10 days until Ironman Coeur d’Alene! Oh my gosh.
Tomorrow is single digits, WHAT?! Seriously, how did that
happen?
I’m not even going to go into the whole “am I ready?!”
thing. I feel like I could go both
ways. Yes, I know I’m ready and I know
logically that I’ll finish no matter what and it'll be fine and I can do it and am ready. But at the same time, oh my gosh, there is
soooo much more I should have and could have done! Etc etc etc.
So, not going to focus on that because it’s kind of a moot point by now!
So, what else is there?
Well, my knee, for one. I ran
last week (Wednesday) and I felt great, loving everything..then a couple hours
later I noticed my knee hurt. And it
wasn’t the usual dull pain that sometimes happens and is fine; this was a sharp
pain down the side of my knee and leg. I
tried to pretend it was nothing. Was
definitely still hurting the next morning, and I knew something was different..and wrong. Immediately told my coach
(instead of waiting it out, and pretending it was ok), scheduled some appointments, etc etc. I was told to not do ANYTHING for three days, except swim if
I really wanted to do something (go figure..and yes, I did swim, because that’s
how desperate I was to do something!).
It was a huge bummer; last weekend was really my last big weekend of training, with the biggest brick workout,
and while I know that it wasn't physically necessary, it would have been a
really big confidence/mental boost to do it.
Instead I did nothing. I also cut
my “long” run short, and skipped another decent ride.
But the good news is that taking time off seemed to help,
and that, combined with chiro/ART, ice, and only a couple doses of ibuprofen, and
it’s feeling awesome now. I actually can’t
even really feel it at all. My leg is
all taped up, and I might leave it that way just to make myself feel better but…
overall, crisis averted! (Monty said my
IT band was basically wedged into the other muscle – forget what it’s called –
and the muscle was tight meaning everything was just all locked up and
straining. Makes sense. He also said that’s common if you are tired,
are training a lot, and start compounding different activities. Let’s see—peak week of ironman training? Check, check, and CHECK! But the good news is that nothing was
inflamed, nothing was really damaged, and he saw no reason to not train on it,
as long as it wasn’t really bad. Then he spent the next 30 minutes shoving his thumb into my muscles to get things to loosen up. OUCH.)
Anyway, I am super glad that is all out of the way. I will be rolling and stretching like crazy
to keep it that way, but at least it’s pretty much “better” already.
Aside from that, the rest of taper is..well..taper-ish. It actually doesn’t feel like much of a taper, based on my workouts; my
overall totals for this week will be less, but that mostly comes from less big stuff
this weekend, and one shorter day during the week. The rest of my workouts have been pretty long
(albeit less intense). Oh well. I am so tired all the time though, so I know
my body knows it’s tapering and that it’s working on recovery. So tired.
So, so tired.
I am also in a bit of a haze, kind of like that
post-long-workout fogginess…but all the time.
Honestly, words are hard sometimes.
I’ve found myself multiple times this past week, in the middle of a
conversation, suddenly stopping mid-sentence because I just can’t figure out
what word I’m trying to say! Not just “I
forgot the word” but like…stumbling to a stop and just STUCK because I can’t even
figure out what to say to articulate things.
So weird, but…it’s normal. Taper, taper, taper.
I’m also slow (biking, running..and swimming, but I always am slow swimming), but trying not to stress that. It’ll come on race day. And if not, well, then I don’t deserve to go
any faster anyway, so no fair whining about it!
People are starting to ask more questions suddenly; everyone
at work seems to know I’m doing an ironman (I’ve had people I barely know stop
me in the hallway and say something about it). They’ve been asking about it
all year, but now that it’s so close people keep asking if I’m excited, ready,
etc. It’s hard to answer, sometimes
;) But they also set up a lunch outing
for me next week, in honor of the fact that I'm leaving to go do a really stupid-long thing, so that’s super sweet and means a lot. Although on the other hand, that also adds
a little more pressure because now I know they will ALL want to hear all about
it and are thinking I’m going to do really well, and what if I let everyone down?!
But, no. Don’t stress
it, Rosanne. Race day will come, and
what will happen will happen.
Breathe.
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