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It's Ironman Canada race week!


I can't believe it's finally race week! Today we leave for Canada and on Sunday, we get to race a bucket-list race in beautiful Whistler, Canada. 

We selected this race venue because of its challenging, yet beautiful course. The weather is predicted to be in the low 50's at the start of the day (race start 6am PST) and it will rise to the low 70's. The 2.4 mile swim is a two loop course in Alta Lake. The water temp should be around 65 degrees and wetsuit legal. The 2-loop bike course features ~8000 feet of elevation gain over 112 miles. It will be a "slow" bike course that will require a lot of strength, tactics, good riding skills, fueling and mental strength. The run course will be just as spectacular as the bike. The 26.2 mile run is a two loop course with a little over 1000 feet of elevation gain. The finish of the 140.6 mile race is in the Olympic Village of Whistler.

I'm thrilled to share the course with 13 of our athletes. We selected this race venue because it offers an Ironman and 70.3 distance on the same day. We will have two athletes racing the full (one first-timer Ironman) and eleven athletes racing the 70.3. I just love racing with our athletes as it's great to see familiar faces on and off the course and to share the entire experience with others.

This Ironman journey has been an interesting one. Our coach (Cait Snow) did an incredible job preparing us for this race. While it felt like a lot of training, every week was carefully designed with our needs in mind. There was a nice mix of frequency and volume with a touch of intensity sprinkled in. Overall, it was a solid build to Ironman Canada. I loved the training/workouts and it was a lot of fun to see what my body could do each day. We had daily communication with our coach and the closer we got to the race, the more she was careful to make sure we were still adapting to training stress.

Karel is bringing great fitness to this race. He was pushed hard by Cait in ways that he didn't know was capable by his body. I'm super excited to see what Karel can do on this race course as I feel he is getting stronger and faster every season.

I have felt stronger than ever before - specifically in swim and bike. Because of my previous running struggles (injuries) in the past, Cait was extremely careful to build me slowly with my running and to design workouts that would help build my confidence and suit my strengths (running off the bike). I was able to put together many months of consistent training, tolerating a high volume of training in swimming, biking and running.

Unfortunately, near the end of our group training camp in late June, I started to experience some left lower back pain on the bike. I contributed it to a lot of twisting to look behind me at our athletes and altering my riding style throughout the camp environment. Karel and I did not do any of our own training throughout our group training camp as it was all about our athletes and making sure they got the most out of their camp experience.

On the last day of camp (June 30th), we were getting ready to head to the lake for our last camp workout (swim and run) and as I was bending over to put on my socks and shoes, I felt a painful tug in my lower back. I had to lay down to relieve the pain. It was something that was a bit familiar to me as I have had issues with my back/hips for as long as I can remember. This reminded me of when I injured myself back in 2007 before my first Ironman World Championship. I was a little worried but the pain subsided, I taped my back/hips with KT tape and we drove to the lake. I was a little tight during the swim but the run felt fine as I ran with our campers.

To play it smart and safe, Cait had me take the next two days really easy to let things calm down. I took a day off on Monday (mental day to recover from camp) and Tues was an easy swim. I felt a little tightness in my back but no pain during the swim.

On Wednesday we did a "test" workout on the bike with some building efforts to see how I responded to different efforts. I felt a bit of tightness in my back but it actually got better as the ride went on. I ran off the bike and all was OK. I actually felt fine running. So on Thursday I was back to normal training and didn't feel concerned about my back anymore - what a relief!

I put together four solid days of training (Thurs-Sun) but come Sunday, near the end of the run, my left side started to feel off. It wasn't painful, just a bit of tugging in my left leg. After I returned home from my 90 minute run (my last long run), my inner thigh and groin started to tighten up. It was really uncomfortable. I did my afternoon swim - which helped to loosen things up - but to make a long story short, I've been dealing with hip/back/upper leg issues since July 7th. To be extra cautious, I haven't really ran since then as I was feeling a tugging and tightness around my hip/back/leg. Again, this is nothing new for me as I have dealt with hip/back issues for all of my triathlon career but have been able to manage it for the past 6 years without any hiccups. Until now....

So here I am, just a few days away from my 15th Ironman in uncertainty. Will I be able to run at all and if so, how much? I am mentally preparing myself that I will not finish this Ironman and I am ok with this.

While this injury has altered my run training over the past 2.5 weeks, Cait made sure that I was maintaining my fitness and focusing on what I CAN do. So instead of running on land, I have been doing water jogging in place of my runs. That means interval runs, brick runs and even a double run - all in deep water. I have been swimming and biking as planned as both cause me no pain or issues and I actually feel better after I swim and bike.

During the first week of this setback, I focused on calming down my leg. So this meant massage and dry needling and exercises to help get my ribs/pelvis back into a good spot. My SI joint likes to give me issues and this time was a nasty one as my pelvis got all out of whack. After things calmed down, my next goal/focus was to walk normally. I was bracing my leg (straight leg) because of the tugging I was feeling in my groin and adductors. My ITB was taking the grunt of this so I needed to relearn how to walk normally again. By the 2nd week, I was walking normally. My last goal was to hop with my left leg. Finally I am at that point. So on the positive, I am walking normally, I don't have any pain, I can hop on one leg and aside from after sitting and sleeping (when I get a little tight), I feel "normal" again. I have tried to run and while it is not painful, it's still not "right" just yet. I am being extra cautious and safe as I am not just thinking about IM Canada but Ironman Kona in a few months. I have resisted "testing" the leg as I don't want to do something silly out of ego or fear and put myself back. I am in a good place now and I don't want to jeopardize my health - especially since I want to be active for a lifetime.

The first few days were tough as I was a bit emotionally and in pain but after a few days, I made myself get into a good mindset to put everything into perspective and to use my mind to help me heal. To help with this, I have been repeating a few mantras to help me get through this setback with a positive mindset. These mantras have provided me perspective and also gratitude and I am still excited to travel to Whistler, start the race and give my best for as long as my body will safely allow me to. If I have to drop out in T2 or in the run, so be it. While I'm sure I'll be a tiny bit sad, I have so much to be happy about by watching our athletes and Karel and traveling to a new race venue.

Here are a few mantras that I have used to help me during this time: 
  • I don't need to run for a lifetime but I do need to walk.
  • I'm an athlete for life - not just one race.  
  • Focus only on today. 
  • Don't spend energy on things that are out of my control. 
  • I can't change the situation but I can change my attitude and how I deal with the situation. 
  • Focus on the small things.
  • There are so many great things in life to be happy about. 
  • I'm thankful for all that I have done with my body this season. 
  • If there's a "good" time for an injury, it's when 99% of the work is done. 
  • I can still swim and bike - my two favorite sports!
  • I am so excited to swim and bike in Canada and tackle this tough sport! 
  • If I can't run on race day, that means I get to watch my athletes and cheer. 
  • Focus on what you CAN do, not what you can't do. 
  • There are worse things in life that can happen to me. 
  • There are worse things in life that deserve my tears. 
  • Injuries heal. 
  • It's just one race. 
  • Believe that you are healing every day. 
  • Complaining and tears don't solve issues. 
  • Invest into therapy/treatment so you don't have to pay for MRI's and more intense treatment. 
  • Be patient and smart. 
  • Quick fixes don't fix issues. 
  • Don't rush the healing process just to meet a race day deadline. 
  • Thank you body. You are still awesome. 

Although race day is still a bit of an unknown, I can assure you that I will not do anything silly. Running in pain is NOT my idea of what it takes to finish an Ironman - or any race. I worked really hard to get to where I am right now with my swim/bike/run fitness and over the past two weeks, I invested a lot to be able to move without pain and I don't want to take steps back - only to delay my return to run training in route to IM Kona. I still plan to share pictures/videos/posts about our Ironman Canada experience on my blog and Facebook page over the next week.

Off to Canada!!