon of juice in there at the same time. And my right hip is starting to ache. All I can think about is that I don’t want to be racing. I was in a pretty bad place and I couldn’t shake it. Then my CGM starts screaming at me. 120 with a straight down arrow (non-diabetics, this means my blood sugar is about to drop dangerously low). So I eat, and I eat, and I eat, and I eat. From that moment on, the number would not read above 120 for the rest of the race.

6. I made it to transition after a lot of right hip/groin issues for the rest of the bike, got off the bike and briefly considered dropping out. I just felt so bad and my CGM read 82 with a straight down arrow. But I'm stupid so I decide to give it a go. This was dumb. For the first time in my life I can say that I should have DNFed. Thankfully nothing really bad happened, but it very well could have.

7. So, in T2 I can't get my bike racked. Some asshole put their bike on my number so I had to slide their bike over which left no room for my bike and I couldn't get it on there for the life of me. It took me well over a minute. So frustrating.

8. I open my T2 transition bag and it's filled with water. My shoes are soaked. My socks are soaked. My spare blood sugar monitor is soaked and useless. I decide to forego the socks, throw on the shoes and go.

9. By mile 1 of the run my feet were bloody already. Both sides, both arches - giant blisters. They hurt.

10. I was eating Gu and drinking Powerbar Perform (so gross BTW...I don't think I'll ever be able to drink that crap again) trying to get the sugar up. I didn't see the number go over 85 for the entire first 8 miles (so I was probably 60). I was pretty much a walking diabetic disaster.

11. I stopped at the porta potties 3 times during the first 5 miles and had no luck. Enough said.

12. They changed the course this year. It was almost as hilly as last year except now there was the added fun of having the entire thing in the wide open sun. There was not a single tenth of a mile that was shaded. Along with the 93 degrees and humidity, that made for tough conditions.

13. Dave was standing at mile 7 with his parents. I stopped to talk to him because I just didn't care anymore. I told him I didn't think I could keep going (all the while the CGM is beeping away) and was going to DNF. He said I looked ok and so I kept going.

14. Both IT bands decided it was time to stop working and by stop working, I mean locking up. I’ve never had this happen and it would happen on and off for the rest of the race. I don't really know what's going on there. I'm hoping it was just because I was compensating because of the blisters. They are still pretty rough post-race but seem to be getting better.

15. Here's the best part. I decided to switch to coke at the mile 9.5(ish) aid station thinking that it would help get my blood sugar up and maybe help my stomach. I drank the coke, took 2 steps and "Holy shit, I am going to puke!" It was one of those, there is nothing you can do about it, your body is going to puke whether you want it to or not, moments. I stood on the sidewalk, in wide open view (nowhere to hide) and puked. Like a GALLON of fluid. I walked a foot, and whammo! More puke. And again, a third time - each time a gallon of fluid. People were running by me going "Ewwwww!" and I tried to apologize while vomiting - not easy. At this point, I was weighing my options, stop and DNF (and wait for medical or something) or keep going and get it over with, which will probably be faster. Of course, I decide to keep going. Magically, I seemed cured. I felt relatively fabulous (despite my knees screaming). I knocked off two 7.30 miles and repass all the people who saw me puking.

16. Then the ole CGM started yelling again -- 80 with a straight down arrow and I had 1.5 miles to go. I downed more Perform and Gu and immediately felt like crap again (and the sugar would't go up).

17. I saw Ryan 1/2 mile from the finish and he ran the rest in with me. He heard my CGM yelling and asked me if I wanted a gel. I think my reply was "get that god damned thing away from me!" (not sure if I'll ever be able to eat a gel again).

18. I finished. Somehow. I don't know how.

So there you have it. I'll admit, I'm pretty bummed about the whole situation but I think after a little grieving I'll be okay. I have just never had so many things go wrong in one race! I suspect that because of the saltwater drinking and the sunscreen (gluten) that I wasn't able to digest the calories I was taking in (further proof with the puking - I think it was just sitting in my stomach and not going in).

And I’ll leave you with that because really, I don’t know what else to say. I had a bad race. Let’s hope they get better from here out.

So many adventures, so little time to blog!

2010-06-29T15:22:00.011-04:00

There isn’t enough time or blog space to update you on what I’ve been doing over the last month but I will try to summarize without boring you. The good news is that it’s been a great month. I love it when I have all good news to report!

Triathlon news:
Ashland sprint triathlon. 2nd place in age group.
I signed up for this race as a way to get a little swim experience before RI 70.3 since the swim at Mooseman was cancelled. This is a small, local FIRM sponsored event and there is an Olympic distance race the same day so the sprint was on the small side. I was 5th woman overall (out of only 35 women) and 2nd in my age group. Nothing special but the effort was there and I learned that I still need work on the swim – so the race did exactly what I wanted it to do…give me feedback. Here I am plodding along:

Cohasset sprint triathlon: 6th in age group and qualified for USAT age group Nationals.
This was a spur of the moment race. My teammate, Bradford, was in town to race & some last minute spots opened up so I jumped on one. I had a terrible race due to my blood sugars. My CGM stopped working & my insulin fell out of my sports bra (not the best place to stash it when riding aero) at mile 1 of the bike. I felt horrible the whole time. I felt like I was running on stumps and was miserable for the entire run and couldn’t push hard on the bike. I was disappointed with my finish time/AG placing but considering the talent that was there since this was a Nationals qualifier, I shouldn’t complain too much. And I still qualified by the skin of my teeth (as did Bradford who took 2nd in his age group)!

Other news:
DESA regional conference: I had the pleasure of being on the athlete panel for the DESA northeastern regional conference along with Missy Foy and Kris Freeman. It is really amazing when you get a bunch of athletic diabetics in one room to talk about how we go about our daily business. Some great discussions were had and it was awesome meeting Missy and Kris and hearing all about Kris’ experiences at the Olympic games. I was somewhat relieved to hear that Kris’ body reacts very similarly to mine in terms of insulin dependencies with respect to different levels of activity (aerobic vs. anaerobic, etc). His diet is also much like mine which made me happy. Here is a picture of the panel. Everyone looks intrigued and I look like I’m sleeping. Fabulous!

Fargo Tour deCure event: Somewhere in the midst of all this I spent five days in the Fargo, ND area promoting the Tour deCure event and speaking to various groups in the area. When I told most people I was headed to Fargo, I was met with either a “why would you go to Fargo?” look or a statement along the lines of a (sarcastic) “Sounds like a blast.” But believe it or not, the trip was jam packed with fun and I had a great time. I spent two hours in a gym in Park River, ND at a camp in the middle of the woods waiting out several tornados that were in the area. When we left, we actually drove through the remnants of said tornados. Here are some pictures of that for your viewing pleasure.

This was at the camp where we were hiding out in the gym:

The rest of these were leaving camp:

This was right after we drove through the scary stuff:

Then there was the actual Tour deCure ride. Summary: GOOD LORD IT’S WINDY IN FARGO! There may be no hills but that wind makes up for that. There were times I felt like I was riding against a brick wall! Fortunately, I found some good company along the way, had a great ride and the event was a huge success. Here is a picture of an exhausted/haven’t slept well for a week/been working many hours and am jetlagged me and some of the Red Riders from the event:

Lastly, after the ride, I got to jam in a bunch of fun in 24 hours. I got to see my mom and step-dad for dinner! I love living in Boston but I really miss my family and it’s so rare that I get to see them. I am so thankful that they decided to trek 5 hours to Fargo just to have dinner with me. I was fighting to keep my eyes open and had so much to talk about and my mom was there to listen and give me hugs to keep me awake. Love you mom and Dale! My friends, Jason and Kelly, drove over to Fargo from Minneapolis to hang out as well. Jason and I were two of the few kids with Type 1 in my school so we have always had a tight bond. I hadn’t seen him in several years so it was awesome to catch up. We hung out and had a few beers and then I went back to my hotel to pack and pass out. As an added bonus, I had breakfast with my parents before my flight left in the morning. So all in all it was an exhausting, but extremely worthwhile trip!

I think that’s all I have for more as I fear you’ll stop reading if I go on. I doubt I’ll have any time to blog during the next few weeks so stay tuned for the next post which will likely be a Rhode Island 70.3 race report!

Oh, and PS – the accents in Fargo aren’t nearly as bad as the accents from my home town (Spooner, WI). Don’t let the movie fool you!

First Post-Surgery Race: Mooseman International Distance Race Report

2010-06-08T12:59:00.011-04:00

Summary: Looks like I’m going to have a tri season after all.

After working most of the day on Friday, Dave and I headed to Bristol, NH around 2:00 Friday afternoon. I have to say, riding in the car packed full of bike equipment in the way felt so surreal. Even the day before when I was packing all my tri stuff up and pulling things like my aero helmet out of the closet that I hadn’t seen in a year, it still didn’t hit me that I was going to do a triathlon. Five months earlier when I had my first surgery, I had fully accepted that I wouldn’t have a full triathlon season. I found myself in denial that I was about to do what I didn’t think I’d be able to do for a long time only three months after my second surgery. It didn’t really sink in until we got to race registration and I saw many of the familiar faces I’m used to seeing at these things. And then it was: HOLY SHIT I’M RACING TOMORROW! I’m not ready for this. What am I thinking? I’ve run 15 miles in the last year – I’m in no shape for this. My legs might fall off!

And then the voice of reason, my coach John Hirsch, turned the corner and I forgot all about those thoughts. John’s a pretty bad ass pro and it’s hard not to adopt his bad ass attitude when you’re around him. Just having him there saved me from a night of worry. So, Dave and I checked in and the three of us and Coraline (John’s dog) headed back to our cabin where we did normal race stuff and not-so-normal race stuff like watching John explode with energy. A tapered John is a scary John (evidence below):

The weather forecast had predicted possible thunderstorms and/or steady rain for pretty much the entire day on Saturday. My alarm was set for 4:00 a.m. and at 3:00 a.m. I was in bed staring at it. Around 3:30, it occurred to me that it wasn’t raining (the weatherman said the rain would start at midnight) and not minutes after the thought “maybe we’ll get lucky” went through my head, it started pouring. Heavy, heavy rain with accompanying thunder. Awesome.

I ate. I got ready. We headed to the race site. I started to set my bike up when, CRAAAACCCCK! – several huge lightning bolts float through the sky. It didn’t take long for those of us in transition to realize that standing in the middle of a field of metal during a lightning storm probably isn’t so healthy and we all headed to the tents to huddle and wait it out. Well, that waiting turned into about two hours and eventually the news came to us that the swim would be cancelled and we’d be doing a duathlon with a shortened version of the bike course. The bike would be 17 miles long (as opposed to 29). Well just great. The biggest thing I wanted to get out of this race was the swim practice and the only advantage I had was the bike – I love the course and I’m good at it. Take 12 miles off of the length of it and this quickly turned into a runner’s race. While normally I’d be thrilled, that was exactly what I didn’t want that day. But what can you do? This is ME we’re talking about and this is how my luck is, so I tried to squash my frown and deal with it.

So the race started as a time trial start, beginning with bib number 1 and each consecutive number going off 3 seconds after the person in front. I was number 738. So that meant that 737 people would go off in front of me. That meant that I’d be passing a lot of squirrely riders on wet roads. More fun.

As far as the diabetes stuff goes, it wasn’t great. I have such a huge adrenaline response with nerves that my sugar levels sky rocket and sky rocket they did….twice. Because I had to go through the whole nerve thing at the beginning when I was about to race an Oly and at the beginning again, when I was about to race a duathlon. I had taken about 20 units total to compensate for my nerves and was still hovering around 180 which meant that I couldn’t eat anything and I hadn’t eaten anything for the last 5 hours.

Soon enough, it was my time to go. I crossed the timing mat and as I tried to throw my leg over my bike to mount it, I can only imagine what an ass I looked like. I still can’t really lift my leg past 90 degrees from the hip flexor release so it’s hard for me to get on the bike. And when you’re in a race situation with people watching , it’s a bit embarrassing. I was flustered after that and had a hard time clipping in. Right off the bat about five girls behind me passed me. Not a great start. But I did eventually get on my bike, re-passed those girls and off I went.

I love the Mooseman bike course. It’s one of my favorites and I know it by heart. I was picking off people left and right and then I hit the first hilly section of the course. I was doing great when some stupid van decided to try and pass everyone right before the hills and then proceeded to get nervous due to lack of visibility and cut over in front of me. There was nothing I could do to get by it and I got stuck doing its speed for about 3 miles. It was one of the most frustrating things I have ever experienced. All I could think about were the few girls in front of me that WEREN’T stuck riding this van's pace. It wasn’t until half way up Devil’s hill that it finally sped off. I hate you, van.

I was riding at a pretty decent pace the entire ride (except for when I was stuck behind the van) but I kind of felt awful. At mile 7 or 8, I pulled my Navigator (continuous blood glucose monitor) out of my pocket and it read 245 with a slightly up arrow, which explained the dead feeling in my legs. I had an Apidra pen (short acting insulin) stuffed in my bra so I pulled that out and performed the not-so-easy task of taking a shot while trying to hold a 25+ mph pace downhill and maintaining an aero position. I succeeded. I think I deserve a podium spot for this, don’t you? I continued to check the CGM for the next several miles and eventually achieved a 220 with a straight arrow and I decided to leave things that way as I didn’t know how my body was going to react to the extra insulin on the run.

Around mile 15, I slowed down quite a bit and let the QT2 girls I’d been flirting with on the bike go ahead as I wanted to spin my hip flexors out a bit in preparation for the run. I was thinking about my insulin strategy, etc. when all of a sudden T1 seemed to pop up from nowhere and I didn’t have time to get my feet out of my shoes. This made for a nasty/slow transition. Two girls that came in behind me sped out onto the run course much quicker than I did and I found myself flustered and fumbling around. But somehow I got out of there and headed onto the run course.

Much to my surprise, I was running decently and ticked off mile one with a sub 7.00 pace. I backed off a bit because I knew I couldn’t hold that for 6 miles and I didn’t want to pay for it on the hill that comes around mile 2. I caught up to Dave right after the 1 mile mark, said hello and continued on. Around mile 1.5, Coach J. came by on a bike and cheered me on, telling me I looked great. My sugar started dropping at this point and I suddenly started feeling pretty decent around mile 3. This continued until around mile 4 when my legs completely gave up on me (so yes, that means I only felt good 1 mile of this race – maybe it was good the course was shortened). I was running terribly at this point and just wanted the race to be over but I saw two girls in my age group in front of me that were within striking distance. Coach J passed again and said I still looked great so I put in a bit of a surge to pass the girl in front of me on a hill. She said “good job” as I passed her and I tried to say the same thing back to her but I honestly didn’t have the energy to even talk at that point. All I could focus on was keep my legs moving so I wouldn’t fall over. With about ½ mile left, I caught up to the other girl in my age group I knew I could catch. I ran quietly so she wouldn’t know I was there and then right when we turned onto the last, sand portion of the course, I passed her and dropped the hammer, PRAYING that she didn’t respond because there wasn’t anything left in my legs. She tried to respond but I gave everything I had and crossed a few seconds in front of her. PHEW!

So, I finished. My first race of the season is done. In JUNE - a full 2 months ahead of schedule!

And, surprisingly, it wasn’t a terrible result.

15th in AG

20.9 MPH on bike

7.40/mile pace on the run.

I’d have to call this race a success. I need to get another race in before RI 70.3 now because I didn’t get the swim practice that I needed. I might check out a sprint next weekend. But after that, RI 70.3 here I come!

Next weekend I will be on the athlete panel at the DESA Northeastern Regional conference along with Olympian Kris Freeman and Missy Foy. Please stop by and say hi if you have the chance!

Who needs a reason?

2010-05-15T22:48:00.007-04:00

This post is a long time coming which is precisely why it won’t make much sense. I have had a ton of randomish but importantish thoughts rolling around in my head over the last year or so and I’ve not made any attempt, until now, at capturing them. These thoughts have been all over the place and I didn’t know how to go about expressing them so I've mostly pushed them aside.

And then today half of my tooth fell out and I decided it was time to get this stuff out of my head.

Believe it or not, there is some relevance to the tooth falling out and my urge to blog. I have shitty teeth. I had undiagnosed celiac disease for so long that my inability to digest the gluten I was eating lead to an abundance of stomach acid which ate away at my enamel. So, today, half of one of my molars just fell right off. And I got pissed followed by depressed. I mean seriously – do I really need this right now? Has my life not been stress-laden enough over the last several months?

And it was this that lead me to reflect on my life (vocally and often angrily to my husband at times). If you don’t regularly read my blog, just know that I am a medical nightmare to the point of comedy. It’s like I am given every possible physical obstacle that one can overcome. I’m not sure if that’s a blessing or a curse. Every single thing I’ve been handed has been something that I can deal with. I am truly thankful for that and beyond that, I’m thankful that I was blessed with the type of personality that HAS the ability to deal with it because frankly, I’m not sure just anybody could. It takes a lot of intelligence and energy just to be able to function as me. Beyond the constant blood sugar monitoring, shot taking, avoidance of gluten I now have the pleasure of stretching and PT every day, likely for the rest of my life, in order to maintain my hips.

Yeah, I know. Boo hoo. But when you train as much as I do, do you know how an extra hour a day of core/PT/hip maintenance is? It is the difference between sane and not sane. I am running out of time. I just simply don’t have it. I wake up, I stretch, I go to work, I work out at lunch, I work, I come home, I work out, I make dinner, I go to bed. This is my life and it’s exhausting.

So, all these things have lead to all these rolling thoughts. To top that off, I belong to a Yahoo group for FAI surgery (the hip disorder surgery I had). Lately the topic has been running and there seems to be two trains of thought on the matter (of course there are various thoughts on this based on each individual situation/amount of damage but even across identical hips there is a huge variance of opinions on this):
1) You should never run again and doing so will cause substantial damage which will lead to a total hip replacement at a young age.
2) The reason to have the surgery in the first place is so that one CAN be active and run, etc.

The reality is, nobody knows. The reason each doctor has a different answer is because the surgery is so new that nobody knows what any of us who have had it (and I should make note that there are several different versions of this surgery) will experience down the road.

And here’s where all my thoughts collide: I have been through so much shit my whole life which will cumulatively lead to me having to deal with more shit and I’ve kept on plodding through all of it like nothing ever happened, so why should I treat this any differently? It’s my schtick. If my hips wear out when I’m 40 then so be it. I will deal with it. It’s what I do. So bring it on.

I am 4 months post surgery 1 and 11 weeks post surgery two. I ran three miles the other day. My first race is an Olympic distance triathlon in 3 weeks. Next week I’m doing a century ride at the North Shore Tour de Cure. I swam 4000 yards today. How can I be mad at anything that has happened in my life? How many people can say they do these things let alone do then a few months after 2 hip surgeries, with Type 1 Diabetes and celiac disease?

The truth is, I don’t think I would have done one of these things, let alone all of them, if it weren’t for all of my struggles. My struggles have given me a deep desire to prove to the world that I CAN do these things. I hadn’t really thought about that until a few months ago – I was giving a talk to a Heart-to-Heart group which is for Type 2 Diabetic patients who have experienced heart problems. I was really worried about the talk before-hand because I didn’t know what to expect from the crowd. Most of the audience was in their mid 70’s and I was sure none of them would have a clue what a triathlon was. But much to my surprise, they were completely engaged. In the middle of my speech, a woman raised her hand after I had explained what goes into training for an Ironman triathlon and she asked “Why do you think you push yourself so hard?” I wasn’t expecting that and I was a bit taken aback, struggling to come up with an answer. After what seemed like an eternity, I just replied “that’s a really good question and I don’t know the answer to it” and then a man sitting next to the woman who had asked the question blurted out “because she wants to PROVE that she can do it because nobody thinks she can!”

Wow. That old guy was so right!

Nobody thinks I can. And thus, I will keep on pushing myself because if the odds were stacked against me before, they are moreso now and that is what drives me. And like I said above, how many people can do these things that I do and WANT to do them? I’m not stuck on a couch, I’m not overweight, I have a work ethic, I love competition, I thrive on this stuff. And even after all of my issues, I can still do these things and do them well. That might not always be the case so now is the time to do them. Who needs reason more than that? I don’t.

I love driving vans!

2010-05-05T23:55:00.006-04:00

Pre-Relay picture when everyone is still bright eyed and bushy tailed.

This weekend marked the first, official Team Type 1 Tri Team race of the season. It was a 200 mile relay race in California called, appropriately, "The Relay" (the only title more appropriate would have been Really Freaking Hilly Impossibly Difficult Relay).

I was a bit stressed coming into this trip. A) Dave had left the country the weekend prior and I hadn't slept well the whole week. B) I was crazy busy at work. C) I had a 7 hour flight to the West Coast preceding the time during which I knew I would have no sleep. D) I knew it was going to be difficult for me to drive a van, watching my teammates run when all I wanted to do was run.

So, to be honest, I wasn't 100% psyched for this experience and I just wanted to put in my time for the team and move on. What I didn't expect was that I was going to have the time of my life. I've never been so happy to drive a 15 passanger van through mountains with stinky athletes in the back.

From the moment I arrived in Napa to the time I left, I felt right at home. I just can't put into words what it's like to hang out with a bunch of other competitive athletes who are type 1 diabetic in a van...for 24 hours straight. Unless you're diabetic, and an athlete, you just won't get it. The comaraderie that existed from the moment we shut the door can't be found elsewhere. We learn from each other and we understand each other. It's really cool to have that feeling. There were so many times over the course of the weekend that I thought of how isolated and "different" I felt as a child with diabetes. I felt the opposite of that this weekend and it kind of made me feel like a kid again - or like how I wished I could have felt as a kid. I felt like I fit in. It was pretty cool.

The icing on the cake was that we took 12th place out of 212 teams, despite a few snafus, one of which included me missing a turn and leaving one of our fastest runners by himself for a 9 mile jaunt through a quarry and up a giant (9 mile) hill. By the time we realized the mistake, he was almost done running and sat in transition for 6ish minutes. Ugh.

I'm still jet lagged and exhausted (it's 12:30 and I have to be up at 5:30 to ride my bike...blah) but I'd suffer through this any time to experience this weekend again. I was sad to leave California.

Recovery is still plodding along. Running has started. It is going...not well, but it's going. So I'll take it.

A happy and sleep deprived TT1 Relay Team:

Type 1 Diabetes: Even after 21 years, I still screw up

2010-04-21T15:51:00.006-04:00

I had a close call on Monday. Monday was marathon day and Dave (husband) was running so his parents were in town to watch. All that means is that there would be a lot of standing around waiting, a lot of rushing and a lot of eating at weird times, etc. No biggie, unless you become a little too concerned about making sure everyone else is happy/satisfied and become too relaxed about testing your blood sugar and eating (anything, really).

Dave’s parents picked him up around 7:30 a.m. and drove him to the start in Hopkinton. They planned to drive right to mile 15 after dropping him off to claim a spot to watch the race. Dave’s wave wasn’t scheduled to start until 10:30 -- he wouldn’t even be there until 1:00ish and there was no way I was going to sit there for that long so I stayed home. I told his parents I’d meet them at the mile 15 mark around 12:00.

I hopped on the bike for 45 minutes, went for a 6 minute run (a whole 6 minutes - wow!), hopped in the shower and left the house around 11:00. Important point: I forgot to eat.

I arrived in Wellesley as I said I would around noon and around 1:30 Dave ran by. After that, his parents really wanted to get close to the finish line to see Dave later on. So, we hurried up, and headed back to our house in Cambridge (with me navigating – stressful to begin with but more stressful when all the roads are closed). We made it, rushing so as not to miss Dave, called a cab and hurried to mile 25…..where we proceeded to stand for another hour until Dave came along. Important point: I still hadn’t eaten.

After Dave passed by, we headed back to Mass Ave. to catch another cab and head back to the house. As we were walking in the door, Dave called, said he was getting his stuff and asked if I could pick him up on Mass Ave. So, I hopped back in the car and made the trek back to where I had just came from. Important point: I still hadn’t eaten.

I picked Dave up, drove back to the house, talked marathon for awhile and then we decided on a plan, which was to get pizza delivery. I called around 5:30 and the pizza place noted that they didn’t start delivery until 6:00, so delivery was changed to carry-out. Dave also wanted a beer so I hit the road again to drive to the store to get a beer and then pick up the pizza. Important point: I still hadn’t eaten.

Even more important point: I had not tested my blood sugar for several hours.

By the time I got back with the pizza, I noticed I was sweating buckets. I put the pizza down, went to my bedroom to change and by the time I got back out I was in a full blown hypo. My clothes were soaked, I was starting to slur my words and I was losing concentration. To make matters worse, I had just taken a bunch of insulin to prepare for eating pizza. Not good. Dave and his parents (who were scared to death at this point) watched as I ate an ENTIRE BOTTLE of glucose tablets. 1000 calories, no joke. It took about 20 minutes but I eventually came around, feeling like hell. I still have sores in my mouth from eating so much glucose. Disgusting.

Moral of the story? No matter what you have going on, it is SO VERY IMPORTANT to put your health and your diabetes first. It’s impossible to be perfect, but there were so many ways that this incident could have been avoided. It was totally my fault for not paying attention to myself.

On the recovery note, things are coming along. My hip flexors are still weak (especially the right one) and muscles are compensating like crazy because of that (holy glutes, hamstrings and adductors…ouch) but each day brings more promise. Time will tell.

And in other good news, my Freestyle Navigator (continuous blood glucose monitor) is currently on its way to me in the mail. I have been wanting one of these bad boys for ages now and I am super stoked to try it out. Had I been wearing it on Monday, the situation that occurred most likely would not have. Yay for technology.

Lastly, a Twitter contest was posted by Splish. The first person to post a picture of themselves at a US Historical momument wearing a Splish swimsuit won five free suits. I was all over it and at 8:30 on a rainy, 40 degree, Friday evening, I snuck into Harvard Stadium(a US Historical monument) wearing a swimsuit. Dave snapped the pic and we escaped. I'm sure stranger things have happened on the Harvard campus, no? You wouldn't think so from some of the looks I got. Evidence is below (and I won, by the way - can't wait to get my suits).

Video/Sound Byte Proof That I'm Tough

2010-04-10T09:13:00.006-04:00

My coach, John Hirsch, pro-triathlete and total bad-ass, puts on a camp in Spain every year called Strong Like Bull. Dave and I were all signed up, super stoked and ready to go this year when I found out about my hips. It was a huge bummer that we couldn't go.

Anyhow, Ironman Bobby was at said camp and caught a lot of cool moments on video (he's good at that). Here, about two and a half minutes in, you can hear my coach call me tough (I am Peej). I thought I'd take a moment to preserve this moment as it made me smile. I wasn't tough enough to make it to Strong Like Bull a day after surgery though. Hopefully next year!

Spain Day 3 Rest Day from Bobby Pierce on Vimeo.

Guess what I did?

2010-04-06T12:04:00.002-04:00

I rode 80 miles on my bike. Outside. On hills. With sun. It was awesome.

I also got a terrible sunburn which was less awesome.

One more month till I can run.

That's all I have for now. I would say more but I don't want to jinx anything.

Thanks, Mom!

2010-03-26T23:01:00.003-04:00

I was recently given the opportunity to speak to some children with type 1 diabetes and their parents in Providence, RI. It was late at night, I was tired, I didn't feel well, my hips were hurting, my blood sugar had been less than optimal for a few days, I had missed several workouts, I looked like poo and to be honest, the last thing I wanted to do was to stand in front of people and try to be inspiring. But I was there, the kids and their parents were there and so it goes.

I started giving my speech which I had pre-planned but as I got about 10 minutes into it, I realized that the kids that were there were way too young to understand a word I was saying (I had originally presumed that I would be there for the kids). As I looked around, I noticed that the adults were looking at me in a way that spoke to my heart and I saw something in their eyes that reminded me of my mother. At that very second I realized that wow, my mom had gone through a LOT trying to raise me, a young rebellious teenager (with a young rebellious teenager older sister), single mother and all. So many moments came flashing back to me -- my first insulin reaction at school where the entire staff freaked out and called my mom, asking her what to do (even though my mom had written them a long, drawn-out letter of how to handle this situation should it arise to avoid that very situation) and having them fight with her when she told them to give me sugar: "She's diabetic - she can't have sugar. Shouldn't we giver her insulin?" I saw that same pain on those parents' faces and I immediately admired every single one of them. Sometimes I think this disease is way harder on our loved ones (especially when we're children) than us. So I took a moment to thank the parents and from that point on, I was glad I was there. I was thrilled to be tired and worn out, helping parents who are probably not sure what is going to happen to their kid and worry about them every second of the day. I just can't imagine that stress and their kids don't realize it right now either. I wanted them to know that one day those kids would see it and they would thank them for every ounce of effort they put into looking after their child's health, no matter how much that child didn't want the help at the time.

And so, yet again, my mother saves the day. Not only am I alive because of her, for more reasons than one, she saved me from falling asleep and boring my audience. And she made me realize how lucky I am to be me.

Thanks, Mom. I love you.

Finding an upside takes time

2010-03-18T11:28:00.002-04:00

Let’s face it, when the reality of two surgeries, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to find an upside – especially when you’re an athlete. If you would have asked me to give you a positive in December, I would have given you the finger.

But now that I’m 3 weeks post-surgery two, I’m starting to see that the most of the clichés are true – you know, “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” and all that, as much as my skeptical self hates to admit it.

First and foremost is that I’ve learned a lot about myself – a lot that I like and a lot that I need to work on. What I like? I’m a pretty strong person and I don’t let people tell me that I can’t do things. When the doc told me I wouldn’t run for 6 months, I said “ok” and in my head I said “I’ll be running in 3.” And you know what? I believe that 100%. Why? Because I will work as hard as I have to in order to do just that. And when my PT told me that I would be able to do a 70.3 by July but that I won’t set any records on the run, I said “ok” and in my head I’m saying “I’m going to PR.” I believe that too. Too many people doubt themselves – I don’t have that problem. If anything, I’m over-optimistic. I can do anything and I sympathize for the person who tries to tell me I can’t. That’s also something I need to work on. I have a chip on my shoulder. It’s probably because I’ve been faced with obstacles since I was born and I’ve been told my whole life that I can’t do certain things, so I think it’s a bit of a defense-mechanism. If I had believed everyone and said “you’re right, I can’t do that” then where the hell would I be?
But I need to realize that sometimes I can’t do things and that not everyone is trying to stop me from doing things I want to do…they’re looking out for me for my own good.

Upside number two? My ass is working. I am starting to feel my glutes work for the first time in years. Muscles that have been dormant forever are starting to fire. If I can run (decently) with flawed hip-flexors and no glutes, what will I be able to accomplish when all my muscles are doing what they're supposed to do? PR? I think so.

Upside number three? It’s almost spring! It’s going to be 70 degrees on Saturday. Talk about getting your strength back at the right time. The sun has really helped with my attitude.

There are even more upsides but I choose to stop there as I fear if I give more, you might actually think I'm an optimistic person.

So next time you’re going through a funky time, stop for a second and try to grasp that in a few months, you might see the good in a bad situation.

Light at the end of the tunnel?

2010-03-12T22:59:00.002-05:00

Sorry about the lack of blogging lately. I sometimes forget that people always assume the worst when one is silent. Truth be told, I've been busy as hell. I'm on medical leave but still working. Add some other, new responsibilities, physical therapy, doctor appointments, the extra time it takes to work out since swimming is my main source of activity and I have no car, I have to rent a Zipcar (which I get to on crutches), drive to the closest BSC (which is not close) and well, all that stuff takes time. I don't have time to blog.

As for an update on the hips, I'm doing great. My doc says I'm way ahead of schedule. I swam 4000 yards today (with a buoy) without pain for the first time in a year or so today. I can ride my bike (increasing resistance steadily). Only problem? Sitting still sucks. After about 30 minutes, I get a lot of aches and pains. But this hip is behaving way, way better than the first one did, which is very strange because according to Dr. Kocher, it had a lot more damage than hip 1. Go figure.....I'm not complaining.

It's been a really long few months. A few months of pain, followed by two surgeries and there's still a long road until I'm out of harm's way but I'm feeling good - much better than I would have expected. I must be feeling good because I'm signed up for Rhode Island 70.3 which is in July and I'm actually starting to believe Ironman Wisconsin might happen. The swim will be there (I am swimming like a champ these days.....I think fixing my hip flexors also fixed my swim), the bike will likely be there....it's all just a question of the run. Lucky for me, running has always been my strength so I'm hoping it comes back to me quickly.

Last but not least, check out the new TT1 site - it's pretty cool (just please ignore the first picture of me as it kind of makes me want to crawl under a bed and hide).

Yeah, I know I'm weird

2010-02-27T23:39:00.008-05:00

I’ve learned a lot about myself over the course of the last year or two, especially over the last 2 months. The thing that I’ve learned that stands out the most is that I’m not normal. I know normal is relative – who really defines normal and all that(?), but clearly I’ve learned that I’m far from the epicenter of any normal that exists. I’m not explaining myself well so let me give you an example.

About 4 weeks after surgery #1, I had rented a Zipcar to get to my physical therapy appointment as my husband was unable to drive me that day. It was a crappy day, rainy and cold. I left PT around 10:00 a.m. and I was driving the Zipcar back to its home when I realized I had some time left on the car rental. I was about to pass by a bike shop when I remembered I was out of Chamois Buttr (for those of you non-cyclists, Chamois buttr is a lubricant you put on your bike shorts to reduce friction produced during longer rides). I pulled over, grabbed my crutches and made my way into the store. I clunked around for a bit looking for the Chamois Buttr, my wet hair dripping onto my clothes and my crutches slipping on the wet tile. Try as I might, I couldn’t find what I was looking for (U2 not playing in my mind) so I asked the clerk if they had any in stock.

**Before I continue, I should explain that this bike shop happens to be an uber-punk-you-have-to-have-a-Mohawk-fixie-and-tattoo-sleves-to-work-there type place.**

After taking a minute to think about it (I'm not sure too many of this particular store's customers are in the market for Chamois Buttr), the kind clerk explained that they did, in fact, have some and revealed a bucket full of individual packets of Buttr. I explained that what I needed a larger tube of Buttr, thanked him and turned around to leave. But as I crutched my way out, the clerk stopped me to explain that he could order some for me. When I said “that’s okay, I have five tubes on order” this man with green hair and tattoo sleeves looked at me like I was from Mars.

After I left I realized what this may have seemed to the bike store clerk. 5’1” Girl on crutches shows up to bike shop in rain looking for massive amounts of crotch lubricant but turns them down because they don't have enough. SLICK!

So where was I going with that? I guess I’ve been thinking about the number of times people have called me ambitious or determined over the last few months. In my mind, I’m no more ambitious or determined than I was 10 years ago when I was not athletic. I just have an addictive personality where if I’m not doing something to the extreme, I don’t know what to do with myself. I'm not normal. So yes, I might be riding my bike 4 days after surgery but I’m not exactly sure that should be commended. I only do those things because my brain can not handle my body being sedentary.

As you might have guessed, I had my second surgery 4 days ago. According to doc Kocher, I had two tears on this side (and one of them was a lot larger than the one on the other side) and the bump on my femur was also larger than it was on the other side. In addition, I have some cartilage damage on this side due to the size of the femur bump. He also gave me a partial psoas release which has been, just like the other side, quite painful. All this basically means that this surgery was a little longer, a little more invasive and a little more complicated that the other side was.

I’m doing okay but I’m just tired of all this. I won’t go into that again as I’ve probably said that a million times over the last month. I will instead say that I’m happy that from here on out I am looking forward. I am almost curious to see what 2010 has in store for me as I don’t have a clue. I might have no season, I might have half a season or I might have a season of biking/swimming with no running. Best case scenario (in my mind at least) is that I spend the first half of the season getting back into it and I slaughter the second half when everyone else is burned out. That said, I DID sign up for Rhode Island 70.3 and my fingers will remained crossed until July.

With that, I leave you with pictures of surgery number two. I was still drugged when Doctor K. explained them to me so I won’t bother captioning as I won’t get anything right.

Ready to move on: Can this just be done already?

2010-02-17T23:56:00.000-05:00

I am about 6 weeks post-op and things are going well considering what was done. I’ve been swimming about 8000 yards, biking about 6 hours, doing about 5 hours of PT and a few hours of core work a week. I even did the elliptical for 45 minutes last week. Let me tell you, if someone would have told me that I would be in pain after a short elliptical workout a year ago, I would have laughed. Holy crap did my calves hurt after that! But I suppose after going from several hours a week walking/running to basically not using my calves at all for 4 weeks, 45 minutes is a lot when you decide to use them again. And don’t get me started on sitting – that is the worst. I would feel better if I spent my entire day cycling. Sitting shortens your hip flexors. This is particularly troublesome after your hip flexor has been detached from its insertion point.

I have pain – quite a bit, in fact, but it’s different. I’m actually thankful that I have the other leg to compare the operated leg to because I realized today, when I was on the bike, that the operated-on leg actually feels better than the non-operated on leg….sort of. They hurt in different ways, I guess. The right leg (non-operated on) aches in a “something’s wrong” way. The left leg aches in a “you’re doing too much too soon, I’ve lost power” kind of way.

I’ve also lost weight. Sounds good, right? Notsomuch. It’s all muscle weight I’ve lost. I can zip up boots over my calves for the first time in ages and my quads actually fit in jeans. As an athlete, this makes me sad. As a girl, I don’t mind. As a person who likes food? It SUCKS!

Lucky for me, I was able to crutch my pathetic butt to Team Type 1 training camp in Atlanta for a few days which was great psychological motivation. The chance to hang out with an amazing group of athletes was just what I needed. I’m more excited to be a part of this team than I’ve ever been.

Surgery #2 awaits me in 5 days. I’m going to say this to get it off my chest: I DON’T WANT TO GO THROUGH THIS AGAIN!

I’ve been watching the Olympics, hearing the stories about athletes fighting to overcome injury and make it. And as much as I’ve been inspired by those stories, I can’t help but feeling down about them as well. They’re all about how athletes have had to overcome an injury (or two or three) to make it where they are. I have found myself thinking “if only….” I would kill for just an injury or two.

I need to stop feeling sorry for myself. I feel myself turning into a downer and am losing the urge to fight it. And I’m finding trouble finding the happy note to end this post on…

There's a fine line

2010-02-07T02:51:00.003-05:00

Sometimes I think I’m the luckiest person in the world.
And sometimes I think the opposite.

On the negative:
I have type 1 diabetes.
I have celiac disease.
I have Raynaud’s syndrome.
I have had three femoral shaft stress fractures.
I had surgery on my left hip for a labral tear, impingement and psoas release.
I will be having the same surgery on my right hip in two weeks.

On the positive:
I have type 1 diabetes.
I have celiac disease.
I have met the coolest people on the face of the earth because of the previous two bullet points. And I mean that whole-heartedly. Diabetics and celiacs are really cool, supportive people. Diabetic-celiac people? Well, I’m one of two I’ve met and we are both super amazing, so there you go.
I am married to the best man in the world.
I have the best friends in the world.
I love my job and work with awesome people.

It’s so easy to forget about the good – especially when you’re going through a rough time. As I lay here again, unable to sleep, with some pain coming from my operated hip, I think about where I was 10 years ago and man, was I MISERABLE! I was unhealthy, unhappy, pissed off about (and still on aware of) most of my ailments.

The difference between then and now? Acceptance.

There is no use in fighting who and what you are. It’s okay to be pissed about it every once in awhile, but the more you allow yourself to do that, the bigger a hole you dig yourself. Speaking for myself, the moment I stopped looking at my “crap”, so to speak, as a negative, the more I was able to use it to my advantage. I can honestly say I know my body better than 99 percent of the rest of the world knows their bodies because I have to. I wouldn’t survive if I didn’t. You can’t tell me that’s not a positive.

I was at a benefit for a very good friend who is raising funds for Team In Training and running the Boston Marathon as a qualified runner (how cool is that?...go Jen!). As I was talking to a group of people, my husband handed me my crutches and everyone looked at me in shock. Not surprisingly, the topic of my “plight” came up. Another friend of mine mentioned spoke of me in a very good light, saying that I would be humble but not to listen to me. I ended up telling my story to everyone, which was mostly about being a triathlete and having hip surgery. Everyone stood there applauding, and I stood there kind of embarrassed as I always do…I am not good at talking about me. And then came the kicker….and she’s diabetic!

Whhhhhaaaaat?

Everyone’s jaw drop and it became the icing on the cake. How in the world can I do all this being diabetic? I mean, I’m so messed up AND I’m diabetic? I must be some superwoman, some creature this world has yet to see! They should make a movie about me!

And I was suddenly pissed off at myself for not mentioning the diabetes right away. Because you know what? There are a lot of people like me out there! Just because our pancreas (or islet cells, at least) sucks, doesn’t mean we are helpless. We are strong!

Anyway, I digress. Ten years ago I thought I was weird for all the stuff that is wrong with me. Today, I have accepted it, and people think I’m great. I don’t think I’m great, but I’ve made peace with it and that has allowed me to feel happy and normal.

....especially now that I can walk again.

2 weeks till surgery number 2.....

Jesse Alswager, a boy I didn't know

2010-02-05T02:16:00.020-05:00

Earlier today I learned of the passing of a fellow Type 1 diabetic, a very special 13-year old boy named Jesse Alswager who inspired many. It’s 2:30 a.m. and I am still unable to sleep.

I was never fortuate enough to meet Jesse but I was a part of a team, Triabetes, which he inspired. Quite honestly, I have never been so touched by someone I have not met and my heart is filled with sadness. When I hear that a person has died from complications of diabetes, I always picture an adult with kidney failure, hypertension…something of that sort -- I don’t think of a teenager, let alone a teenager who was full of life and who had INSPIRED ADULTS to better their own health. But you know what? It happens. Children die from diabetes. That just plain sucks. It sucks so much I could just scream, which I’ve been on the verge of doing all day.

Fact about myself which I'll likely regret that I posted later down the road: I am agnostic. But today, the whole order in which life presented itself to me made me believe that there is at least some force there which guides us. I can’t explain it beyond that, but today was just weird. Sad, weird, horrifying, touching and just…I don’t know. I have cried a lot today for various reasons. I'm not a person who cries often -- I think I cried two times last year.

If you follow my blog, you all know about my hip issues. Well this morning's hip issues sucked. They involved a long walk/crutch to a Zipcar, followed by a drive to a pool, a suck ass swim because my arms were tired from the crutch to the Zipcar, and a rush to get the Zipcar back in time and crutch home. I think that's enough whining for you to get the point of the suck assiness of my morning.

And then I got home.

My last run of any substance was a 5k way back in September. It came after a bit of a forced break in training having done my last big race of the season and having gotten married a few weeks earlier. I’d known for weeks there was something funky going on in my hips but when my husband decided to run this 5k, I couldn’t help but join him as it was for a good cause. Deep down, I knew it would be my last race for awhile (to clarify, I was thinking a two week break from training, not freaking hip surgery). Anyhow, I thought I’d try to make it fun and I picked an appropriate song that I love to listen to on my IPod, not expecting much from my legs so I might as well enjoy some tunes, and I played that song over and over again as I ran. Turns out I won that 5k and it was one of the most meaningful races I've ever participated in despite the fact that I absoultely HATE 5ks. And it wasn't just because I won...it was because I just knew it was my last joy ride of the season and I was enjoying it, forgetting the pain. That said, it hurt and I haven’t run since. But I'll never forget it.

I have an Ipod Shuffle. It plays songs randomly and rarely plays the songs I really wish it would play. Today, while I was procrastinating – not wanting to do my upper body work (side note: upper body work really sucks to do when you have a bad hip and you’ve been on crutches all day), I threw my Ipod on in an effort to get motivated and paused to catch up on Twitter. That’s when I read the news about Jesse. I stood there, staring at my monitor in disbelief. Not a split second later that same song, the song that I played over and over again when I won that 5k, began to play. It was such a surreal moment and one that I will never forget. Ever.

The song: If Today Was Your Last Day, Nickelback

My best friend gave me the best advice
He said each day's a gift and not a given right
Leave no stone unturned, leave your fears behind
And try to take the path less traveled by
That first step you take is the longest stride

If today was your last day and tomorrow was too late
Could you say goodbye to yesterday?
Would you live each moment like your last
Leave old pictures in the past?
Donate every dime you had, if today was your last day?
What if, what if, if today was your last day?

Against the grain should be a way of life
What's worth the price is always worth the fight
Every second counts 'cause there's no second try
So live like you're never living twice
Don't take the free ride in your own life

If today was your last day and tomorrow was too late
Could you say goodbye to yesterday?
Would you live each moment like your last?
Leave old pictures in the past?
Donate every dime you had?

And would you call those friends you never see?
Reminisce old memories?
Would you forgive your enemies?
And would you find that one you're dreaming of?
Swear up and down to God above
That you'd finally fall in love if today was your last day?

If today was your last day
Would you make your mark by mending a broken heart?
You know it's never too late to shoot for the stars
Regardless of who you are

So do whatever it takes
'Cause you can't rewind a moment in this life
Let nothing stand in your way
'Cause the hands of time are never on your side

If today was your last day and tomorrow was too late
Could you say goodbye to yesterday?
Would you live each moment like your last?
Leave old pictures in the past?
Donate every dime you had?

And would you call those friends you never see?
Reminisce old memories?
Would you forgive your enemies?
And would you find that one you're dreaming of
Swear up and down to God above
That you'd finally fall in love if today was your last day?

If you’d like to learn more about Jesse’s story, please visit here:
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/jessealswager/mystory

Post Op: Day 15

2010-01-23T10:55:00.012-05:00

I had my 2 week follow-up appointment the other day. It was not with the surgeon as he was out on vacation, but with my regular ortho doc. The good news is that the doc said everything looks great. I was cleared to start swimming with a buoy and biking (without resistance) as tolerated. While this is great news, I have to admit as a patient, it is with disbelief that you hear words like that when you're unable to walk. I have read so much (you have no idea) about this surgery and some people are able to walk almost immediately so it's hard to believe that I'm way ahead of the curve considering the walking still isn't happening.

That said, I did find out more about what went on during surgery, and I think that most people having this surgery don't have psoas work. 40% of my psoas was released (and by released, I mean cut out). The psoas is a major walking/running muscle. It connects to your lower back and the top of your thighs and is responsible for flexing both the hip and the thigh. When this muscle gets tight, which can happen for many reasons, in my case over-compensation from hip impingement, having a desk job (sitting can shorten the muscle), being a stomach sleeper, and, presumably, riding in a hunched over position on a tri bike for hours on end, all sorts of things can happen. Most of the injuries I've suffered throughout the years were probably due to the psoas being messed up. That said, according to my PT, it had to have been really, really tight for the surgeon to release it and I'm still unsure as to why it was done. This was not discussed prior to surgery. Dave recalls Dr. Kocher telling him after the surgery that it was done in order to correct something else that was damaged and that the psoas would grow back and make up for whatever it was that was messed up (ligamentum teres?) but I still don't know...and living without that muscle has been frustrating. It is very sore and tender in the front pelvic area and though I'm gaining some strength back, for the most part any time I am in a sitting position and need to lift my leg, I have to do it with my hands.

Moving on, I saw my PT for the first time yesterday and I learned some more valuable information. Another side effect of having a tight psoas is that my pelvis is tilted forward. Because of that, my hip flexors have done all the work the rest of my body should have been doing, namely my glutes and my abs. As you may or may not know, I'm kind of a stickler about core work...or so I thought I was. I do 250 crunches every other day of my life and by crunches, I mean the kind where you bring your knees off up the ground to meet your elbows...old school crunches. Well apparently, because of my tilted pelvis and the type of crunches I was doing, I was only stressing my hip flexors by doing that. This was demonstrated to me by the PT by making me do some crunches with my feet on the ground (whereby my abs were isolated and my hip flexors unable to be engaged). I was shaking after 5 of them.

Insert pissed PJ: F&ck you! Seriously! I've been working my ass off doing these massive amount of crunches for several years, all the while thinking I had this really great core which would help ward off injury when all the while what I was really doing was injuring myself further.

Moving on, my glutes. They don't work. My PT had me lay on my stomach and push my butt cheeks together as tight as I could. Know what I felt when I tried to do that (and it was really hard for me to do)? My hip flexors hurt. What???? Apparently my body has learned to compensate so much that my hip flexors have been trained to do pretty much everything. To alleviate that, the PT put a pillow under my hips to isolate my ass muscles and had me do the exercise again...this time no hip pain. Jesus! No wonder I've been having all of these issues. Take every muscle in your body and make one compensate for them all and you're bound to have issues.

There was more (you should see me trying to lay flat on the ground...my back doesn't touch the ground...it arches up), but you get the gist. We have a lot of work to do to get my pelvis neutral again and to train my glutes, hamstrings and abs to do their job. The difficult part is that we can't do much of anything right now because my released psoas is so inflamed that anything we would do to correct this other stuff would hurt the hip flexor. Totally the story of my life. If it isn't next to impossible, a rare injury or totally and completely screwed up, it wouldn't belong to me. Because things that belong to my body are always those things -- as messed up as they could possibly be.

Oh, and 4 weeks from now, this happens all over again. On the other side. Is 4 weeks long enough to even get started on this side? Probably not. Will I be able to walk in 4 weeks? Who knows. All I can do is have hope and believe this is all going to work out but I have to admit, it's hard to be positive. There is a lot wrong.

On a positive note, I've swam twice, one 2500 and one 2000 yard session and biked on the trainer 3 times, for more than an hour each time at about 100 watts. So I guess that's good. The hip aches a bit more afterwards and then goes back to it's pre-workout ache status.

Good stories from each swim: First swim was the day of my 2 week post-op appt. I had done a lot of crutching that day, probably about a mile in total, maybe more. I had also done a bunch of push ups, pullups and bicep curls the day before. Anyhow, when my doc. told me I could start swimming, you KNOW I was going to make it to the pool that day, and I did. Mind you, all swims have to be done with a pull buoy and for those of you who swim, you know how much more work your arms do when you're using a pull buoy. I managed to make it 2500 yards (pretty sure I looked like I was trying not to drown the last 500) before I got out. What I hadn't stopped to think about was the fact that I still had to get back on my crutches after all of that. Holy hell did my arms hurt! I learned that day that I am not, in fact, Superwoman....as much as I like to think I am and making it from the pool to the loccer room was comical, especially considering I was wet and freezing cold (the loccer room is all the way down the hall and you have to open two doors along the way). I'm sure I looked like the walking (crutching) dead.

Second swim happened during the day, when the tikes are there to get their swim lesson. I was done and drying off when a little boy pointed at me, scrunched up his nose and shouted, pretty much at the top of his lungs "Ewwww! Mommy, what's wrong with her leg?" I guess that answers the question on how the actual scar/healing part is going.

Off to go do my exercises, which involve squeezing my butt cheeks together a lot. You just wait, you're all going to be jealous of my rock hard arse after all this is said and done.

Post-Op Update: Day 6

2010-01-14T12:48:00.007-05:00

Things that stand out:

Getting a cup of coffee from point A to point B with crutches is not an easy process.

Armpits and ribs hate crutches.

I like Valium.

I can’t believe I have to go through this all over again in 5 weeks.

My cat will forever hate me for stealing her bed (the couch) every night. Here is (very dark and hard to see) proof - right before I kicked her off:

Your first shower after having not showered for five days following one really stressful day will be the best shower of your life. And my good friend, Lincoln, was right: you do sort of repel water and it beads up on you like you’re covered in that stuff you put on your windshield.

The shower the next day, however, where the shower curtain and rod falls on you while you’re balancing on one foot sucks. I broke the no weight bearing rule there. I was worried but feel better today so I don’t think I messed anything up.

Armpits and ribs that are pissed at crutches hate showers.

I am really glad that I have massive, burly, strong arms (yeah, there’s a little bragging going on there). However, I wish I had a massive, strong, burly right hip that didn’t have a labral tear because now that it has to take all the weight it is pisssssssed off!

My scars don’t look too bad. Proof (although the one on the inside that you can’t really see cause I’d have to show you my hoo ha to show it is the worst):

I have great friends. Thanks, guys, for being there for me. I am almost at the point that I’m ready to allow people to see my cranky (now showered) ass. I will return your notes soon, I promise (don’t hate me for being a recluse).

The Packers losing in the playoffs in the manner in which they lost nearly killed me. Like I said, I like Valium.

I suck, terribly, at sitting around.

I drank and entire bottle of wine last night. An ENTIRE bottle. Oddly, I feel fine today. By body must be cutting me some slack…..knock on wood.

It is hard not to get fat when you’re sedentary. I have been eating salads and good stuff and then (in addition to the ENTIRE bottle of wine) I ate half a pizza. Gluten free, not terribly unhealthy pizza, but when you can’t burn off extra calories, that is not a good idea.

Zing Pizza makes THE BEST gluten free pizza I have ever had. It was so good that I was afraid it wasn’t gluten free and I was about to experience tummy pains. But, in fact, it was gluten free and it was awesome.

I am taking four times the amount of insulin I normally take even though I’m eating half as much as I normally eat due to decreased (or non-existent) activity. If that is not proof that exercise is such a powerful tool in the control of diabetes, I don’t know what is.

All things considered, I am doing pretty well. My hip flexor seems to be gaining more strength daily and aside from tweaking the hip avoiding the falling shower curtain rod, I am still relatively pain free. Don't get me wrong, it aches and there is pain, but it is not as bad as I thought it would be. I am anxious to move on with PT. Like I said, this sitting around crap is for the birds.

I have the best husband in the world. Thank you, Dave, for being here for me every step of the way. I love you.

Surgery Post-Op, Day Two

2010-01-10T13:02:00.009-05:00

It’s been 48 hours since surgery and I’m happy to report that except for a lot of throwing up on day one, everything went well. I have not taken the pain pills I was prescribed and other than the inability to lift my leg forward or up past 10 degrees (and the consequential pain I have when trying), I am feeling pretty good.

Surgery was scheduled for Friday at 7:30 a.m. and we arrived at 6:30. While normally I loathe getting up at 4:30 for any reason, I was happy to get this thing over with as soon as possible so I was happy to be the first scheduled patient. Unfortunately for me, however, the city of Cambridge decided that they were going to re-do the sewer pipes on our street and Thursday evening, there was a giant, insanely loud, truck parked outside our front window all evening and I did not sleep. At all.

Tired but ready to get on with it, we arrived at the hospital. Having surgery at Children’s Hospital is an entertaining experience best described as “One of these patients doesn’t belong.” But as strange as it was listening to nurses in the neighboring operating rooms sing the Alphabet song, it was also a bit entertaining – kind of took the edge off.

Once I was dressed in the lovely hospital issued gown, the process began. Talk about overwhelming. There were so many people talking to me at once, my head was spinning; nurses, nurse’s assistant, the anaesthetist, the anaesthetist’s assistant, Dr. Kocher’s fellow and finally Dr. Kocher, who I saw for a total of 3 minutes the entire day (at least awake).

My blood sugar before surgery was slowly creeping up. Before I entered the operating room, it was 180. 10 minutes later after the mayhem began, it was 260 and climbing – amazing what stress can do. My endocrinologist and I had discussed a blood sugar plan before-hand. We wanted to keep my blood sugar around 130 for the entirety of the surgery and she assured me it is simple to control control blood sugar during surgery through the IV. But apparently the anaesthetist had different ideas on this as I came out of surgery with a reading of 475. I was displeased with this and I’m positive that the eight hours I spent throwing up after surgery had more to do with this than anything.

Moving on, however, before I knew it I woke up in the operating room with a cryogenic brace (attached to a thermos that circulates cold water to the brace constantly). The nurse was administering morphine to my liking. She would give me more and ask if that was enough. Of course the answer was no and I think she gave me three more doses before I was happy. I felt like crap considering my blood sugar was 475 and I was allowed to administer my own insulin. I am still confused as to why they chose to use Regular insulin as opposed to Humalog (what I normally use) as it acts much, much faster than Regular but again, I’m trying not to dwell on that. After around an hour, I was put in a wheelchair and allowed to leave.

I did not speak to Dr. Kocher after surgery but he did speak to Dave for some time to explain his findings. The good news is that they did not find any arthritis (it is widely accepted that the prognosis of this surgery is much, much better when the patient does not show signs of arthritis). He were able to repair some of the labrum which is also good news (it wasn’t completely shredded to the point where it couldn’t be repaired). I also had a torn ligamentum teres which was debrided (the torn part removed) in order to allow my psoas to lengthen and do the ligament’s job. This, I believe, is what is going to cause me the most grief. Right now, I am unable to lift my knee when I’m in a sitting position. And by unable, I mean unable. It doesn’t just hurt, I literally can’t do it. I can already tell that it’s going to take a lot of rehab to re-strengthen the psoas muscle.

It’s still too early to tell what all of this means or whether it is good news, but I will say that I am feeling much better than I expected to. I am on crutches for 4 weeks. Bearing weight does not cause pain so it’s sometimes difficult to remember that I’m not supposed to. I’m not going to complain about that – I’d rather have it that way then the other way around.

Lastly, here are some pictures of the surgery which gives a better idea of what went on. Oh, and yeah, I can't shower until Tuesday (4 days post-surgery). This is proving to be a challenge for both Dave and I as I assure you, I need a shower.

Massage Therapy in Boston

2010-01-05T12:24:00.004-05:00

I wanted to take a moment to blog about my massage therapist, Sarah Tufano. I've seen several massage therapists here throughout the years (and for this particular injury) and while most have been good at what they do, none have compared to Sarah. When I first came to her a few months ago I had not been diagnosed with a torn labrum(s) yet and I could barely walk due to muscular guarding issues (piriformis, glutes, hamstrings, psoas...everything). After a few months of working with Sarah, those issues are mostly gone and I feel like I am going into this surgery in a much better overall shape. I don't think I could have survived the last few months and I certainly would not have been able to train through them without her help.

Sarah understands anatomy like no other therapist I've been to, she truly cares about her clients and is an athlete, herself. If you are an athlete residing in or around Boston and are experiencing any muscular issues or just the general wear and tear of training, I highly suggest making an appointment with her.

Here is her info: Massage Therapy of Boston

If they can do it, I can do it

2010-01-03T22:15:00.003-05:00

List of professionals who have had arthroscopic surgery to repair a torn labrum:

Kurt Warner
Brandon Marshall
Alex Rodriguez
Kobe Bryant
Greg Norman
Michelle Kwan

To be fair, my procedure is a little more invasive than most of these athletes experienced (as I'm having a bone spur removed as well as a labrum fixed) and it's bilateral but if NFL quarterbacks and receivers can perform after this surgery, I certainly can...wouldn't you think?

4 days and counting.

Ugh.

Obligatory 2009 Summary Post

2009-12-30T13:22:00.005-05:00

Obligatory, yes, but wow - 2009 was crazy and needs to be summarized. I think I had more happen this year than the rest of my life combined. I can’t do this chronologically because there’s just too much to even remember, let alone organize by date, but I will try my best to remember it all.

On the life front
• I got married!
• I met Phil Southerland while giving a triathlon presentation at the annual DESA conference which led to an invitation to join Team Type 1 in 2010. Besides getting married, this was probably the single best moment of my year. I am so happy to be part of an amazing group of people whose mission is to prove that you can do anything you want to with diabetes. Being part of this team before having even race with them has already made triathlon more special to me. Sometimes racing isn’t just about racing.
• I made some really great friendships through Triabetes, other triathlon groups and blogosphere. One of the many reasons I love tri is because of the people. Let’s face it, triathetes are good people.
• I learned that I need to have surgery, twice, in 2010. So an amazing year has ended on a bit of a sour note but as in all happy endings, things need to get a little worse before they get better, right?
Surely I am forgetting stuff as that list seems rather short but I’ll move on anyway.

On the racing front

Running: Three running races, three PR’s, 2 medals
• 3rd place overall female in a hilly ass 5 mile race
• 1st place overall female (and a PR) in a hilly ass 5k
• A 1:38:43 half marathon PR

Triathlon:
Sprint distance: Three races, three medals
• 1st place age group Buzzard’s Bay Tri
• 2nd place age group Witch City Tri
• 2nd place age group Holliston Lions Tri

Olympic Distance:
• 15th AG at Mooseman
• 5th place AG at Ashland Lions

Half Iron:
• PR at Rhode Island 70.3 (5:23:50)
• Timberman 70.3 blow up (5:37:10)

Looking at all of that clumped together really puts everything in perspective. From an outside view, I suppose you could say I had an amazing year. I PRed at pretty much every distance in both triathlon and running (thanks, coach John, for knowing I had this kind of year in me) and I did it all while making plans to marry an awesome guy (one could even say that I did it while HE made the plans to marry a crazy woman). I suppose you could also say that even though 2009 has been sullied a bit because of injury, that I have a lot to look forward to in 2010, not the least of which being racing with a great team. I don’t know when I’ll be back on my feet enough to compete but knowing what awaits gives me all the motivation in the world to get there as fast as I can.

January 8th is coming up fast

2009-12-29T12:23:00.003-05:00

I haven't been blogging mostly because I hate being a downer and that's kind of where my head is right now, especially with respect to blog topic posts. Somehow it all ends up going back to my hips and I just can't bring myself to be happy about any of that. Positive? Maybe. I'm trying to be positive, anyway. But happy? No. I'm just not.

In the midst of all of this hip drama, I turned 33 years old the other day. My day consisted of speeding back from Maine in a car for 5 hours, having eaten only a (gluten free) bagel, trying to get home in time to swim before the gym closed. I made it and was able to get 2500 yards in. Good times.

Here's where my brain is currently at: OMG I am not going to be able to work out for months, I must spend every waking hour that I can working out. And that's what I've been doing. I swear to god, if my hips cooperated and I were to race a tri tomorrow, I would totally kill it. My swimming is becoming respectable (the one, true, blessing in disguise thus far) and I'm becoming a bit of a monster on the bike. Running? I've run twice in the last 2 months but oddly enough, despite some more-than-slight pain during both runs, it didn't appear as though my pace nor my form had suffered much. I've been doing the elliptical a lot so maybe that has helped. There will be one more run before surgery, you know, just in case running never happens again. I hate that thought but it's a possibility.

10 days and counting.....

Stress, our messed up health care system and the inability to tell right vs. left

2009-12-15T10:10:00.008-05:00

Yesterday was probably in my top five most harrowing days ever. To say that I’ve been a little stressed out lately would be an understatement and yesterday kind of threw things over the top and then brought be back down to a reasonable level after all was said and done. To summarize, for those of you who don’t want to read my complaining, the end result of the day was this: I do have a labral tear and hip deformity in my left hip very similar to the right and will be having surgery on the left side first (as it is more symptomatic), January 8th and then on the right hip on February 23rd. But coming to that conclusion was not an easy task.

I don’t even know where to begin with this but I guess I’ll start the week prior when I called my surgeon’s office to tell them that my left leg had started bothering me worse than the right leg (and that I had surgery scheduled for the right). I was told that my surgeon would be going on vacation starting the 18th and not returning until a few days before my surgery and that it would be a miracle if I could get an MRA done and be seen by Dr. Kocher before he leaves. But lucky for me, they have pulled special circumstances for me from the beginning of this process and were able to get me in.

Fast forward to yesterday. My appointments were scheduled for 1:00 for the MRA and 2:45 for the Dr. appointment. Dave and I arrived at the MRI office at 12:30. I filled out the paper work and handed it to the admin who promptly asked me if I was there for my left or right leg as I indicated left and my paperwork said I was there for the right. After I informed her that it was, indeed, the left, she said she’d switch it in the system. And then I proceeded to sit there until 1:45 when I was finally called in. Having had an MRA done a few weeks prior, I was a bit confused as to how they were going to get it all done as the last procedure had taken a few hours but the admin said she’d called my Dr’s office to tell them I’d be running a bit late and they said it would all be fine and dandy.

I get changed, they call me, sit me on the MRI table, start taping my feet and begin explaining what’s going to happen. I am, again, a little baffled and ask if they were going to inject the dye into my hip at some point. They look back at me as baffled I have as I’m looking at them. I’m not there to get an MRA according to their paperwork. I am there to get an MRI on my RIGHT FEMUR. Wrong leg, wrong body part, wrong procedure. Awesome.

I’m pulled off the MRI table and into some lady’s office. Mind you, I am naked and wearing one of those extra large hospital gowns that don’t close. I am freaking out and in the back of my head, thinking about the appointment with my surgeon, the LAST POSSIBLE appointment available with him that is to take place in 30 minutes.

I explain my situation to the woman who I should say, to be fair, was very understanding and helpful, but when she explained her situation to me which, at the time was, “there is no way we can get this done today as we already have an MRA scheduled and you were not scheduled for one” I went into freak out mode. There was no way I was leaving that office without a needle being stuck into my hip and pictures taken of it. Those of you who know me know that I’m not a confrontational person. I’m the type of person who likes to disappear in difficult situations and I certainly don’t like to be the center of attention but this was different. I had no other options than what was laid out in front of me at that moment and I felt that the situation called for drastic measures. And hell, I’d been through enough already. It was stressful enough sitting there all morning/night/week/month contemplating all this and not looking forward to the procedure, itself, which is not a cake walk. I’d had enough.

Commence tears. Commence yelling. Commence pleading. Commence more tears. Commence woman frantically making phone calls to my Dr.’s office.

Apparently what had happened was that while the person from Children’s had called the MRI place with the correct information on the left hip, when they pulled the order from the computer to fax it over to them, they pulled an old order from October (when we thought I had a stress fracture of the right hip), and faxed it and it got booked as such. This test had already been completed back in October in that very same office. You think that might have tipped them off a bit? But moving on...

The squeaky wheel does, indeed, get the grease. They got the approval to move forward with the procedure. Dave would tell me later that while he was in the waiting office the admins were on the phone cancelling the later MRA appointments and that I had backed up all the rest of the people waiting for their MRIs for a few hours. I feel truly bad about this but I think if those waiting knew the whole story, they would understand.

I’ll spare you the rest of the MRA details. It sucked but it’s over now (though I’m still quite sore from it). I was able to get in later to see Dr. Kocher (after 5:00) and he explained my options to me which were A) Get the left one fixed, wait and see where we are in 4 – 6 months as sometimes the opposing leg gets better after the worst one is fixed or B) Schedule the right hip for 6 – 8 weeks after the left. He did not want to sway me in either direction but when I said that I thought it was best to have them both done, he told me he thought I was making the right decision. Dr. Kocher was helpful, understanding (much more than the first time I saw him) and left me feeling very confident which, after the crazy day I’d just gone through, was good. I needed that.

And there you have it. 3 more weeks and we’re go. I feel fear but also some relief to at least have a plan of action.

As a side note to all this, I’m still amazed at the mix up at the MRI office. What if I were an older person without the knowledge of what was going on? I’m sure the wrong procedure would have been performed and insurance would have paid for it for no reason. That is just crazy. I understand why people write on warnings their good limbs before surgery as a precautionary measure now.

Two is not always better than one

2009-12-11T10:57:00.004-05:00

First, I just want to give all of you who read my drivel a big hug and a thank you. Even though I have a caring family and a wonderful husband by my side throughout this, I often feel alone in this process and my emotions are all over the place. Especially recently, I’ve had some emotionally tough days and I can’t tell you the amount of times a comment on here has come through at the right time and lifted my spirits. I know some of you know what I’m going through as you’ve gone through similar situations. I appreciate the positive thoughts you bring to my way. I tend to be rather cynical about these things given my background with injury and I need a kick in the pants to pull me out of my funk at times. So thanks for your words. They mean more to me than you know.

I’ve mentioned it before but my good leg (lefty) has recently become not so good. In fact, it’s worse than the bad leg (righty). I am scheduled for surgery on the right leg for January 8th. Since the right leg has improved quite a bit since it originally started bothering me, I thought I’d give the left leg a little time after initially becoming bad to get better as well as I didn’t want to go through the MRA/Dr. process again. But that didn’t happen. So, here we go again. On Monday I will be getting an MRA on lefty followed by another consultation with Dr. Kocher. We will decide which leg goes first at that time. I hope it’s lefty because right now I can’t even sit on that side. I’m told that the timing of the second surgery will depend on how well the first one goes. 8 weeks after the first surgery at the earliest but more realistically, 12 – 16 weeks.

This is going to be a long recovery. I so hope I’m doing the right thing. That said, watch out for me in 2011 because I promise you one thing, I am not going through all of this to not make a big come back. If I'm able to continue doing what I love to do after all of this I will make every effort to do it really, really well.

Video explaning FAI

2009-12-04T09:27:00.006-05:00

This video does a great job of explaining what's going on in my hips.

And by hip(S), I mean the left leg (the "good" leg) is now worse than the right. Which means I get to go through this for a year since they can't do both legs at the same time.

This is such a roller coaster of an injury. It's not really an injury but I don't know what else to call it. I didn't do anything to cause it, the pain is caused by the way my body is built. It's really difficult feeling great one day and awful the next. At least if you hurt all the time you accept the pain and look forward to doing whatever you can do to make it better but when you have days where you feel great, you get a false sense of hope and feel like you might suddenly be cured only to wake up in pain again the next day. It's frustrating.

I've been having dreams (after laying there for hours trying to fall asleep) that the surgery gets messed up and I'm left not being able to walk again, that sort of thing. Let me tell you that this isn't helping me at all. I guess it just hit me the other day how big of a deal this is. They will be reshaping bones in my body not once, but twice and over the course of a year. I am having my HIPS worked on two weeks after my 33rd birthday. Out of everything that's gone wrong with me, medically, during my life, my hips were the last thing I would have thought would go next.

I'm told I could quit triathlon, running, etc. and just live with this and that it would get a little better (although right now that's hard to imagine...I am in constant pain all day long). But it is an option. It's not an option I'm willing to entertain and sometimes I get a little angry that I DO have that option because what if the surgery fails? What if I am worse than I was pre-surgery? When it comes down to it, I will be the one responsible since I chose this.

These are the things that go through my head all.day.long. And I mean ALL day long. I hate this and I'm starting to hate myself. I want the old me back.

Ten things you probably don't know about me

2009-11-24T23:33:00.009-05:00

While laying in bed for the last 1.5 hours thinking about my family and all the events in my life that have added up to the now, the now that has led to me lying in bed not sleeping, worrying about my bad leg and focusing on the pain that has taken over my "good" leg, I stepped outside of myself for a moment and got a little scared at what I saw. You know, I'm kind of messed up. I profess to be this strong willed, confident person but I am so far from that person I'd like you to all I think I am. And right now, I am terrified. I have been here before but at lower points in my life, points where I knew there would be something better was waiting for me down the road. I was right and the better eventually came. But what now that the better is threatened?

I considered coming out here, here being the room where my computer and something other than the bed and the quiet noise of my frantic thoughts exist, and posting some elaborate story about my life but I decided against that because that's just dumb. This is a blog. I'm purposely leaving stuff out cause that's what blogs are for. So, instead, here are 10 things about myself that you likely don't know about me. Hopefully thinking and posting some silly life moments and such here will lull me to bed.

1. I am a big fan of 80's hair bands. Def Leppard will always be my favorite and I can never get sick of that music. And don't ever challenge me to a lyric-off when it comes to 80's music. I can't remember anything from 1990 on (music or otherwise) but if you post the beat to 95% of the popular songs from the 80's, I will immediately break into ACCURATE song.

2. I have really small feet. I wear size 5 shoes. There's nothing good about this unless you like "cute" feet. I don't like cute feet so for me, it's just an annoyance as manufactuers don't make shoes to fit me.

3. I was born in Chicago, IL. I moved to Wisconsin and grew up in a tiny town of 2000 people. I moved to Minnesota when I was 19. I moved to Boston when I was I was 26.

4. My mom and step-dad are Bears fans and I can tolerate the Bears. Myself, my sister and my dad are Packers fans. The Packers are the best team ever and if you disagree with me you are wrong and will always be wrong. There isn't much on this earth that I detest more than the Minnesota Vikings. My husband is a Pats fan. I cheer for the Pats unless they are playing the Packers or need to lose in order to advance the Packers in some way shape or form.

5. I don't like to be asked questions about Brett Favre so don't ask me them. You probably already knew that but it's still worth pointing out. And yes, I did name my tri bike after him. Don't ask me about that either.

6. I was a cheerleader in high school. I am not proud of this.

7. I'm really sarcastic so if I ever say something that's questionably rude depending on tone, just assume sarcasm. I might be direct but I'm never offensive purposefully. I tend to forget others don't have my dry sense of humor.

8. I think Brad Pitt is ugly.

9. Death to Smoochy, Fight Club and Finding Nemo are my favorite movies however if you ask my husband, I have about 40 favorite movies. Whatever movie I'm watching at the time is generally my favorite (unless it sucks).

10. I have an often reoccuring dream that involves me going back to college as an adult which is weird because I still think one of the best decisions I ever made was quitting college after my freshman year(with a 4.0 mind you).

There, so maybe you know me a little better now and maybe I can fall asleep. Happy Thanksgiving!

Surgery Scheduled

2009-11-19T13:36:00.005-05:00

They will be cleaning up the torn labrum, reattaching it if it is possible (they won't know if it can be fixed until they get in there) and fixing the Femoral Acetabular Impingement (where the bone has a spur on it that catches the labrum and tears it - they shave the extra bone off). January 8th was the soonest they could get me in. Depressing, but it is what it is. I am on a waiting list and hoping that some other gimp out there becomes magically gimpless and cancels their surgery or decides they don't want to be on crutches over the holidays.

I'm confident I'm in good hands. The doctor performing the surgery is Dr. Mininder Kocher at Children's Hospital. He's done a lot of these and gave me every reason to believe that I'll be good to go after I'm recovered. I will never have full range of motion in my hips but it will be better than what it was even before the problem occurred, at least in the right leg. The most depressing statistic is that I have a 50% chance of the same thing happening in the other leg. And the other leg has had symptoms. But I have to try not to think about that because I can't have both legs done at once and this is what it is.

For recovery I can expect:
4 weeks on crutches/no weight bearing
PT at 2 weeks
Cycling with no resistance at 2 weeks
Swimming at 4 weeks
Light jogging at 3 months
Back to full training at 6 months
So in JUNE I can start training like a normal triathlete. This is best case scenario, of course.

I had a lot planned this year and it's hard to watch that go away. Notably, the Strong Like Bull training camp in Spain (February) and our honeymoon, which was going to be the St. Croix 70.3 and a week of relaxation. But again, thoughts to push out of my head. I guess.

In the mean time I'm allowed to keep training. I'm even allowed to train with a little bit of pain (if it hurts a lot it's a no no). I want to be as strong as I can be going into this so that I will recover as fast as possible. So I'm riding, swimming and cross training (even running a mile here and there) as much as possible. To be honest, it's really difficult to make myself get on a trainer for 3 hours when I don't really have a goal in mind for which to justify completing such a workout but it's keeping me sane for now so I shall keep doing it unless it starts to hurt.

In summary, I am still pretty distressed over the whole situation but I'm coming to terms with it as best as I can. It just seems like I've been through this sort of thing far too many times and at some point one loses a little fight. In the past, nothing I've had required surgery so this one is a little more difficult to accept. That said, the femur fractures, the sports hernia and the ongoing troubles I've had with hip flexors were all likely indirectly caused from my hip and fixing it now will extend the life of my hips. My dad just had his hip replaced a month ago (and is getting the other one fixed this year as well). So I guess this thing runs in the family.

And on that note, I don't know what else to say except that I'm trying to be less of a downer and I hope to put some happy news in here at some point but as of right now, I've got nothin.

Labral Tear Confirmed

2009-11-12T17:57:00.004-05:00

Not a great day for me today. Seems like all I can do is cry since this news. I think that I've been trying to stay positive and pretend this thing isn't what I knew it was all along for so long now that now that I have confirmation, all the tears are finally allowed to come out. I'm sad. I'm angry. I will hopefully get some positivy back at some point but right now, I'm really pissed at my body. I wish so much that there could be one thing about it that didn't fight me every step of the way.

At least I know that I'm not crazy -- that the pain I've been experiencing is real. I guess that's the first step, confirming the reality and getting over myself. I just got this news today so the getting over myself part hasn't happened yet. The next step is a surgical plan with the hip specialist. I am fortunate to have friends in the medical community so I'm told I'm being rushed in (to a great doctor). This is good because for me because sitting around and contemplating all the bad that might come out of this (because that's the way my mind works, when bad things happen you start to expect the bad) is the worst thing I can do. I have done a significant amount of research on labral tears so I'm confident I'm informed on the consequences, risks, etc. with the surgical process. I am anxious to hear the doctor's opinion and to move forward. The less time I have to sit and stew, the better this will be...for everyone (poor Dave).

Posterior Tibial Tendonitis: For the person who left a comment asking about how I got over it

2009-11-11T12:29:00.008-05:00

I’m sure you know having struggled with it for several years that it’s a difficult injury to get over. The location of the tendon is such that it doesn’t get much of a blood supply, so healing happens slowly. Though I did several things along the way to aide in healing, here are is what, I believe, ultimately lead to me getting over it:

1. Active Release Therapy. I spent so much time in physical therapy with the tendonitis that at some point, I think I may have actually been experiencing more soft tissue pain than tendon pain. After a year of PT* I got fed up and decided to give ART a try. Within one session my ankle/shin felt 80% better and within two sessions, I was essentially cured. If you are in the Boston area, both Dr. Kelly and Dr. Steinley at Active Recovery Boston are great.

*To elaborate on the PT part of it, I have no doubt that PT did help me and addressed some muscular imbalances that were contributing to the problem, especially in the beginning when the tendon, itself, was obviously inflamed. But as the injury progressed, I believe it became less of a tendon problem and more of a soft tissue injury, I just didn’t know it as I had been in PT so long for pain that was in the same area of the body, that I had forgotten what the pain originally felt like. Looking back on it, as PT progressed, the pain moved higher up my leg in the lower shin area. There was still some pain on the inner part of the ankle but it wasn’t nearly what I had been experiencing when I was first evaluated.

2. Orthotics. I went through several different versions of (insanely expensive) orthotics until I found a pair that really worked for me. I found an amazing gait analysis/custom orthotic person. I believe it was my third pair and I am still using that pair. For anyone in the Boston area who might be interested, her name is Rebecca Arner-Brown at Boston University PT.

3. Warming up properly. I forced myself to ride the bike or hop on the elliptical for 10 minutes before I completed a stretching routine and ran. Prior to that, I had always stretched the muscles without warming up first. I know there are different thoughts on stretching, when you should/shouldn’t, etc. but I really believe being warmed up made a difference.

4. Always wear shoes. Never, ever, ever walk anywhere without wearing a pair of shoes, and preferably a pair of shoes with arch support. This is especially important when the tendon is inflamed. And by never, ever, ever I mean never, ever, ever. Still to this day, I wear Crocs in the shower, keep a pair of slip-ons next to my bed to wear when I get up in the middle of the night, etc. While I've been doing some reading up barefoot running and believe there is some validity to the new train of thought that we weren't meant to run with cushioned shoes and arch support, I also know that my arches literally touch the ground and when I walk barefoot even for a short time, I feel it. Wearing shoes all the time has worked for me and having dealt with this injury for a long time, I have no plans of changing what works.

5. Orthotics in my bike shoes. I spend a lot of time on my bike. Though you’re not stressing those tendons as much as you would be if you were running, you’re still stressing them, not to mention I’m often getting off the bike and going straight into a run. Anyhow, these things are great and relatively cheap: Superfeet

I hope that was helpful and good luck with your injury. It’s definitely a frustrating one!

Here is my hip

2009-11-10T00:44:00.004-05:00

I am not sure if I'm excited or freaked out by the fact that it looks like it's wearing a wedding band.

I had an MR Arthrogram today. For those unfamiliar with it an MR Arthrogram is a proceudure where your hip joint is injected with contrast dye before MRI images are taken of the hip. I left with a cd full of images that mean nothing to me (see betrothed hip above). Hopefully some answers on the hip pain will come tomorrow.

This has been a pretty effed up day for me. I was, still am in fact, totally freaked out by this whole procedure and I'm not exactly sure why. I have had surgery before...elective surgery where they knocked me out and the whole nine yards. I was fine with that. I mean, not fine, but I wasn't bothered by it and in comparison to that, I would say that I was about 100 times more freaked out about having pictures taken of my hip than having surgery. I've been trying to reason it in my head all night and I still haven't come to a conclusion. My current theory is that I'm more freaked out by the outcome of the procedure than the procedure itself. The fact that it's done and I'm still freaked out validates that hypothosis.

A few points before I have a diagnosis. This is all stuff that I've realized only because of this injury/downtime/whatever it might be.

1. I have a favorite MRI provider. WTF? This isn't right (btw, it's Shields. If you live in the New England are and are in need of an MRI, go to Shields).

2. I have a fovorite MRI provider for a reason. I know some of you think I'm crazy. Hell, sometimes I think I'm crazy. Injury is such a perspective thing. I have some friends who have been in the sport of triathlon for years and have never experienced a minor injury, let alone a serious one. I started athletics at the age of 28(ish) as a type 1 diabetic/undiagnosed celiac. Between that time and now (5 years) I have spent over a year in physical therapy for posterior tibial tendonitis, 1 tibial stress fracture, 2 stress fractures of the femoral shaft and 1 femoral shaft stress reaction. When stuff goes wrong I just assume the worst and not to sound like a punk but for f*ck's sake, can you blame me?

3. Can we elaborate on that 5 years in sport thing? Dave and I were chatting today about "having what it takes" in general. That's not somthing that you can teach. Having what it takes....what it takes to do whatever (be an Elite athlete, do a triathlon, lose weight, whatever it might be) takes a certain amount of "something" given your current situation. I honestly believe that something is the only thing that has gotten me to where I am today. I mean seriously, I am not an athlete. I've been a bump on the log for except for the last 1/2 decade of my life, few years of my life if you want to get technical about it. I have fallen apart at every turn. I mean seriously, who breaks their femurs? Those are some hard bones to break! And after breaking their femurs, who keeps going? Totally unbalanced people like me keep going. Oh, I broke a femur? Oh well. How long will it take for that to heal?

Priorities. I love sport. I hated my life before sport. Sport brought me Dave. Sport brought me perspective. Sport brought me positive influence. Sport brought me all the stuff I've been missing my whole life. Like I said, how long will it take for those femurs to heal?

I started thinking about my life over the last year and what it would mean if I suddennly couldn't compete like I wanted to. My husband asked me if the consequenses of this year were that I couldn't compete anymore (a very realistic possibility), if I would take this last year back. Holy crap that was a hard question. I went from having 0 medals to having more than a dozen within one season.

Priorities.

Yes. I would take it back in a heartbeat if it meant not having to worry like I have for the last few months. Take the medals, I don't care.

Pain in the butt, no hip, no butt...?

2009-11-01T00:20:00.006-04:00

Things got a little bit worse, and better, and worse again since my last post. This is most definitely the most frustrating injury I've ever had. On some days I can't walk without wincing in pain and on other days, I feel almost normal except that there's just enough pain there to let me know that something isn't right.

Everything was feeling decent when I went for the test run last week. I made it 6.5 miles (surprisingly at a respectable pace without even trying) and it didn't feel too horrid. I felt tight and a little sore in the butt, but didn't have any of that sharp pinching pain I had been previously experiencing. I woke up the next day and felt the same as I had the day before except for quite a bit of pain in the middle of my butt cheek and some occasional numbness traveling down to my calf and bottom of my foot (presumably my piriformis muscle compressing my sciatic nerve). That night, I foam rolled my butt and sat on a tennis ball for awhile - that hurt so badly it made my eyes water but before falling asleep, I felt pretty good....until I woke up the next morning.

For the next few days, it was all I could do to walk a block. Each step caused radiating pain down my leg, mostly in my groin. I was sure, now, that what I have is a labral tear and that I'd made it worse with the tennis ball. I was so sure, in fact, that I scheduled the appointment for the MR Arthrogram. And I was still sure of it this morning waking up with the same pain as the previous two days. I dragged myself to the pool in an effort to rid myself of my foul mood. The swim felt great (more on that later...I am swimming really well right now) but my leg still ached. Quickly becoming cranky again, I forced myself to do some core work and for good measure before hitting the grocery store, I decided to foam roll a little bit on my hamstring and the front of my quad. I did this for about 2 minutes, stood up and immediately noticed that the pain was gone....like COMPLETELY gone. I went shopping, walking up the stairs at Whole Foods without any pain whatsoever (which I haven't been able to do for at least 2 weeks), came home and still no pain. As I type, things have not changed...no pain aside from a strange stab in my butt here and there.

Consider me baffled, crazy or plagued...because each of those is probably true. I have no idea what's going on but I'm not giving up. On tap for next week:

Monday: 1 hour deep tissue massage with a new person I've heard amazing things about.
Wednesday: Another ART appointment
Thursday: Physical Therapy evaluation with a Manual and Manipulative Physiotherapy expert.
next Monday: MR Arthrogram to check for torn labrum.

I am still hoping that I'm able to cancel the last one on that list due to progress with the other three.

It's funny, really. I am in an awesome mood right now because I'm not in pain and that gives me hope. It's crazy this roller coaster I've been on. I'd almost rather be in pain all the time than have these ups and downs. They are hard to cope with.

Good News

2009-10-26T08:47:00.003-04:00

First, thanks for the comments. DM – I did get a massage from my therapist and it was a HUGE help. HUGE! It felt about 75% better after my last appointment and I have another scheduled for today. And HG – I did have an MRI done as a fracture was the first thing I suspected (having had 3 femoral shaft stress fractures in the past). The MRI showed everything was normal, no fractures. I have an MRA (where they inject dye directly into the hip joint and then do an MRI) scheduled for a few weeks but the good news is, I don’t think I’ll need it.

I have long suspected that something was up with my road bike fit. I noticed when I was riding the Computrainer a few months ago that I was constantly pushing myself back on the seat. By constantly I mean, like every 10 seconds or so and by shoving myself back on the seat, I mean taking my hands and forcefully pushing my ass back and trying to maintain that position (which probably explains why I always have sore shoulders). I knew this probably wasn’t right but since it wasn’t hurting me to ride I didn’t really think much of it until I started having all these hip problems so I thought I’d get it checked out.

I did some research on local fitters and decided to make an appointment with Hussam at ATA Cycle in Concord. I won’t go into details (check out the videos on the link for info, it’s pretty cool) but I was highly impressed with Hussam from the moment I stepped into the bike shop. It’s obvious he knows his stuff.

First, the body measurements. Guess what? I am an oddly shaped person. I think he called me a “challenge.” For starters, I’m short – that’s strike one, but I’m not just short, I’m all out of proportion. Here are the odd things:
1. I have the shortest torso, like, ever.
2. My arms are short but relative to my torso, they’re actually long.
3. My legs are so short I couldn’t even fit over the measuring stick thing that they jam between your crotch to measure leg length.
4. I have extremely long femurs relative to my leg length. This should make me a powerful rider (yay…something good for once).
5. My hands and feet are tiny. Like smaller than child size tiny.

Now the bike fit. Two statements from Hussam that were like music to my ears:
1. You must have an incredibly high tolerance for pain.
Why? I ask.
2. Because surely riding in this position had to hurt. You were putting all the pressure on your hips, not your legs. This most definitely would have developed into a chronic injury if you had kept riding this way. Especially when climbing, your femurs had nowhere to go so you instinctively shoved your butt back on the seat to give them room and all that extra force was being applied to your hips. I’m amazed that you were able to ride a whole season this way.

And there you have it. There is a reason for all the problems I’ve been having. Hussam has developed his own fully adjustable lab bike (again, check out the link for details). He put me on it and tweaked some stuff, starting me off with a close to optimal position. It felt different, but good. As he does this, there is a meter on the floor which reads the wattage you are producing. After warming up a bit, we played with a few things to find the right comfort/higher power output. I never realized how big of a difference a tiny adjustment can make in terms of power output. I watched my power increase more than 30 watts based on tiny little changes. After we got things tweaked and I had been riding for awhile in that position, Hussam switched me back my original position and I could instantly feel pain in my hips and lower back – I can’t believe I didn’t notice it before. In the end, we ended up raising my seat over an inch (I think it was closer to two inches). We also decided a different handlebar would suit my setup better as we should drop the bars a bit but can’t with the type of bar I have right now. But I like my bars and I’m fine with leaving them as is for now. Maybe I’ll look in to changing that before Strong Like Bull.

It’s been longer than two weeks since my last run. As of right now I am pain free and tomorrow I am going to attempt a short run. I have been near pain free for days and let me tell you, it’s been hard not attempting a run already! But I am on my Coach prescribed off season so I’m not supposed to be running anyway. That said, I have a feeling this run will go well and that I’ll be able to cancel that MRA appointment. I really hope so because even though I see needles many times on a daily basis, I can’t get used to the idea of a giant one being shoved right into my hip socket. Ouch.

Leg Woes Update

2009-10-19T14:03:00.005-04:00

The update is that I don't really have an update, I guess. My hip is still bothering me but has gotten a little bit better...I think? It hurts less when just sitting around and walking but after another week off of running, I attempted a few steps and the run was a no go. I get pain all down the front of my hip during the run (which lasted all of one block this time) and then after the fact, it hurts in my glute and the side of my hip.

I saw my ART doctor last week who is a bit stumped as well. Symptoms fall into the category of either torn labrum, sciatic nerve tension or soft tissue issues -- take your pick.

The thing that gets me is that cycling makes it feel better - especially pushing heavy watts. On Friday, I participated in a study with Kerry Litka at UNH and had V02 max and lactate threshold tests where I pushed in excess of 325 watts (350 I think?...don't quite remember). When I got off the bike, besides feeling like a rock star pushing more watts than I ever knew I could, my leg also felt great and it continued to feel great throughout the day. However, two days later I tried to run and the pain was still there though not quite the same as it was. And today I hopped on the dreaded elliptical for an hour. The elliptical also made my hip feel better. It hurts a little bit during the beginning but the higher I up the resistance and the longer I continue on with the torture device, the better I feel. I'm no doctor but this does not seem indicative of a torn labrum.

And with respect to the "I'm no doctor" part of that paragraph, I am in continued contact with my doc. about all of this. Right now we are proceeding with ART as though it's some sort of sciatic nerve issue. If it doesn't clear up after some time, we'll figure out where to go from there. In the mean time, I'm allowed to cross train but not run. Flip turns seem to hurt as well so I've stopped doing those (blessing in disguise).

If there's one thing that is for certain, it's that I really SUCK at being injured. Add in 30 degree weather in the 2nd week of October and, well, I become pretty miserable. I had a complete breakdown in the grocery store parking lot yesterday. It was cold and snowing, my hip was bothering me and my Renaud's acted up worse than it ever has. My fingers were so white and painful that I couldn't even bend them. The store was busy and parking spots were scarce so some guy was parked behind me with his blinker on waiting for me to leave. My hands were literally as useless as stumps so I cranked up the heat as high as it could go and was waiting for my them to regain some life before I attempted to drive off but it just wasn't happening. The guy waiting for the spot started honking his horn and eventually drove off, flipping me off as he passed. I lost it completely and started bawling right there in the parking lot. I guess you could call that my low point of the season.

Times like this make me realize how important triathlon is to me. I can deal with diabetes, celiac, Renaud's...all that stuff as long as I have my "something" to look forward to. That something, for me, is triathlon. I get asked a lot where I find my motivation to do some of the things I do and the answer is usually something along the lines of proving that I CAN do difficult things even with all these setbacks. My health issues fuel my triathlon and triathlon fuels my desire to not give up due to my issues. As it is for any injured athlete, it's really hard for me when something I can't control stops me from making progress doing the thing I love to do but for me it goes beyond just not being able to do the sport. Triathlon helps me stay positive about almost every aspect of my life.

I'm not really sure what my point is to this entire post, I'm pretty much just rambling. Maybe I just wanted to get all that out. Everything I've shared on this blog this year has been all sunshine and roses. Right now it's not sunshine and roses. That said, now that I got my yearly cry out I'm trying to be more positive about it because it's all I can do.

You know what's frustrating?

2009-10-09T14:20:00.012-04:00

Surviving my first season EVER without injury followed by getting injured during off season.

I ran the 5k I talked about in my last post and then a 15 mile run shortly after and all was well and good. A few days later I went to run and called it quits after a mile because of some pain in my right leg/hip flexor area. It wasn't drastic but it was enough to make me back off - and if you know me, you know it takes a lot to make me back off (perhaps a bit less after having four stress fractures).

I decided to take several days off since we had the wedding reception looming and I just didn't need the extra worry. There was quite a bit of pain dancing at my reception but I tried to push that out of my head. I woke up the next day and after much fretting, scheduled the MRI as I suspected a femoral neck stress fracture.

MRI results revealed no fracture. That might be one of the happiest moments of my life as I was sure of the fracture. So, in typical PJ fashion, I went for a run that night of five miles. Five torturous, painful miles. Happy turned to frown pretty quickly after that.

We are still not really sure about what's going on in this stupid hip so for now, the rule is don't do anything that hurts and hope it gets better on its own. If it doesn't, the next step is ruling out a torn labrum.

If you read my blog, please send "it's only a muscle pull that is mimicking torn labrum symptoms" vibes my way. I would very much appreciate it.

And, so as not to be all doom and gloom, here is the good stuff from the reception:

The best wedding cake ever that Dave's mother made (she is so talented):

Dave feeding me nicely:

Me feeding Dave less nicely:

Dave expressing his feelings about me feeding him less nicely:

The best man's speech which included a tribute to Team Type 1 (IE, the best, best man's speech ever):

How to look like you’ve swallowed a cow

2009-09-28T10:20:00.003-04:00

Answer: Win a 5k and have them post what might be the worst picture of you, ever, on the internet for all to see.

While my first thought was to write the CoolRunning people and beg them to take the picture down, my second thought was “Holy crap I won a (very small/local) race and they took my picture!” That’s kind of cool so I am willing to suck it up and share (well at least post the link, you actually have to click on it to see the cow in my body).

Truth be told, I almost didn’t run the race as I had biked 50 miles the day before and woke up to pouring rain in the morning, but Dave was going to support his former Team in Training coaches, who help put this race on to commemorate the memory of Cynthia Lucero, a woman who died of hyponatremia while running the Boston Marathon in 2002, so I wanted to show my support for Dave and all he does for the Team in Training program (he’s a mentor and really puts a lot of time and energy into helping out). I had no idea that I’d actually find some legs once I started running! And it’s no secret that I fare better at hilly courses and the course profile for this race looks something like this:

It’s a really cool course – you should all run it next year!

Note: Dave is 100% convinced that I won because this was my first race registered with the shiny new last name. I think his last comment before bed last night was. You are 1 for 1. Now you have to keep winning!

No pressure…..:)

I finally broke the 2nd place curse!

2009-09-21T11:21:00.002-04:00

After being scolded over and over again by coach John for “training” during my off season, I decided that it wasn’t time for my off season yet and pleaded to move said off season to November (John says a month of “nothing” is mandatory and what John says goes). It’s just too nice out and I’ve missed fall running several years in a row due to injury so I just wanted to enjoy myself for once while it’s still nice out. John was okay with this (thanks, Coach) as long as I promised him no trainign in November. Fine with me! I am not following a training plan but running, biking and swimming (not really swimming) when I feel like it. And as such, I felt like racing on Sunday, so I did. Turns out that was a GREAT decision!

I’ve heard great things about Max Performance races and have always wanted to do one but they’ve never fit into my schedule. The Buzzard’s Bay sprint tri in Dartmouth was my perfect opportunity to see what all the fuss was about. I definitely wasn’t disappointed – Tim Richmond puts on a great race! From the course to the volunteers to the awards ceremony, this race was top notch. And to make it even better, the weather was PERFECT. It was a beautiful day to be out racing.

Dave and I woke up early as we had a 1.5 hour drive to the race site. We arrived at 7:30 and picked up my race packet. A quick check of my blood sugar read 135 and I headed out for a warm up run of about 2 miles. My legs felt great – that was a good sign. I headed back to transition to catch the quick athletes meeting and checked my blood sugar again – 120. We were about to leave transition to head to the swim start (the swim was point-to-point) so I had to make a decision about insulin/food. While normally I take a shot of 2-3 units of fast acting insulin in T1, I decided to try something different. Instead I ate one Gu and took a shot of 2 units of Humalog before the swim. The Gu would raise my sugar enough that I wouldn’t go too low and the Humalog would start working right about when the sugar spike I always get due to adrenaline on the swim occurred. This method had the added benefit of not having to take up time taking a shot during T1.

All women were in the 2nd wave and we headed down to the swim start. I was a little nervous about my insulin plan but had some Gu stuffed in my wetsuit leg in case I went low – I just hoped we started on time so my plan would work. The first group of males went off and then it was our turn. It was an in water start so we swam out to the starting line and treaded water (treading water is so easy in the ocean). Pretty soon we were off. I had a decent swim - not great but okay considering I hadn’t been swimming at all in the prior weeks. I took it wide right this time as the last sprint I did with such a large wave of girls got me clobbered several times and I wanted to avoid the traffic. Though it added some time to the swim I feel it was a smart decision as I left the water feeling comfortable and relaxed.

Swim time (1/3 mile): 10.02

Transition was quick and easy and I headed onto the bike course. I passed at least 20 women within the first 5 miles and then I was mostly by myself for what seemed like an eternity (which felt weird as they had announced that there were 600 people signed up to race…where were they all?). My bike computer wasn’t working and I wasn’t wearing a heart rate monitor so my only option was to pace by feel. I’m still not great at this on the bike and having nobody around to judge progress was difficult. However, there was a wave of men behind me and it wasn’t until mile 12 that I heard a disc wheel behind me so I knew I was doing okay and the fact that I was only passed by two disc wheel riding fast dudes the whole time was another good sign. The course had a few long, gradual climbs and a roller here and there but by New England standards, it was pretty flat. Before I knew it I was back into transition and dismounting.

Bike time (14.7 miles): 44:41

T2 was also uneventful and I headed onto the run course. As I exited T2 the volunteers were yelling at me that I was in 6th place (I passed 19 women on the bike) which made me happy but when I saw Dave, I got the real split, that I was in 7th and the next two runners were right up the road. My legs felt like absolute crap but knowing that two spots were in passing distance lit a fire under my butt and I picked it up as much as I could. The course was a little hillier than I was expecting and my speed was slower than I’d hoped but I was still managing a decent pace. I passed the first girl within the first half mile. As I neared the mile 1 marker, I still hadn’t seen any women going the other direction yet (it was an out and back course) which was a good sign. I saw another woman ahead of me and I was slowly gaining on her. Right after the mile mark, I saw Kim Shattuck speed by the other direction and then shortly thereafter, the 2nd, 3rd and 4th place women. They were far enough ahead of me that I knew I probably couldn’t catch any of them but 5th was still in site and I passed her right before the turnaround. As I passed I noticed a “31” on her leg which while it made me happy, had me running scared for the rest of the race as I knew I had to keep her behind me to secure my Age Group placing. My legs felt heavy and tired and I found myself closing my eyes and imagining I was anywhere else to shut out the pain. I also had to pee really bad which didn’t help things much. It is hard to concentrate on running when your bladder hurts. Soon enough we made the final turn towards the finish which was mostly down hill. My feet were slapping the pavement pretty hard and I only hoped they could deal with the pounding for a few more moments. I turned around and could see the woman I had passed at mile 1.5 so I put the gas pedal down and sprinted to the finish to be safe.

Run time (3.1 miles): 22:30

Right after the finish chute, the woman I had passed on the run congratulated me on a great run and I thanked her for keeping me moving. A few spectators came up and commented that I had run a great race which was really cool. I wasn’t sure of my AG placing yet but it turns out I won my age group! I was elated after having several 2nd place finishes this year, I felt I would never win! But even better was that this was that I felt that I raced smarter than I have in the past, using my competitors to help with my pace. And my blood sugar was 160 at the finish so my insulin strategy worked out perfectly.

Thanks, again, to the Max Performance organization for a great race. I really hope more of these races fit in my schedule next year!

On being lucky

2009-09-18T12:57:00.000-04:00

A recent conversation with my coach has me reflecting on the past year and anticipating the insanity that will be the coming year and all thoughts keep coming back to the same place: I am so freaking lucky. Right now, while I’m not training like a mad woman, the weather is nice, I’ve had a great season and having just gotten married, it’s pretty obvious how fortunate I am. I wish I could bottle this feeling up and preserve it so when things aren’t going so well, I can remind myself of it because truth be told, even when I’ve had my low points, I am still a lucky girl.

To elaborate on that, I was thinking about Ironman training. I will have more personal responsibilities and more of my spare time filled this year so to add the training to it is going to be difficult. I found myself remembering the first year of Ironman training and how many times I dragged myself to the start of a workout with an “Ugh, I don’t want to do this! I am so tired!” You know what? I don’t want to feel that way this year or better said, if I feel that way, I want to shove those feelings aside because in reality, I must REALLY want to do this because Ironman is a choice. Nobody is forcing me to do it. That is something worth remembering.

Add those two paragraphs together and you get “PJ is lucky to have the ability to do an Ironman.” That is about the truest statement there is. How many people in the world can do something like this? I do have the time, the energy, the desire, the wellbeing, the support of my friends & family and the funds to be able to do such a thing. That is pretty freaking cool and I don’t want to take it for granted. How many other people can say that?

So, in honor of that, I am making a promise to not complain about training (even swimming) no matter how hard it might get this year because training and racing are privileges. Special thanks to my coach for planting some of those thoughts in my head – I think they will serve me well this year.

Ironman Wisconsin 2010

2009-09-15T11:01:00.002-04:00

You may have hurt me a little bit in 2008, Moo, enough that I needed a break from you, but that break has made me stronger and smarter and I will be ready for you in 2010. To be honest, I considered cheating on you with a few different, less difficult, Ironmans but there is something about you that I couldn't walk away from. Maybe it's the fact that you live in my home state. Maybe it's because you always fall on the football season opener day (and being done in time to watch my Packers play Sunday night football in Wisconsin is a huge motivator). Maybe it's the hills you throw at my bike legs over and over again. Or perhaps it's the Helix which still owns my highest registered heart rate ever, I don't know, but I am coming back and I can't wait.

I am officially registered. Here's to another year of insanity!

Weddings and Triathlon Teams

2009-09-06T10:11:00.005-04:00

On August 29, 2009, I officially became Patricia Brownell. Kind of. I haven’t taken the steps to officially change my name (I’m procrastinating just like I do with everything else) but one of these days I’ll take that leap.

Some wedding thoughts/details:

1) Everything came together splendidly and Dave did a great job planning this thing (I did some, but he did most of it), which, considering the fact that we hadn’t seen the location, met any of the vendors or hadn’t even gotten our marriage license until the day before the wedding, was a miracle. The food was great, the desserts were great, the rehearsal dinner was great, the flowers were great. It was all perfect except for

2) The weather. It was cold. Like a high of 52 and no sun cold. This is fine and dandy when you’re wearing a suit coat, but when you’re dressed like it’s supposed to be 90 like myself and my bridesmaids were, it is a bit uncomfortable. Lucky for us, it didn’t rain during the ceremony though it was threatening. We found out later that night that some couples who had gotten married nearby a few hours earlier hadn’t been so lucky. So it could have been worse. We stayed in Wisconsin a few days after the wedding and, of course, it was in the mid 70’s, sunny and perfect.

3) The ceremony. It was short and sweet, just as we wanted. It was also a sob fest. Dave was crying, the parents were crying, the bridesmaids were crying. I started to cry but instead, squeezed Dave’s hands really tight instead which made us both stop crying. And then it was over.

4) The company. I have the best family and friends on the planet. That is not an exaggeration. I was so touched that my friends cared enough about Dave and I to travel across the country to be with us on our special day that it still brings tears to my eyes when I think about it. They made a magical day even more perfect. We are very fortunate to have such great people in our lives.

5) Honeymoon and stuff, because everyone asks this too. We are not doing one until next year due to lack of vacation time for Dave. Next year we plan on doing Ironman St. Croix 70.3 in May and taking the week after that for a honeymoon. That is the plan, at least. We’ll see if it actually happens. And yes, it was hard to go back to work two days after getting married. But it is what it is and it gives us something to look forward to next year.

In other exciting news, after speaking with Matt Vogel, Team Type 1’s triathlon team captain, it looks like I will be racing with Team Type 1 next season. I’ve been a huge fan of the team for quite some time now. They are doing amazing things for the diabetic community and I’m honored to be given the opportunity to be a part of that. I can’t wait for next year to start!

To learn more about Team Type 1, click here.

Timberman 70.3 Race Report

2009-08-24T16:37:00.005-04:00

I usually give myself a few days to digest the experience before I write a race report, but so much happened yesterday that I want to get it out of my head while it’s still fresh. So forgive me if this is rambling but I’m lacking sleep and may still be a bit delirious.

My alarm went off at 3:30 am. COFFEE TIME! While normally I would be upset about having to awake at such an hour, Sunday was different as I knew caffeine would be waiting. Coach John had me on a coffee taper the prior week and after four completely caffeineless days, thoughts of coffee were consuming my brain. I almost set the alarm for 2:30 just to get that cup early. So after said best cup of coffee ever and the usual morning rituals, Dave and I arrived at the race site at 4:45 am (parking at Timberman is scarce so one must get there early to secure a spot). It was already quite sticky out. I knew we were in for a tough day.

I set up my transition area, took the bike for a spin to make sure everything was functioning and hung out with CREW members Grant and David for a bit. My blood sugar was a little low but for the most part, right where I wanted it to be. As 7:00 approached, the race officials announced that there had been a car accident along the bike route and that the race would be starting late but there was no ETA as that depended on officials getting the “all clear” from the police. As my blood sugar plan was based around a 7:00 start time, this was frustrating as my blood sugar began to slowly creep up. I dealt with it as best as I could and around 7:45, they announced the race would start. Transition never actually closed and we all casually wandered over to the water (note: “we all” included everyone but me).

My wave was scheduled to start 26 minutes after the first wave. As I was waiting in line at the porta potty, I noticed that there were people swimming already. There was no gun shot and no official message announcing the race start. At that point, I decided to forego the porta potty line and head over to the start. As Dave was zipping up my wetsuit, I noticed all the pink caps (my wave) were in the water and I sprinted to the start, weaving through the crowd as best as I could. Just as I entered the water, my wave started. A heart rate of 160 is not a good way to start a 70.3 race!

This was probably the worst swim I can ever remember having despite decent conditions. Perhaps it was the less than optimal start but the moment I sprinted into the water, everything fell apart. I was out of breath, I was pummeled, I was dodging slower swimmers, I was kicked by people doing the breast stroke, I was unable to bi-lateral breathe as I couldn’t get enough breath when I did, I swam off course and as I got close to the last buoy, I was swum over by some of the males in the wave behind me. To add insult to injury, I was terribly disheartened by the whole experience and was fretting about my blood sugar as I hadn’t had time to deal with it properly because of the messed up race start. I considered grabbing a boat and DNFing. I considered DNFing after the swim. I wondered over and over again why I bothered with triathlon when I hate swimming so much and am terrible at it. I quit triathlon at least 100 times during that 42 minute swim. But at some point I got myself together, told myself to HTFU and get over it. But to be perfectly honest, I am still very disappointed with myself about the swim. There was nothing good about it and I’ve never been so happy to see the shore in my life.

Swim: 42.06.

I normally don’t test my blood sugar in T1 but made an exception as I felt it was necessary but it definitely slowed me down in transition. I was 160 and happy to see that number as it was a perfect place to start the bike. I took a bolus of 4 units of Humalog (short acting insulin) which is what I had planned prior to the race and I was off.

My legs felt good on the bike even after the first 15 miles, which as anyone who has ever done Timberman knows, are some very hilly miles. I passed a lot of people and only on rare occasions did I hear the disc wheel of a speedy guy coming up behind me. My plan to take the 4 units of Humalog worked out well as I was needing to eat often to keep my blood sugar levels up. This was what I was hoping to accomplish as in my last few 70.3 races, I haven’t been able to eat enough due to higher blood sugars. At some point I lost my salt tablets, which was unfortunate because it was quite hot out – the kind of hot where you need salt tablets to survive. Then I missed the first two bottle drops due to poor planning and bike traffic and ran out of water/Gatorade until the 3rd bottle drop (at mile 26). These were both stupid mistakes that would come back to haunt me. But when things like that happen, all you can do is try not to dwell on them and make the best out of the situation. That’s just what I did and for the most part, I did just what I had wanted to do on the bike, which was to not go all out, keep my heart rate at a reasonable level and leave room to kill the run.

Bike: 2:50:11, 19.7 mph

Into transition, I tested my blood sugar again. I was at 111 which is right where I like to be to start the run. I loaded up with Gu, threw on my visor and shoes and headed off, ready to race. The run was where I was planning on doing my damage.

Unfortunately, my legs had a different plan. Wow did they hurt. My left quad was so tight that I had to stop after a mile to stretch it, which only helped slightly. I felt like at any moment, my whole body would seize up and cramp if I moved the wrong way so I ran gingerly to avoid this and stopped at every aid station to take in as much Gatorade and water as I could. At the first loop turn around, I heard the words “salt tablets” and it was like music to my ears. I am a heavy sweater. After every race, I am generally coated in white. I knew I was in need of electrolytes so I grabbed a handful and forced them down and after a mile or so, my body thanked me as I loosened up a bit. But at mile five as the road declined, my worst nightmare occurred – I felt a sting in my leg, as if someone threw a rock at my quad and immediately, thoughts of stress fracture entered my head. Having had three femoral stress fractures in the past, I live in constant worry of re-fracture. I was certain that at that very moment, a crack was forming in my bone and I stopped dead in my tracks and began to reason the situation, out loud. What a nut ball I must have looked like standing there, talking to myself on a race course. Should I quit? I am getting married in a week. What if I break my leg and can’t walk down the aisle? Is finishing a race really worth that? But what if I quit and it’s not fractured – I will be so mad at myself! At some point during this thought process, I had started running again and decided that another 9 miles wasn’t going to break my leg. If it got worse, I would just walk it. And it did get worse, but of course I didn’t walk (except for the water stops). I’m not programmed to walk during a race.

The middle seven miles are a bit of a blur. All I remember is a lot of hurt, a lot of hot and a lot of wanting to be done. Around the mile ten mark, I caught up to Dave who was on his first lap. It was good timing because I was losing motivation and seeing him inspired me to run faster. After that, my hands started to get tingly and waves of black were passing in front of my eyes. I ran past the last water stop without stopping because I could feel that my legs would seize if I were to stop. Somewhere during those last few miles, I think Andy Potts was there cheering and told me I looked good. That may have been a hallucination but even so, it was also inspiring. The last mile was by far my fastest and by the time I hit the finishing chute, I was literally seeing stars and was certain I would keel over at any moment. Fortunately for me, I didn’t as Chrissie Wellington was there to congratulate all the finishers. She put a finishers medal around my neck and gave me a hug, which was by far one of the coolest things ever. What a down-to-earth, cool person she is. I still can’t get over that.

Run time: 1:58:50 9:05 min/mile pace.

This was by far, the most difficult conditions I’ve raced (this far) in. And while the swim situation left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, I am satisfied with the result because I stuck it out when all I wanted to do was quit and circumstances even justified quitting.

After the race, I waited around to see if I was in the position to get a Clearwater slot. There were three designated for my age group and the first two went pretty quickly but after calling a few names, Claire Jordan asked if anyone was there who wanted to claim the third spot and I was the only person who raised my hand. As I stood up to claim it, a woman from the back ran up and snatched it at the last minute. At the time I was disappointed, but in retrospect, it’s probably for the best as I’m not sure what’s going on with my leg yet. I’m pretty sure I tore something in the muscle as it hurts to lift the leg, hurts to touch and impact doesn’t bother it today, but it’s most definitely a sign that a break is due. This has been a good season for me. I have had some substantial breakthroughs both athletically and with my blood sugar management. This race was a good way to end the season. It’s time to live a little, take some time off to allow my body to heal and then start to plan next year’s season. I’m hoping for more breakthroughs in the coming year!

I had a good seat for the awards ceremony and snapped some good pictures (below) of Andy Potts (who set a new course record in 3:51:xx…what???) and Chrissie Wellington, both class act athletes and great representatives of our sport. Enjoy.

Weddings, triathlon training and poison ivy don’t play well together

2009-08-16T11:15:00.000-04:00

It’s been a crazy whirlwind of a few weeks. After I posted about the last race, I went right into a heavy phase of training – some of the toughest stuff yet. Feeling more fit than ever, I was encouraged and stoked to rock it. Then I went pee in the woods during my run Monday morning. PSA: When you pee in the woods, watch where you drop your drawers and hover your bum.

Whatever entity decided which plants would exist on this planet must have been in a really foul mood when it came up with poison ivy.

Need I say more? No? Well I will.

Not shortly after my piss in the woods, it got hot. Like 90 degrees and humid hot. Let me tell you what isn’t fun when you have a poison ivy rash on your ass: everything. But what REALLY isn’t fun is riding a bike for at race pace in ninety degree humidity, sporting a giant itchy rash where the sun don’t shine. And not only where the sun don’t shine but where it does shine (shoulders, arms, neck), leading to sunburn since I can’t put any sunscreen on said itchy rash. Nor can I use butt lube as it irritates the rash. If you’ve ever ridden a bike for more than fifty miles, you know that riding without lube is unpleasant. Combine that with the rash, throw in some prescribed high heart rates/watts, stick the sun in my face, take away any and all breeze and watch PJ turn into a cranky mess. And this was only week one.

Then I stopped sleeping for whatever reason. Perhaps it’s the fact that I’m just a wee bit stressed out from trying to plan a wedding that is to take place a week after a half ironman, in a location several thousand miles to the West. Perhaps it’s my full time job which happens to be hopping right now (when you work in IT, everyone else’s not-so-busy season is your busy season). Really, I don’t care what the reason was but the lack of sleep really threw me over the edge. Poor Dave has been a gem putting up with me these last few weeks.

That said, yesterday was my last hard workout which happened to be on the Timberman course, in 90+ degree temps with humidity again. It was fitting that the last workout be a tough one, no? This means after a long OWS today, I am officially in taper mode. I have survived the training, poison ivy and all.

And in two weeks, I will be married. I may not have any hair left, I may sport some scales on my shoulders from leftover evil plant rash (combined with my unique tan lines, this will look great in pictures, I’m sure) and I may hibernate instead of relaxing on a honeymoon but one thing is for sure, not much will feel stressful after this last few weeks.

There is no way I’m first female but it’s okay with me if you want to keep thinking I am

2009-08-03T14:35:00.005-04:00

I signed up for the Witch City sprint on Sunday, hoping to get one last confidence boost before Timberman in less than a month and boy did I ever get one! I left with more hardware and more feel good moments than I’ve ever experienced in a race. I’m still glowing a bit from it today.

I had a late night Saturday having to work and then not getting much or any sleep, really. The tri started at 7:00 a.m. in Salem (an hour away) so I was up at 4:00 a.m. After the usual pre-race routine, I packed the car and was off.

After registering, I set up my transition area and headed out for a quick warm-up run. The second my feet hit the pavement, I knew I was in for a good race. My legs felt great and the weather was near perfect except for a little humidity. After double checking my transition area, I threw on my wetsuit and headed towards the swim. A final check of my blood sugar came in at 118. I was planning on taking a quick bolus of 2 units before leaving transition as I generally get a bit of a spike from the fast start in the water but I wasn’t feeling nervous today and my gut told me not to. So I didn’t.

I was in the 4th and final wave, behind 2 male waves and one female wave. I used this time to get in a quick swim warmup. My long-sleeve wetsuit is currently in the shop for repairs so I was wearing my long john and boy did I miss the arms – that ocean water was cooold! But I was feeling good and for once in my life, feeling confident about the swim.

Pretty soon, my wave was off. I lined up wide right and quickly found myself catching those who had lined up closer to the buoys. I was looking for some feet to hang onto but I just couldn’t find any. The lead swimmers were already gone and those that were around me were swimming too slow so I found myself alone which was fine because it was only a ½ mile and I was swimming well. It helped that the buoys were on the right and I can site much better to the right. For some reason, every other race I’ve done this year, it’s been the opposite – buoys on the left. I caught the slower swimmers from the wave in front of me after a few minutes and shortly after, the slower swimmers from 2 waves previous – more confirmation that my swim was going well. Before I knew it, we were approaching shore and I was out of the water. My goal for the swim was under 15 minutes so imagine how happy I was when I saw a number under 12:00 on my watch (11:40). In my excitement, I manage to miss the timing mat for the second race in a row and had to go back to run over it. Ugh.

Transition was okay except that some of the women around me had thrown their pre-race crap (bags, clothes, you name it) all over the place and I had a hard time making it out of transition with my bike.

Once I was out and on the bike, I was feeling pretty good. The course, however, was kind of crappy. It hadn’t been swept and there were a few corners that were pretty sketchy. Couple that with a short three loops, squirrely newbies riding three abreast and several technical turns, well, it was just hard to pick up speed when I wanted to. At one point, I was stuck behind a car whose driver decided he was going to try to pass people (it wasn’t a closed course) but then thought better of it and instead, drove behind everyone, half in the right lane and half in the left. He was going 15 mph at his fastest and the only way to get around him would have been to swerve into oncoming traffic. Myself and two other men were stuck behind him for a good mile before we all looked at each other in frustration and formed a line to pass him. Shortly after passing, I finished the third loop and dismounted. Bike time was 37:50 for 13 miles (20.7 mph).

T2 was fast. I knew that my blood sugar was high (I should have taken that insulin after all) but I tried to push that thought out of my head. It would definitely affect my run but I could deal with it for three miles. I racked my bike, threw on my shoes and I was off running.

As I left T2, I heard a few people say “there’s the first woman!” followed by a lot of clapping and cheering. I looked around and noticed that I was the only woman in sight. They’re not talking about me, are they? I had passed a boat load of girls (and guys) on the bike but surely I couldn’t be the first woman – there was an entire wave of girls that started three minutes ahead of me! But I looked around and they were most definitely clapping for me. I knew, logically, that I most likely wasn’t in first but I must say that having people think you’re in first is good motivation. A few minutes later, we turned a corner and were directed by a volunteer up onto a sidewalk, where several spectators were out cheering. One woman pointed at me as I ran by and said “Wow, look at her. That girl is amazing!”

I am not exaggerating when I say that I almost started crying. Here I am running a race an hour from my home that I'd driven to myself after having not slept at all, my blood sugar is wicked high, my legs are hurting and I feel like I’m about ready to blow up at any moment and a person I’ve never met before called me amazing. Isn't it great how one sentence spoken by an absolute stranger can do so much for a person? I am almost winning a race. This, right now, is what you’ve worked for. This feeling. Keep going. Do not slow down. Thank you, lady, for calling me amazing. You have made my day.

The run course is an out and back so you’re able to see exactly how far back you are from the people in front of you. Mile one had come and gone and so far I’d seen only a few men going the other direction, no women. As I approached the turn around, I saw that there were about five women in front of me. I didn’t know which wave they were in so I kept running like I was in first place. After the turn-around, I noticed a few women were hot on my heels and I used that as motivation for the last mile. DO NOT GET PASSED. RUN EVIL. I was passing a lot of men at this point and most of them cheered me on as I passed, which is new to me and again, a huge motivator. I was breathing like an asthmatic at this point but was determined to give it all I had and I did – right up to the finish. It hurt but felt oh so good at the same time. Run time = 20.11 (6.43/mile).

My result was good for a 2nd in AG award (I missed 1st by 40 seconds) and a huge smile. I was 4th on the swim, 1st on the bike and 1st on the run but proud, most, of that swim. I am finally doing well enough in the water to contend and I have a feeling that will continue to get better. After two years of working my butt off and still sucking on the swim, this is a welcome improvement!

After the race, I tested my blood sugar – it was high as I’d suspected (293). Note to self: Execute your plan and take the shot next time - who knows what I would have run if I had (40 seconds faster and 1st place?)!

To top the day off, one of my Triabetes teammates, Jennifer, introduced herself to me and we had a great chat. You know how triathletes love to talk triathlon? Well diabetic triathletes love to talk diabetes AND triathlon so it was fun to re-hash war stories with a fellow triabetic after the race.

And there you have it, my last race report before Timberman 70.3. Oh yeah, and then the wedding. Holy crap this summer is flying by!

Bike rides, cat-ducks and iPods

2009-07-27T15:01:00.008-04:00

Honestly, where does the time go? An entire weekend has passed and I don’t have much to show for it. I can’t believe summer is half over already. Nuts.

How, excactly, did I lose a weekend you ask? Well, I woke up Saturday, watched the Tour (freaking awesome this year, btw) and packed up the car to get ready for a ride with Claire Badass Mofo. I’ll admit, I’m a loner when it comes to training. I like to ride/run at my own pace but damn, it gets boring. I’ve spent too many weekends on the roads by myself so when the opportunity came to ride with my stalkee, I was all over it. Turns out, Claire doesn’t suck at all to hang out with and as I suspected, she can really push the pace on the bike so the 80ish miles we rode flew by. Thanks, Claire!

I woke up Sunday feeling great and was stoked to hit the roads again. I hopped in the car and headed to Sharon for an open water swim. It was windy, threatening to rain and there wasn’t a soul at the beach, except for this little guy who followed me around quacking for about 10 minutes. He reminded me so much of my needy cat, I would not have been shocked if it meowed.

I love my BlueSeventy Helix wetsuit but the downside to it is that it zips from the top down – not a task one can complete by themselves. I sat around for a good 10 minutes with cat-duck until some kind soul finally came along and zipped me up.

The swim was horribly choppy and I was miserable the whole time – what else is new. But I got it done, said goodbye to cat-duck who waited around for me to finish and headed to Dover to ride some more. It was a tough ride. My legs were a bit cooked given a heavy week but I was still able to maintain a pretty decent pace. Around mile 40, I flew by some girls on Treks wearing numbers on their backs – obviously part of a race (later I would see men with flags trying to get me to turn a certain direction thinking I was part of said race….never really figured out what it was). The girls joked that I was making them look bad and all I could muster was a “yeah.” I realized later that I probably sounded like I was agreeing with them (not at all what I intended) and therefore, probably seemed like a bit of a bitch. Sorry, ladies. You looked great whoever you were!

The last 30 miles were pretty much awful. Hilly and awful. Again, the promise of music on the run kept me pedaling. 70 miles done, finally off the bike and onto the run and I felt like crap. My legs were dead and it was humid as hell - I was soaked before I even started running. And then my newly purchased 5-day-old-had-to-buy-because-the-1-year-old-version-died-the-week-prior, iPod stopped working 5 minutes into the run. What’s more frustrating than running with useless ear buds that keep falling out of your ears because you’re sweating waterfalls? Plenty of things, yes, but at that point & time, nothing. Except maybe the fly that kept buzzing around my head and landing on my arm because I was running so slow that I made the perfect target & I was lacking the ability to swat at that point. Or perhaps the water bottle that I had stuffed in the back of my shorts that was sloshing around. Or maybe the gels that were stuffed in my bra top, cutting my boobs up (oh the joy of being diabetic and transporting food). In what felt like an eternity with these annoyances slapping me in the face but in reality was only 45 minutes and 5.5 frustrating miles later, I was done.

And with that I submit that sometimes training just sucks and sometimes it doesn’t. Kind of like iPods.

Sorry, hair, but I have to swim

2009-07-23T09:00:00.001-04:00

If you’ve read my blog for any amount of time, you know that swimming motivation doesn’t come easy for me. Setting aside the positive attitude coach has instructed to me to have (actually, he just says no whining…and I think that might just be for his own benefit as I tend to complain when he gives me long swims) and being honest about it, I would rather run the marathon portion of Ironman with stress fractures than swim a regular training session in a pool. I can count on one hand the amount of swims I’ve actually enjoyed, open water or pool. I hate it that much. And please don’t ask me why I keep going with this triathlon thing when I hate swimming this much – I’ve asked myself that many times and I still don’t have a good answer.

That said, I manage to keep getting in the pool as coach prescribes on my training plan. Here’s my latest trick: Sabotaging my hair. I swim in the mornings and sometimes at lunch. The days that I swim on my lunch break are tough because I procrastinate and thoughts of bagging the workout are often present. So lately, on those days, I’ve been purposely making myself look hideous in the AM because I know that the sooner I get in the pool, the sooner I can wash the ugly hair away and start over.

Hey…whatever works, right?

There's a good run and then there's an unforgettable one

2009-07-19T23:04:00.006-04:00

I don’t think I’ve ever looked forward to a weekend of training like I have this one. Short of a few swims, this week gave way to mostly recovery. By Wednesday I was feeling pretty decent so by the time Saturday rolled around, I was anxious to get back in the game.

Fast forward to Saturday when temps reached 90+ degrees with oppressive humidity: it turns out that one needs to drink much more water when it’s hot out than when it’s raining and in the sixties like it’s been in New England for the last, well, eternity. PSA: four bottles of fluid for an 80 mile ride isn’t quite enough. Let’s just say my enthusiasm for training dissipated along with my last drop of water around mile 60.

Because of Saturday’s hydration mishap, some leg lethargy and a late start, I was a bit apprehensive to get out the door for my long run on Sunday. As it turns out, I was feeling pretty good out there and then a pretty awesome thing that happened around the half-way point cemented it as one of the best runs all season.

Mile eight of my usual route kind of sucks. The road is canted in a way that doesn’t favor my bum IT band, it’s a false flat, there is a lot of traffic and more often than not, I feel like I have to pee my pants around that point – and there’s no bathroom in sight. All of these things were there today but I was feeling more optimistic than usual. I only point that out because the following likely wouldn't have occured if said-optimism were not present.

I noticed an overweight man a few hundred yards up, speed walking. He was wearing a Livestrong t-shirt and it was obvious that he was having a hard time keeping a fast walk (temps were in the mid-eighties – not exactly comfortable). But man, he just looked like he was trying so hard. All I could think of was how much I just wanted to give him a pat on the back or slap his hand but I didn't want to seem patronizing so I didn't. Not five seconds later as I passed him, he held his hand up to give me a high five and said “Go get em, speedy.” Did he hear me? Was I thinking aloud?

I slapped his hand and told him he rocked. It was one of those moments I’ll never forget. I wonder if he felt the same way?

Rhode Island 70.3 Race Report

2009-07-13T10:57:00.014-04:00

The short report: PR by over 45 minutes with a total time of 5:23.50!

Long report:

Pre-race: Pretty uneventful. I was a little worried about signing up for this race because it was pretty brutal the year before with the point-to-point nature of the course and the logistics involved with that. Long lines, mandatory bike check-in in Narraganssett and early buses to the start line. There was none of that this year which was refreshing.

Race morning, I awoke at 3:30 to look out the window and see rain and flags flapping wildly in the breeze. It had been beautiful the day before so I was a bit disheartened as I was looking forward to good conditions. The rain did eventually stop before the race started but the breeze did not. Race directors delayed the start in hopes that the water conditions would improve but no such luck and we were given the opportunity to opt out and complete a duathlon because of the poor conditions. I have to admit, I was a little tempted but knew I could never live with myself if I had. That said, you can see how excited I was to enter an angry sea:

Swim conditions (picture doesn't really do it justice):

Swim time: 38:57

My wave was called and a little more than 100 of us lined up on the shore, watching the waves pound into the shore and watching the men in white caps go off in front of us. After about a minute, one of those white caps made it to the first buoy, then turned around and headed right back into shore....race over in 2 minutes. Let me tell you how encouraging that was!

The canon sounded before I knew it and we were off. I am not even joking when I say that I was laughing for about 10 minutes. I was pretty much just bobbing around and trying to see any buoy. Every time I would site I would get a face full of water and any time I was actually able to see a buoy, I was either so far to the left or so far to the right of it, I wasn't quite sure where I was. I was breathing to the right for the most part and at some point I realized that it was much easier to not eat salt by breathing to the left and that change sped me up quite a bit. After that, I don’t remember much more than just trying to find the shore. This wasn’t a swim – it was survival. It got better once we rounded the red turn buoy and headed the other direction but at that point, I knew couldn't count on my swim time to be a good one no matter how fast I sailed into the shore. I knew the first half had been pretty bad.

My watch read 37:30 for the swim when I exited the water but the official result is longer since we had to run a few hundred yards through sand before reaching the timing mat. Transition was quick for me as my bike was the first on the rack and was easy to spot. My race plan was to take 3 units of Humalog (fast acting insulin) but I had a gut feeling that was too much so I took 2 instead. I didn’t test my blood sugar as I didn’t want to waste too much time in transition. I stuffed my wetsuit in a bag (since this was a point to point race, we had to have everything we wanted transported to the finish packed up in a bag), threw my helmet on, grabbed my nutrition and off I went.

(Check out the flag in the background....)

Bike split: 2:48:18 (20mph).

The first 10k of the bike was fast with the wind at our backs and the next 15 or so miles were a mixed bag of head and cross winds. Around mile 20, right before the hills started, the pad on top of my right aero bar came loose. I was futzing around with it trying to keep it on for a good 5 minutes, wasting time and royally botching my gearing before a big climb until I realized it was best just to let it go. Unfortunately for my elbow/forearm, I had the pleasure of leaning on a metal screw for a large portion of the race which was unpleasant, epspecially during the last 6 miles of the course which went through a war zone of sorts. The middle of the course was filled with long, steady climbs and as previously mentioned, the last 6 or so miles were pretty brutal – several hairpin turns, sketchy descents narrowing to a single lane with no passing room due to cones and traffic directly to the left, pissed off Rhode Island drivers, potholes and railroad tracks. Not being a great technical rider, it was frustrating to watch my average speed plummet these last 6 miles. I took it easy here and coasted into transition as I didn't have much of an option.

I hadn’t been able to eat too much on the bike (2 Gu’s and 1 Gatorade total) as I could tell my blood sugar was on the higher side until about the half way point but could feel that it was dropping and I knew I was in the perfect place to start the run. I tested my blood sugar in T2. 106. Perfect! I felt much better knowing my levels and I started onto the run course.

Run split: (1:52:21) 8:34/mile

I started off on the run and my legs felt pretty decent. Mile one split showed a pace of 7.35. Then I hit College hill. Here is the BOTTOM of college hill.

I knew it was coming, after all I did run this course last year and I had been running hills in all my bricks to prepare for it, but that didn’t change the fact that it still sucked. A lot. About half way up it I heard someone yell “Go Wisconsin!” and I was a little confused -- how many people from Wisconsin would be running a race in Rhode Island besides me? I turned my head to the side to see that it was a woman I had met at Patriot earlier this year - it was a nice boost to have a familiar face cheering at that particular painful moment. I managed to make it up the entire hill without walking, passing several people in the process and the next 2 or 3 miles went by pretty quickly. I was still feeling pretty decent and was managing a respectable pace. I saw my friend, Jen, at some point who cheered and again, I got a lift from it. Mile 6 brought us down College hill and towards the turn-around. I saw Dave cheering and it kept me running when all I really wanted to do was stop at this point as my stomach was starting to turn and it was getting really hot out. I think it shows in this picture.

The second trip up college hill was brutal. I ran it more than I walked it but my will was falling away until I looked at my watch and realized I was about to have the race of my life and all I had to do was gut it out for 6 more miles. I closed my eyes and made myself experience the hurt, remembering the motto coach (who was also racing) had termed for this race: RUN EVIL! I put one foot in front of the other and tried to remember to eat a Gu here and there to keep my blood sugars up. I allowed myself to walk the water stops as it was getting hot out and I really needed to get the water in my system rather than spill it all over myself which I tend to do when I try to run and drink at the same time.

Around mile 10 my right knee started locking up – the kind of locking up where you feel like you’re going to fall over. Right at that point, a guy behind me came up and told me that my cadence was amazing, that I had a great ass (his words, not mine) and that he didn’t want to pass me because he’d been enjoying the view. While normally something like this would likely make me want to run for the hills, at mile 60 in a half Ironman when your knee is locking up, any kind of distraction, perverse or not, is better than focusing on pain. I laughed, thanked him and kept battling on. Mile 11 was, by far, the hardest for me and my split of 11.20 shows it. I was afraid my knee was going to give and I had to stop and shake it out a few times, knowing that the trek down college hill was about to come. But surprisingly, the descent didn’t seem to bother the knee too much once I got there and I was able to finish strong up the incline to the Capital and the finish.

I tested my blood sugar at the finish and again, it was a perfect 109. I have no doubt that FINALLY having a race where I absolutely nailed my blood sugar levels allowed me to perform like I know I am capable of.

Special thanks to my wonderful fiancé, Dave, who did everything and more to make sure I had a great race (including waking up at 3:30 am with me, packing the hotel in Narragansett as I rode my bike, making it back to Providence to cheer me on the run, lugging my after-race stuff all over the place and then waiting around until 3:30 in the afternoon with me to find out if I got a Clearwater slot…which I didn’t).

Next up: Timberman 70.3 in August. And then a wedding!

On not giving up

2009-07-06T10:26:00.003-04:00

A sequence of two small occurrences this weekend caused me to reflect upon my life as it has played out over the last few years, the difficulties that seem so distant now and how truly blessed I am to be where I am in my life right now.

I was rushing around on Sunday morning, trying to avoid being late for a swim lesson and I threw on the first clean t-shirt I could find in my drawer, which happened to be a Grandma’s Marathon t-shirt. When I got home and changed out of my clothes I noticed the date – June 19, 2007. I made a bit of a mental note about it – my first marathon was run only two years ago. It felt like so much longer than that.

About an hour later, I picked up my August Edition of Living Without magazine and read an interview with Elisabeth Haselbeck . During the interview she talks about her struggles coming to a diagnosis with celiac disease. She mentions how prior to her diagnosis, she would get up at 5:00 a.m. to get a run in. She knew that the moment she put food in her mouth later in the day, a run would be impossible because of the debilitating pain she experienced after eating.

That article brought back so many (painful) memories and along with the recognition of my first, ever, endurance event having been two years prior, I realized something: I have come a long way. Since June 19, 2007, I have:

(obviously) run a marathon;
learned how to swim;
learned how to ride a bike (for real);
finished too many shorter triathlons and running races to mention;
and, saving the best for last, finished an Ironman.

Now all that all seems fine and dandy on the surface but what isn’t obvious is what I went through to accomplish those things. Since June 19, 2007 I have also:

spent over a year in physical therapy rehabbing tendonitis that would not heal;
finished 90% of my training for that first marathon in a pool (yes, with a belt “running” underwater, staring at a wall for hours on end) as the tendon and calf injuries kept me off the roads;
experienced three femoral shaft stress fractures;
spent numerous hours crawled up in a ball with escalating stomach pain that only puzzled my doctors;
and again, saving the best for last, I have been diagnosed with celiac disease.

I have come a long way since that diagnosis.

This week I:
Ran 44 miles;
Biked 180 miles;
and, saving the worst for last, swam 6000 yards (I know coach, I love swimming).

Two years ago, I’m not sure if even ¼ of that would have been possible. But you know what? I don’t have pain before, during or after these things. I feel better than I ever have.

In the interview with Elisabeth, she mentions how when she tells people about her celiac disease diagnosis that they more often than not react with doom and gloom but that how for most of us with celiac, being diagnosed is a positive thing. I couldn’t agree more with Elisabeth. A diagnosis means we’re not crazy – that there is a reason for our pain. After having suffered for years and being told that there’s nothing can be done about the pain and then hearing that the truth is that it can be resolved by simply eliminating a few things from my diet was like music to my ears!

Something that came up a lot at the DESA conference last weekend was how having Diabetes was a positive thing for most of us living with it as it forces us to be fully aware of our bodies and how because of that, it has changed the way we look at life for the better. I think the same can be said for celiac disease. I am more self aware and, truth be told, am likely healthier because of it (as a side benefit from not eating overly processed foods). Everyone has to deal with some sort of challenge in their life. I am thankful that I have been dealt with challenges that I can manage. I control diabetes and I control celiac disease, it does not control me.

My first A race of the season is this weekend, Rhode Island 70.3. I have high hopes for this race but as I sit here going mad from taper, analyzing my race strategies and focusing on my goals, I realize that even if I don’t hit my time goals for this race, it doesn’t matter because as cheesy as it sounds, I’ve already won. I am sitting here going mad from taper and I am healthy. And I am so thankful I didn’t give up when the going got tough.