Well I took quite the hiatus from my blog after all of the allergy stuff started happening, because well, training wasn’t happening, and that kind of is the focus of this blog.  After many months of trial and error with food…I’m still going through trial and error.  This past weekend I realized soy is a huge nono, so that’s something I need to pay more attention to.  I guess I’m realizing that almost all packaged foods aren’t safe so I’m going to have to get more creative (and busy) in the kitchen.

After many MANY tears, I ended up pulling out of IMWI as my training was nowhere near where it should have been, my energy levels were really low and I was not in a good place mentally either.  After my energy came back a bit and my mood improved, I did manage to do a couple of races this late summer- I did a sprint tri on 9/10 and was 5th OA female and won my age group, and a 5k on 10/1 where I was 7th OA female and also won my age group.  However there is a theme for both of those races, they were SMALL, so not a lot of competition, but hey, I’ll still take the AG wins 🙂

Even with those races, my training was pretty half-assed from July until the end of October.  About a week and a half ago, I finally got bitten by the training bug again.  I realized how much I had missed training, how good it made me feel and the structure it gives me (which translates to other parts of my life as well).  Even if it made my eczema flare up (sweating seems to do that), I still feel better afterwards, regardless of the itching!  So two Saturdays ago I hopped on the trainer for an hour…and then the following Sunday I ran the planned six miles on my schedule…and then that Monday I swam and the momentum kept going, so much so, that I finally had completed all of my workouts for the week, something that I don’t think I’ve done in months (eek).  When I went to bed last night I was very proud of my 7 hours and 13 minutes of training.  Finally, I’m getting back into the swing of things.

After pulling out of IMWI, I was also having trouble figuring out what I wanted 2018 to be, will an IM be part of it?  Will I just stick to Olympics and sprints?  Part of what made the decision hard was that I had already spent so much money this year on medical bills for allll of the different doctors that I had seen, and the thought of traveling far and paying for a pricey IM just did not sound as appealing as it did at the beginning of the year (before all of the allergies flared up).  The original plan was Ironman Whistler.  I knew I wanted to do it well over a year ago (I think a month after I had signed up for IMWI 2017), it looked like a beautiful yet challenging course, and we could also make it into a vacation afterwards.  However that plan got nixed as the travel logistics and costs were causing me stress that far outweighed the idea of that ‘awesome race/trip’.

After giving it a lot of thought, I think I have come up with two main races (my A and B races) for 2018.  I have been toying with the idea of St. George 70.3 in May (my B race) and making it a vacation after the race and going to Zion National park.  I still have my tribike transport slot I paid for in 2013 that I can use (can you believe that? awesome company) and I have credit card points we can use for airfare, so other than renting a car and the inexpensive lodging I found, I think we could pull it off without it hurting our bank account 🙂  I’m also still itching to doing another IM.  However I’ve come to terms with the fact that if I want to do it, it’s going to be on the cheap.  Ironman Louisville in October checks off all of the boxes I needed checked.  Driveable (like, as in less than 6 hours…I don’t do well with much longer than that), inexpensive lodging, and since it’s so close (4 hours away), we can just drive up Friday and drive home Monday, making it only a 3 night hotel stay. Ironman Wisconsin was also on the list, but a lot of the hotels are more expensive (I would want to stay downtown as logistically it makes things so much easier for the athlete and the sherpas/family), it’s a bit longer of a drive and honestly, I’m a little scared to sign up again after a DNS this year.  Maybe in the future though 🙂  I realize those races are far away, but having them planned helps give me motivation to swim and bike during the offseason, when I really only want to be running.

Speaking of running, I do have some of those races coming up!  JMR and I are doing the Quincy 5k Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving, then on 12/2 JMR is doing the St. Jude Marathon and I am doing the half, and of course we are doing the Frostbite short series as usual (a 5 part series that starts in December and ranges from 2miles to a 5k).  I think I’ll be ok doing the 5k coming up but my training is nowhere near where it should be for a half, so that will be interesting.  I hoping to get in at least one long run of 11+ miles before, but we’ll see how my body feels about that.

And since I used to post training for the week, why not, even though I have no specific countdown to a certain race:

Week of 10/30

Monday- 1800y swim

Tuesday- speedwork: warmup, 4×200, 4×400, 4×200, cooldown

Wednesday- 2550y swim in the am, 1 hour trainer ride in the pm

Thursday- 1 hour run, 6 miles

Friday- Rest day/core

Saturday- 1:15 run, 7.75 miles

Sunday- 2 hour trainer ride with main set at 130 watts

Total Training Hours: 7 hours 13 minutes

Happy Monday!