Some Disasters are Good for You

I did not post anything about my last race. It was a little dishonest of me, because I usually do race reports on every race, but the truth is, I was embarrassed about it. Long story short, I panicked in the water. I would not exactly call it a panic attack, but after side-stroking the whole swim, I was wasted and to be honest I still haven't looked at the results, but it was ugly.

It was the mini-tri at Lake Placid the day after the Ironman. Talk about stupid. There's no other word for it. But it taught me something valuable. I panic when I can see that I'm losing ground to the people around me. So it's a for-fun mini triathlon on a Monday night and I shouldn't care about how I do. Doesn't matter. I And that's what I ultimately decided- I'll be fine in the water as long as I can submerge my head and my ego.

Fast forward. Friday Night we went to the North Branford Potato festival. Ian struggled a bit- all he wanted to do was the bouncy house, so there was a good deal of me carrying him on my shoulders. When I got up Saturday morning the muscles behind my rib cage in the back, or above the hip (lower back) hurt on the left side. I did a 40 mile in the morning, but easy, then we went to a pool party where I was the one in the water with Ian. By the time we got home at 5PM. I knew there was something wrong with my 'back', just not what. I decided to go to bed at 10PM, which is insanely early by my standards.

I got up just before 5AM and my back was either worse, or the same. I could not tell.

Lot of backstory here. (Sorry)

@poycc gave me a ride to the race. Once there, I knew that I needed to run. Usually, I set myself up in transition and head straight for the water, but not today. I didn't think I could run at all, so I needed to test myself. It hurt a lot at first, but I was able to get in a mile, then still be the first person in the water 45 minutes before race start.

After 20 minutes of warming up, I realised I was still trying to decide if I thought I could race. And the funny thing is, if I hadn't had a disaster in Lake Placid, I might not have. What if my back spasmed during the swim ? I hear they do that. I might get so freaked that I'd be afraid to ever get in the water again. I might get out on the bike or run and really hurt myself...

Then I thought about Eric's latest blog post, Hedging. Great post, better than this one, trust me. That post made me realise even he isn't always 100% sure about what he's doing, and more importantly, as he often says, it's not that hard. You swim, you bike, you run. Game on, then you're done, game over. This isn't hard.

I went positive- not really my style. I decided the swim would make my back feel better. And it did.

End of that story. Now back to the race in my next post.