It’s Friday, July 26th, 2019. Actually it’s July 27th now, 12:21am. I’m in Atlanta next to my sleeping husband and dog-brother (mom’s pup) Colby and the house is quiet.
I’m happy to be right here, in this house with my family, but this wasn’t the plan. I’m supposed to be in Lake Placid, NY getting ready to race my second full Iron on Sunday. (i.e. tomorrow given that midnight has come and gone.) I’m pausing while writing to scope my Rev3 teammie, Steve’s Insta stories to live vicariously through his #IMLP set up and dwelling on what couldashoulda been rather than sleeping like everyone else, including Colby. (Imagine both Colby and Scott wish I would shut the computer and get some shuteye.)
Last summer I spent several weeks vacillating between Ironmans Lake Placid and Mont Tremblant, knowing I wanted to do one of these north-ish, climby, picturesque, iconic summer full distance races. I’m not entirely sure how I alighted on those as the two between which I had to choose, but I think after IM Chattanooga 2016 my first criterion was a race destination that would not top (or even near) 100 degrees. Secondly, I wanted a race venue that Scott would enjoy and I knew he would have fun in either beautiful mountain location. And I think I wanted to climb. I know I wanted to push myself on a course that intimidated me and IMLP and IMMT both offered hills and intimidation in spades – far above the Mason-Dixon.
How I finally landed on Lake Placid I really don’t know. I remember I was leaning toward Tremblant for a couple weeks and had told Josh as much, and then one weekend morning I was sitting on the couch in my undies sipping coffee when something inexplicable came over me and suddenly I was plugging credit card info into the Lake Placid Active.com page. That’s how it often happens with race registration: impulsively with little-to-no explanation in our underwear.
Ultimately I’m glad I picked Placid. Not for the course or location or anything like that as obviously I didn’t race it. No I’m glad I pulled that trigger rather than Mont Tremblant because Placid happens three weeks earlier and that shorter training timeline helped make the decision to drop out while I could still get my money back on the race and the Airbnb. The July vs. August race date meant I knew Placid wasn’t happening for me by the first weekend of June, and didn’t have to drag the DNS (did not start) decision out.
All winter and most of spring I held out hope that I’d be 140.6-ready the last week in July. My PT was more measured in his optimism but didn’t rule it out. My orthopedist however was pretty sure back when the crutches came off at the end of February that a full wasn’t in my summer 2019 cards. I thought she was being dramatic.
As the arduous truth of this recovery set in little by little through March and April and even May I remained optimistic (obtuse). Even as my attempts to increase my run mileage were thwarted week after week, I kept doing the math and reworking my calculations in desperation: when I was maxed at five consecutive miles ten weeks out from race day I thought, if I can add 1-2 miles a week I can get up to 17 miles “safely” by the week before race day and that’s plenty to carry me through. When I was still maxed at five consecutive miles eight weeks out I began to think, I’ll probably be fine walk-jogging the marathon like I did at IM Virginia even if I only ever get up to 10-13 miles in training.
Then Escape the Cape happened. And it was great! I biked well, I survived a very difficult run, I podiumed unexpectedly, and rather than imbuing me with extra IM Placid confidence, somehow that fantastic perfect day knocked some sense into me. It was the first week of June and I knew if I was really gonna make Lake Placid happen, the next six weekends were going to be nonstop long rides and swims and as much running as I could handle. Every Saturday for the foreseeable future was going to call for 50-100 miles in the saddle, and my 200m intervals in the pool were going to be replaced with 1000 and 2000 meters. Escape had been stellar, but it had also been an olympic distance – or more accurately, an “olyish.” A mile swim – with the current – 22 miles biking, and five miles running. And those distances were right on the money for where I was in my fitness and recovery. The thought of doubling or tripling them over just a few weeks sounded awful.
And so I got home from New Jersey of sound enough mind to finally admit that I was not of sound enough body to take on Lake Placid 2019. I think I’d known for a while that withdrawing was the right decision – the only decision – but somehow it took a weekend of great swimbikerunning to the best of my present ability to make peace with it. Pulling the plug in June left me time at least to register (and kind of train) for USA Triathlon Age Group Nationals in August. If I’d been signed up for Mont Tremblant I fear I would have continued to run the numbers on whether I could finish a full for another few weeks – to still eventually realize, ‘no-I-cannot – and I likely would have missed the window to return to Nationals. (Ask me after a second race weekend in Cleveland if this was indeed a good thing.)
Five years ago I wrestled with the same to-Iron-or-not-to-Iron decision and came to the same not-this-year conclusion after a bike crash six weeks before what would have been my first full. (Louisville back when they still did it in August.) I licked my wounds next to the pool in Atlanta then and opted for the same this no-go round. New year, new disappointment, same response. This time though I have a huge tri-family to lean on, even here in Georgia, so I brought my road bike down and get to ride with Rev3 and Speed Sherpa friends (and my dad) which is a terrific consolation prize.
I did realize over the weekend that of three full Ironmans I’ve attempted I’ve now had to bail on two. I’m one for three. Oof that really sucks to say/type. I currently am still signed up for Ironman Arizona in November and hope I won’t have to throw in that towel too. Making it to Tempe would at least give me a .500 batting average on getting to the Ironman start line. (Good in baseball, less so I think in triathlon…especially since a baseball batting average doesn’t measure the percentage of times one makes it to the plate…so I think this metaphor has officially fallen apart.)
That orthopedist who knew in February that a July Ironman wasn’t going to happen did say back then that she liked the odds for a November full. The hip fracture happened in October of 2018, and she predicted about a year recovery for this injury. I couldn’t believe her protracted timeline back then; now it would seem she knew what she was talking about, or perhaps was even being optimistic.
I’m not gonna lay down some grand gauntlet like, ‘I’m coming for you Arizona!’ because I don’t know for sure that I am. I hope I am. I really don’t want to be 1 for 4 on startlines. I really don’t want to be suffering more DNS disappointments 13 months into this ordeal. I’ve got Nationals – a proper olympic so the longest race run this season – and Ironman Atlantic City 70.3 to get through first. If I can actually finish IMAC I think I’ll be in a good place to make a November full happen. I know better than to get my hopes up but I don’t want to lose hope either.
And whatever happens I’m sure Scott and Colby will have my back…as long as I stop blogging when they’re trying to sleep.
