six
Six weeks until Ironman Coeur d'Alene 😳😨!
Seven months of training is starting to take its toll on my body. I was super bummed I missed the Eastside triathlon last weekend. Nagging injuries sidelined me. It's always difficult to decide whether to pull out of a race or not. The injuries aren't super serious, nothing that would put Ironman at risk ... but if I didn't let these issues rest and heal it probably could develop to something much worse.
On one side, doing these smaller races are super important for a beginner triathlete. You gain important information on nutrition, tactics, transition improvement, etc... Not to mention practice doing each discipline in succession, as well as in a race situation. On the other side, the ultimate goal is Ironman, and I can't risk these nagging injuries (or pains) to turn into something serious that could shut down my Ironman opportunity. So you always have to keep the big picture in mind.
The last month or so things have been really challenging. My body is tired, my mind is tired ... I've reached that point where August 27th just needs to get here faster so I can return to a "normal" life, haha! Training is getting hard, and getting that motivation going to get out there is pretty much depleted. I reached out to my coach, needing something to help. She gave me a pretty good idea. She told me to put something positive, some kind of message, or a few words on my bikes top tube, so every time I look down I see those words, or message and remind myself what I'm doing this for.
My inspirational message, to help me when I loose my way, or need to remember why I'm doing this.
I thought, what a good idea! The first thing that hit me was a sticker. Pro cyclist usually get custom stickers for their name and country to be put on their bike. I'm sure I could find a company that did the same thing, but with customized text. Found a small, cyclist owned, business based out of Maine, Velo Ink. They allowed for a wide range of customization. All I needed now was the words. A few things jumped out at me ... Something relating to my accident and resulting TBI recovery, coming out to my family and friends, and my daughter. It was a pretty easy pick, because, to be honest, everything I do, I do for my daughter. I want to show her that no matter what knocks you down; be it a car, hate, discrimination, homophobia, being told you can't do something, whatever! You can heal, you can get back up, you can fight back, you can do it! So whenever I look down at my bike, and see 'all for madison', I'm reminded of that.
This journey is getting harder and harder, but I still get out of bed, look at my training schedule and do it to the best of my ability. Even if I'm a little slower 😂, something is better then nothing.
Just six more weeks.