What's up for 2016?

After my last triathlon in September, I took a break from everything tri related including my blog. I wanted to really think about my goals, my hobby, my options, my possibilities.  I wanted to build up my weaknesses and take the off-season seriously and not just a continuation.  It's the first time I haven't signed up for Oceanside in March so I needed a plan for the winter season training. My plan was to give my best to the NCC challenge Dec-Feb, take consistent Corepower Yoga Sculpt classes,  swim/run focus, and find out why I am struggling with some things.

One of the things that kept bugging me was why am I hungry all the time for all the wrong food?  I signed up for the SwimBikeFuel nutritional class and learned so much in 30 days.  I dropped about 5 lbs.  I learned that anything "diet" is just sabotage to gaining fat.  I stopped diet sodas and fat free yogurt and haven't looked back.  I reengaged my buried knowledge that fresh water is key to a healthy body.  If I am hungry at the wrong time, it's more likely that I need more water.

I found a swim coach....well described as the Mermaid Whisperer. Sickie @ UCSD can see underwater while hovering over you.  He describes changes that just click.  I've seen my pace steadily drop like never before.  He is so difficult to get in a lesson but once you get in the schedule, it's the best money you will ever spend on your swim.  I think I have tried everything out there.  If you are slow, find out why instead of practicing slow repetitively.  More of wrong never makes you better. Jim Vance once said if you swim 2:00/100s or slower, you have serious technique issues so fix it, don't practice it.  This is fixable but you need a Mermaid Whisperer to explain the problem because it's clearly not obvious to the swimmer.  NCC December had me pushing to swim every day until I missed a pool closing time so I changed my goals to PRs.  I peaked one swim workout at 6000 yards continuous and one week of yardage at 20,000 yards making my December swim miles over 34 miles.

 I realized how much I really needed a bike break.  I dropped my bike workouts to an EZ 2 hour ride
 on Sundays and it's so relaxing now to not think about cadence, power, pace, or grade.  Marcus and I

sleep in and go when we wake up and hope our route takes us to Lofty coffee or Swami's Café each week!  It's become more of a celebration date that we survived the week! We ride about 30 miles now instead of 100 every week, except in January! NCC Bike month arrived in January and we set up the trainers as furniture in the family room.  We fell into riding 1 hour a day kind of by accident and now we can't break the streak! So far January biking has been achieved 100% daily for at least 1 hour.  We started this streak by riding into the New Year on our trainers with champagne and haven't stopped!






















I decided to really focus on a improving a long distance faster running base but I needed a plan and a group.  I joined a Fall SDCC running class which was part of San Diego Track Club to get me in the habit of running more often.   I started running 5 days a week with the class schedule.  I started speed drills.  I ran a different tempo every day and it felt great.  I am fueled by improvement and suddenly other goals start to flicker in my forward view.  My pace was improving. My biological father asked me one day, "When are you running Boston?" I just laughed and said that I'm just a triathlete and I don't focus on running speed.  However, I never forgot his question because it scared me.

Early last year, my tri coach had me focus on 5k running speed and this experience showed me that I could run faster than I ever thought possible.  Now with a run/swim focus, I wondered if my best could be Boston Marathon worthy.  I need to chase a goal with purpose.  This is a lofty goal for sure but then I realized that the worst thing that could happen is that I became faster... just not fast enough...and not right away. Was there a deadline? No.  In my AG, I need a 4 hour marathon to qualify for Boston.  WOW. That's huge since my fastest has been 4:27.  However, I didn't have a speed goal for that race.   My goal was to run 5 mins and walk 30 seconds.  I was simulating my 26 miles for my Ironman training in 2014.   I wanted it for confidence, not speed.  But what if I did focus on speed?  What if I returned to Mountains2Beach, one of the top BQ marathons in the nation, and followed a pacer?  What if????  I committed to work on it that possibility.  Then I learned that even if I could run a 4hr marathon, I wouldn't get accepted into my dream race.  There are more qualifiers than openings so in 2016, you needed to be 2:30 faster than your qualifying time!  OMG..and..if you are 5 mins faster than your qualifying time, then you will definitely get in.  OK this goal of 3:55 is like reaching for the stars. 8:58 average pace for 26.2 miles??   However I have learned through my Ironman journey that goals are achieved by reaching little milestones along the path.  You just keep moving forward.  Time passes anyway so just keep at it.  I have no deadline really and I have a willing body so I will continue to chase this goal until I get it.  If it takes a few years, well then I get more time to finish the marathon to  qualify when I am 55!  I really want that Boston Marathon jacket. 

It's the m-dot tattoo for "real" runners.  You see it and you know them.  You know they are hard-workers that persevere to achieve outstanding goals.  They are relentless. I've done it with Ironman and that was impossible at one point too... so I'm coming after you Boston.  I want in your club.  I.AM.RELENTLESS.

So I ended the Fall with the SD Holiday Half Marathon.  It was my checkpoint to start 2016. I was not hitting the paces I wanted so I adjusted my stretch goal because the #1 goal is get to the start line without injury. I would shoot for 1:55 when my fastest was 1:59 on the same course.


 I woke up race day with a cough and wheeze.  I took every med I could find. I loaded up on cough drops.  I gave all my body would give to achieve 1:55 but finished 1:56.  Although, happy for the 4 min PR, I was gagging and trying to throw up with a coughing attack at the finish line.  This was the beginning of my hell.  I worked so hard to start Jan 1 in my best fit condition for my marathon program.  leaner, faster, confident...but instead I got bronchitis... for 3 weeks...I wanted to cry every day.  My whole training world stopped. I decided I would take any exercise I could get with the lowest HR possible to control the cough.  I'd do anything to keep my base. Spin the legs and the arms and let the lungs heal.

Over the  next 10 days, I could barely swim but learned to cough under water if I swam really slow.  I used fins to make it easier too. I definitely could not run at all because coughing attacks were more like hail storms of wheezing, tears, gagging and sweat. Sleeping through the night was impossible as attacks were regular and could last 20 minutes. Biking on Sundays was at a crawl with constant cough drops.  I kept moving forward at whatever pace my body offered to try to hang on to whatever base I had left.  My office couldn't take the barking cough and sent me home to work for fear I'd get everyone else sick.  This part was actually pretty amazing.  I sat on the trainer in my family room quite miserable but still moving the legs eating cough drops every 5 minutes, lathered in Vicks, drinking cocktails of cough syrup, with my inhaler nearby. Just keep spinning.

I couldn't go to track workouts because the speed drills would have killed me.  January 2nd was the SDTC opening day for the Rockin N Runnin program for my marathon training. I  stayed with the C group on the track and coughed for 30 minutes straight jogging on the track. Tears followed.  I felt I would never come back.  I just wanted to be with my 8:30-9:00 pace group so much but alas I watched them take off for their run without me. I worked for 3 months to prepare for them and I was sidelined.  It was just terrible.  This virus was killing my spirit.  I ate bags of cough drops and carried my inhaler everywhere.  I don't know what I would have done without my SDTC mentor, Katherine.  She kept in contact all the time and was so encouraging that I would be joining soon. She gave me hope.  She encouraged me and empathized with me as she was also sick all of January last year and still qualified for Boston.  She kept the flame flickering for me! I'm so grateful for her.

The week passed and I was able to control the cough more.  It was the 2nd Saturday gathering of SDTC and still I watched my pace group take off.  I need to be in 8:30-9 group!!!  I stayed with the 9:30-10:00 instead.  I cough, I struggled, it was hell for a whopping 50 minute run finishing 9:25 pace.  I couldn't speak when I finished.  I coughed, gagged, cried, gasped and sadly went home,

Sunday was our blissful bike ride time.  I sat up in bed realizing I hadn't coughed as much that night but suddenly had a knife pain in my ribs.  My Lord, have I cracked a rib, busted my spleen, done so many ab crunches while coughing that something is torn?  I cannot take a deep breath without wrenching in pain.  I don't care. I must get outside because I couldn't take one more trainer ride.  That was a tough ride for sure and I held my left rib often, especially when I coughed.  I got a doctor's appointment for Tuesday.  My cough was nearly gone and I couldn't deep breath!!! 

I was surely falling apart. My Dr. took xrays and found I was clear of bronchitis but now had costochondritis which is inflammation of the cartilage and muscle between the ribs from the coughing attacks.  I was near hysterical when she said it could last for weeks.  She prescribed Motrin and Tramadol.  I tried one Tramadol and thought I was going to die from nausea, dizziness and sleepiness!  Thursday, I ran 50 mins on the treadmill in the most excruciating pain of my life.  It was worse than child birth. I talked with the Dr again and she gave me steroids.  I was begging for relief so I could run in some fashion on Saturday with the group.  I took 2 steroids Friday and one Saturday morning, and I was near 85% better!  I ran an hour increasing my speed the entire course ending 9:01 average.  I was on a runner's high for an hour after the run because I felt so free finally of everything holding me back.  No coughing attack!!







So better late than never, I'm crawling back to my speed, 3-4 weeks late to the game but here I am and next Saturday, I will try to be with "MY" group, 8:30-9:00 and hold on for 1:15... each week is a bigger challenge.  "I don't need to be the best.  I just need to be MY best."   So here we go.. I'm back on the Boston path!  I'm still struggling with Corepower Yoga because my core is still in some pain but I just do the best that I can and thank my body for bouncing back as fast as it has already.




 





During my dark times, I reflected on my heroines.  Julie Dunkle, Leslie Myers, Tracey Cohen, Lesley Paterson and now Katherine Ayan.  They have fought through many battles of their own, but as warriors with heart, they have always come back stronger, better, faster, and wanting more. I am so grateful to watch your journies and thank you for the inspiration because at times, it was all I had

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