Over a year without blogging...
A year in recap:
Boston 2012 : Difficult. IT Band syndrome in both knees cause extreme pain at mile 12 and remained for the rest of the race. Extremely hot weather conditions ( 85 degrees in April) lead to dehydration and a rough race. With all those factors I still ran a 3:45 . Not horrible ... defiantly not what I wanted ( 3:30 or better ). I felt like my Ironman training really had prepped me for the hot conditions though and how to handle it better.
IM WI Training 2012: Summer training was hard in numerous 90 plus weeks. Really focused on my swim this year and improved my time a lot. Had problems with my IT band still and ankle pain. Enjoyed training with some awesome people and realized the importance of training partners and support people.
IM WI RACE 2012: Cramped in the swim ( this was happening in training too ). Improved my swim time by 13 minutes from prior race. Had me out of the water and on the bike with people who were defiantly not my speed ( ie my bike pace is slow and they were all way faster) . Got passed a lot on the first leg of the bike and I was trying to keep up with the people passing me ( personal flaw being uber competitive in a race I shouldn't have been competitive in ) . Left me cramping on the second loop multiple times and wanting to be off the bike dreading the run. (If it wasn't race day i would have stopped after the first loop because I was cramping so bad). I had an awesome support team out on the bike which totally helped me get through those really hard bike legs. Spent a lot of time talking to the man upstairs which helped with my mental state of mind. Got off the bike and sat down T2 and didn't want to get up or move. My legs were so cramped up I could barely change into my run gear. I finally forced myself out on the run course and figured I had enough time that I could walk the whole run course if I needed to ( although my goal in my head was for a sub 4 hour marathon) . After mile 2 of the run I knew it was going to be a long marathon. I had a agreed with a fellow runner that we would run the flats and walk up all hills. On the run course I had awesome people who walked/biked next to me the whole time. They made those 5 hours pass by really nicely. It was the slowest I've ever done a marathon but my body just wouldn't let me go any faster. My IT band was causing extreme pain. My body was shutting down. I wanted to go pee so bad and every time i tried I couldn't. I had double vision.I threw up multiple times. Need less to say I wasn't feeling so awesome so I decided that I should just have fun with it and lemonade with the lemons life was giving me. I was able to encourage others along the route and smile and talk with friends and supports and dance when music was played. I ended up running the last mile of the race with lots of encouragement and smiles from friends and family and crossed the finish line in 15 hours and I think 20 some minutes. Not what I wanted or was expecting but grateful to be blessed with a body to be able to completely the race and the love and support of so many people and the motivation now to redeem myself in the future !
Fall 2012: After taking a few weeks off to recover I decided to get back after it ... Well or so I thought .... I was having really bad ankle pain so I thought I would take it easy doing running and do a lot of crossfit.
After the ankle pain didn't go away I thought I would go get it checked out by the docs. They x-rayed it and did an MRI and the findings ...
A couple years a go I got a stress fracture in my talus from jumping out of a tree stand. That didn't heal properly because I went running on it a week after it happened. A year later I was out on a run and my ankle collapsed on me. At that point the stress fracture had not healed and went completely through the bone and broke a piece of my talus off and was floating around in my ankle. I had surgery and removed the piece and they drilled into my ankle to promote the bone marrow to fill in the whole that was now in my bone and stimulate growth. I was on crutches and no weight bearing for two months and then no running for another two months ( this was when I was training for my first IM) . It healed properly but at the point the doctors had told me no more long distance running , " your ankle wont be able to handle it " . I laughed at that ... well ... since that point I had done two IM and two marathons... needless to say the area they had fixed, after miles and miles of pounding on it from training and racing, had now broken off and was floating around in my ankle again. My bone had fluid in it and was swollen and irritated. The doctor put me in a boot for two months and crutches which I didn't use :). They were hoping that this would hopefully help lessen the pain .. It didn't ... so my options are surgery and they take apiece from my knee and plug it into my ankle ( -9 month recovery ) or do nothing ( live in pain). Being February when these were presented to me I didn't want to spend my whole summer inactive and in a boot so I chose to do nothing and live with the pain minimizing my running until fall when I think I will elect to do the surgery at that point.
The common hard question I get now so often is " What races are you doing this year" or "What are you training for now?" ... Well with limited capability to run and do anything without pain, these are sometimes the hardest questions to answer. Would I like to be training for something right now ... of course .. is it smart to be .. NO. So my common answer is "LIFE". I am training for life a head. I am still lifting and doing cardio and "short" runs ( 5- 6 miles) 4 - 6 days a week. This seems like nothing compared to what I was doing last year but training for life is also important. Staying active and eating right is the key . This year and next will be recovery time and exploring other options of extreme fitness. If anyone had suggestions of other things to try I'm all ears... I 'm looking to conquer a new sport and mountain biking sounds pretty fun ...
