"Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light." -Albus Dumbledore.
That quote has always been one of my favorites, and it has truly carried me through some dark times in my life. There are a million Harry Potter quotes that I believe to be extremely profound, but this one really resonated with me in the last few weeks.
I had finally completed my 2016 goal of completing a half Ironman distance race at Toughman Half only a few short weeks ago. I was on an intense high leading up to the race, during and the day after. I had spent thousands of hours preparing for one task, and once it was completed I felt a bit lost. They say the "post Ironman race" blues are a real thing. My coach said it, his coach said it, heck, most of the triathlete community said it. Although I had thought I would be impervious to it, I was very very wrong.
The week after Chisago Toughman I had a full week of recovery which meant very little training. I had expected it to be a welcome break, but immediately I felt restless and lethargic. How do you go from 2 hours a day of high intensity training to laying around and eating and drinking things you had spent the last year abstaining from? It is not an easy transition. Once the initial joy of sleeping in wore off, I found myself in a very concerning state of mind. I was unmotivated and teetering the line of depression. I wasn't sure how to pull myself out of this funk, so I enlisted the help of my always knowledgeable coach/brother. He told me to take the days off he had scheduled for me, then to try my best to grind through the next week of workouts.
It was not easy. There were days where I could barely get out of bed and into my Hoka's. I still craved sugar, sleep and rest at that point, but I knew I had to turn myself around. Twin Cities Marathon was only 2 months out and I had no time to waste.
So I did what Mike said and I pushed through and kept moving forward. And by the 3rd week after the race I had found myself back in a competitive state of mind. I was dialing nutrition back in, and I was back on track to running my first marathon.
But, like I had anticipated, I was getting the itch to do another tri already. Luckily enough Lake Marion Tri was coming up. With my brother, our friend Curt AND my awesome husband competing, I really had no choice but to do it.
So I woke up last Saturday morning and brushed the dust off my tri bike and gear for the race. We got our gear and arrived at Antler's Park ready to roll. However, the weather had much different plans. With 95 percent chance of rain we were in a for a soggy day.
The swim was a quick 1/4 mile loop, and boy did that sound amazing. After doing nothing but 1.2 mile distance swims at all my races this year, I couldn't even wrap my brain around a short swim. No wetsuit and only being in the water for less than 10 minutes? Hell to the yes. The water was pretty choppy due to the wind and impending storms. I was really appreciating that I had only signed up for the Sprint, not the Olympic like my brother had.
After getting out of the water and on to the bike I was shocked it hadn't started raining yet. And that was my first mistake. At mile 12 of the 18 mile ride I turned right into a wall of 30 mph winds and cold, piercing rain. It was like I had turned the corner and was descending North of the Wall into the White Walkers territory. Ok, it was only like 60 degrees, but it felt terrible! The last few miles were a struggle into a headwind the whole time, and my legs were definitely not in cycling shape as they had been a month earlier.
By the time I was off the bike, I was relieved and ready to be on the run. I grabbed my stuff and took off. I had a couple of time goals that day, but I also had not caught my husband on the bike like I had anticipated so I was really more in pursuit of him than a time goal. I got about 1 mile out and saw him descending on the hill towards me, as it was an out and back. Shit. That meant I had about a 1/2 mile to make up to catch him. We high fived and he looked really strong, and I couldn't have been more proud. But damn if I wasn't going to push through and beat him. So i made my way up the hill and turned around and came barrelling down the hill. I crossed the line in 1:35, and I never did catch him. But luckily for me, our waves were several minutes apart and I still got him by 3 minutes that day overall. Whew.
As Marc, myself, and Mike waited for our awards that day (Mike was amateur overall winner, FYI. Such a rockstar.) we huddled under the tent out of the rain with our favorite announcer, Jerry. We had some time to kill so we even got to watch the final finish of the Women's Triathlon that morning as well. Watching Gwen absolutely crush it was so inspiring to watch that day, I almost wanted to get back out and do the course again! But then I remembered I was freezing, and Mike and I had a Metallica show to get to that night. The quality time in the tent with my friends and family also reminded me that being part of the multisport community is the greatest thing to have ever happened to me. My life changed the minute I became a triathlete and I am forever grateful for my tri family that I have adopted over the years.
So, moral of the story is that feeling a bit hollow after a huge race is normal. Everyone is different in how they recover and how they get back to "normal", but I am glad in the end I embraced it and didn't ignore the signs. I took the rest I needed to light the fire back up, and while it wasn't easy, it was the right thing to do.
Now it's time to crush some marathon goals and get ready to start my first season in Cyclocross racing.
Cheers!
