Still Moving Forward... I Think

Wow, two days into another week and I'm still alive.  I'm happy to report that swimming is going quite well, although considering the fact that that was the only thing I could do without interruption all summer, that's not much of a win.  Tomorrow I'll head out on a pretty decent bike ride, planning on hitting the road early and hoping to beat the rain that is supposed to move in since lately it can't be sunny for more than half a day at a time.  I went on another run today.  Thirty-five whole minutes.  I head out the door, start running and feel awesome just to be out running.  It's great.  I realize I missed it. 

And then I get about as far as the end of the driveway before it dawns on me how difficult it is!  I'm breathing hard, I'm slowing to a point that feels more like pumping my arms in a running fashion while walking not particularly fast, but I have to keep going.  Then I occasionally feel good again on some downhills, but it has definitely not gotten easier yet.  I need to constantly remind myself that it does get better, it's just always so hard to see it in the beginning. 

There is no pain from my foot although I'll admit I'm in constant fear of it.  The last x-ray still showed a visible line but I was given the go-ahead and told to hope for the best.  Aside from that, my foot now looks like this:

I apologize, because I hate it when people post picture of their feet and I know mine is not especially attractive but at least there are no open sores.  And due to lack of running for once I even have all of my toenails.  You see the way my big toe points inward though?  Why am I suddenly so exceptionally deformed?  I didn't notice it looking like that until after I raced Mooseman and I know it hasn't looked like that for long.  I would've noticed.  I feel like this new deformity should've been a more gradual thing.  So now visions of surgeries are swimming in my head and yet another setback to running that would pretty much put the nail in the coffin on my triathlon career before I even get a chance at my 2012 comeback.  I'm going to the podiatrist on Thursday though.  Let's hope it's something that can actually be fixed.  Scarily, my feet probably aren't even my worst feature. 

Not much else to say.  The weather was nice today for my run but rain is moving in so after tomorrow's outdoor ride (hopefully) I'll probably have to hit the trainer for the first time since.... April?  I honestly have no idea.  Oh, and also I'm eying the waves for the end of the week.  Did I mention I went surfing two weeks ago?  I've had a surfboard since my 21st birthday and since I became a triathlete it is grossly underutilized but I still like to have it for the occasional visit to the New Hampshire coastline.  It's no California and definitely no Hawaii but it's fun anyway.  Friday and maybe Saturday are looking good, so I might sneak in a little visit to the ocean among the rest of the training.  You might not believe me but I'm pretty sure my last trip to the ocean was much warmer than my swim in the lake last week. 

Time to wind down for bed and continue to try and get used to getting up at 5:30 in the morning once again.  It's not as easy as it used to be!

Week One: Complete

I'm one week in.  I do not feel any fitter.  But I guess that's normal, right?  I got off to a bit of a rough start due to a very late night on Sunday.  I went down to the Patriots game with my mom, my sister and my brother-in-law.  The weather was amazing, the seats were great and they even beat the Jets, so it was fun.  I don't think I'd been to a game since they built Gillette Stadium.  I would only go to games with my family, and after a certain point in his life my dad decided that fighting the traffic to go there and sitting outside and braving the elements just wasn't worth the trouble when you had big screen TV's, pre- and post-game shows, comfortable couches you could nap on at half time and beer you didn't have to wait in line for.  So he started turning down tickets or would give them to my brother who would take his friends.  I had no problem with that, anyone he took surely would appreciate those tickets a lot more than I would.  I mean, I don't even watch the games on TV.  On Sunday afternoons I'm usually recovering from a workout and falling asleep on the couch to some movie on TBS I've seen 37 times. 

Anyway, the later game and the ridiculous traffic had us getting home pretty late and it's not always that pleasant to start off the first official workout week on five hours of sleep.  It makes things seem a lot tougher than they really are.  I've been working on getting my internal clock reset to its old ways and it's been slow going.  The clock change in two weeks will help.  We're starting off fairly slow since it's been so long but after the first four weeks it will ramp up quite a bit. 

Oh, but running.  Well.  I did mention that the last time I ran was Mooseman, right?  You know, running those first three miles and then getting a ride back in the golf cart.  I thought I was being a baby but that was probably the smartest thing I'd done in a while.  Let's just forget the fact that it would've been a lot smarter for me to have had it all checked out before I went and did the entire race in Florida on the broken foot.  Hey, at least I got to go to Disney World after. 

So, that meant four months of no running.  I've never not run for four months, ever.  That includes when I was a fat, lazy teenager.  Fat and lazy or not, I still played sports and I'm sure that entire off seasons never lasted that long.  Needless to say, it has not been easy, but most importantly, there has been no pain.  And for at least the first half-mile of each run, it just feels awesome to be out running again.  You know, before the pain of not running sets in and the freedom of doing it again is with you.  My sister had a big yard sale this weekend and while I was over there my nephew came out in full Batman costume asking for people to chase him.  Even running around the yard chasing after a five-year old felt good.  And I can still catch him. 

Nothing much else exciting.  Oh, I've started using a toy that I've had for a long time but didn't have the means to use it.  Maybe two years ago now, someone gave me one of those H2O audio things so you can listen to your iPod while you swim.  He also gave me the iPod to go with it, which was good because I am severely behind in technology and that was my first iPod.  The only problem was he got me the third generation shuffle and the headphones were for the second generation, and the two sizes are completely different so there was no way to use it.  I at least used the iPod.  Well, finally just last week someone gave me their old shuffle and I was able to use it.  It's not great, and the first use was a disaster because I didn't realize the significance of using the correct sized earbuds, but once I went with the smallest size instead of the second-largest that were already on there, it actually worked fairly decently.  I wouldn't use it all the time as it makes me lose count, but for these early season swims that are much easier and shorter it's a nice distraction.  The things do tend to fall out of my ears eventually so I have to stop at least every 400 to fix them.  It might be better with a better cap that stayed pulled over my ears, but right now my old Mooseman cap has it riding up after a few laps.  I wouldn't buy one because they're very expensive but as a gift it's nice.

Nothing much else exciting to say except week one is done and there's still a lot more work to do.  I feel so far removed from being an athlete in training it's ridiculous but I guess I'm no stranger to this feeling.  I also already brought out all of the cold weather running and biking gear.  I haven't needed it yet, but any day now I'm sure it will come.  I'll let you know if anything exciting happens this week!

Kona day!

I have great news: nobody else died for me to write about.  Let's hope the trend continues. 

Just about any decent triathlete would be able to tell you that today is the day of the Ironman World Championship in Kona.  It is almost 4am there, which means my QT2 teammates are already up and eating breakfast.  I haven't even had mine yet and we're six hours ahead.  I'm really looking forward to watching the race unfold.  Wishing I was there and of course wishing I was racing.  But I certainly didn't earn it this year.  I am, however, coaching my first athlete through it.  MaryBeth Romagnoli earned her spot in Lake Placid.  She is one of many examples why some people make it and some people don't.  It's not some magical talent that appears after some swimming biking and running.  She barely ran a step before Placid due to some lingering issues so we had to push through with extra biking and water running.  Have you ever done a whole lot of water running?  It's excruciatingly boring.  But she never complained once.  I'd ask her every once in a while, sort of prodding to see if the water running was driving her insane yet, but she'd pretty much just tell me she was fine, just doing what she had to do.  We do work her schedule around her family time (wife with two sons) but she doesn't make excuses for anything, just gets it done.  And that is why she is there.  While I do think there is at least some pure athletic ability that is involved in getting certain athletes to Kona, I think you'd probably find that it is the most dedicated athletes and not necessarily the most genetically gifted that are racing there.

As for me, I start officially training on Monday.  I haven't had a schedule since May.  I haven't run a step since June fourth.  I haven't done a long bike ride since the weekend before Mooseman.  I've probably done about 97 less loads of laundry since then that I otherwise would've done had I had mountains of sweaty run and bike clothes every single day.  I am pretty sure that the last time I went that long without running was from birth to... whenever I started running.  I am told that I actually sort of ran before I walked, supporting myself with one of those stupid little plastic shopping carts and running circles between the living room, dining room and kitchen.  So you can imagine I'm a bit nervous as to how this is all going to go.

But, well, I really just have to do what I have to do, right?  I'll admit I think the past couple of years I've mostly just been scared.  Scared of what?  Scared that if I worked really hard and did everything I was supposed to do I still might fail.  I don't really know why, because every other time I gave it my all I wound up with results beyond what I hoped for.  The only exception was Ironman Arizona in 2007, and in that case it was a time goal I didn't hit but mostly it had to do with the fact that the wind was crazy that day.  I don't know why I spent so much time thinking about the time I didn't hit rather than the fact that I'd won my age group by an hour.

I keep hearing about all of these things like if you just think it will be true, then it will be.  You have to go into things with the attitude that the outcome you want is simply inevitable.  I have been resistant to this sort of thinking because to me it just seems arrogant and cocky.  I'm pretty sure that those are personality traits that I do not possess.  But I'm going to do my best to get into my head that planning for success does not make you arrogant.  At least I don't think it does. And it I'm pretty sure that I only have to believe these things for myself instead of walking around trying to get other people to believe them.

So my only choice is to go into this season first, with the mind set that I will do everything that I need to do in order to be the athlete I want to be.  This goes way beyond just the training itself.  I've proven over the past couple of years that you can do all of the training and still not get the results you want.  This will mean eating the things I'm supposed to eat, sleeping as much as I need to, making the most of every training session and pushing when it needs to happen, and taking all of the calcium and vitamin D to make sure that my bones all remain intact for the entire season and hopefully beyond.

When things aren't going well it gets difficult to see that doing the hard work does pay off.  It's a lot tougher to motivate yourself when you're struggling to run ten minute miles when you know that a while ago sub-eights were a breeze.  It sucks and it's frustrating.  But progress is still progress and you're never going to get over that wall if you don't keep trying to push through.  You should know I've been trying to tell myself this for a while now, and it is definitely easier said than done.  But I'm running out of time here and if I don't just get over it and start thinking about what I need to do then it's going to be necessary that I find something else to do with my time. 



So here we go, 2012 is the beginning of my... what are we at, sixth second chance now?  I've lost track.  I might as well just call it the last chance.  2011 was supposed to be the last chance but you can't entirely fault me for being injured all season.  I'm hoping this incredibly extensive break was just what I needed to freshen my body (hopefully not just let it get terribly out of shape) and get me ready to once again mentally tackle Ironman training.  I haven't done an Ironman in over a year and I hardly even remember what it's like to be in the middle of one.  So maybe forgetting the pain will also be helpful! 

I'll update here more often.  I was about to write try to update more often, but that just gives me an out.  Yoda said there is no try, right?  Is anyone smarter than Yoda?  I have also been working on putting my internal clock back where it needs to be.  I used to think waking up at six was sleeping in.  I've been getting up at 5:30 and heading to the gym to swim and use the dreaded elliptical to simulate some form of running and it's been torture.  I'll get there, it's just tougher than I remember.  I think watching the Kona coverage today will help, though.

This is race morning my first time in Kona, 2005.  My parents and two of my mom's sisters, my aunt Hannah in yellow and my aunt Tricia. I can't even express how much fun I had that day.  Seriously.  It was amazing and everything I hoped it would be and more.  All I wanted to do was finish.

This was my second time there, 2006.  Somehow in a year I'd gotten way faster and pedaled my way to a 5:15 bike split and seventh in my age group behind people like Tyler Stewart and Heather Wurtele.  I didn't enjoy the race as much, mostly because I spent the late miles and then post-race for a good nine hours pretty sure I might die that night, but I was definitely proud of what I'd done. I actually have some video footage of me running the marathon that year, and it was early when I was feeling good.  It amazes me that I was able to run that fast with that horrible run form.

And this is me in '07, the last time I got to run the marathon there.  It blows my mind that this was now four years ago.  I raced in '09 but I had a stress fracture and dropped out after the bike after briefly contemplating walking the marathon.  After walking a mere 2.7-mile run in a triathlon recently, I'm glad I didn't opt to do that for ten times the amount of miles.  I'm looking at these to remind myself that while I am nowhere near where I was then, it is in there somewhere.  It's under some extra pounds and short a few hundred training hours, but it's not like anything drastic has happened to me.  A few minor injuries, yes, but nothing permanent. 

So I am going to spend the next several months trying to remind myself of this whenever I am dreading a run workout and upset that I am incredibly slow.  It doesn't happen overnight.  It didn't happen overnight the first time.  Although I certainly hope it takes a little less time because I don't have three years anymore.  It also blows my mind when I start to really think how old I am! 

In about an hour the pros are off and I'll be anxiously watching my friends and teammates racing and trying to convince myself that next year I will be back there with them.  There is a lot of work ahead of me to get there, but what else do I have to do? 

Goodbye, Marley

That is a picture of an adorable golden retriever puppy exhibiting some of his tireless energy.  It was taken ten years ago and up until a little over a week ago the same dog could usually be seen doing pretty much the exact same thing, except he was a lot bigger.  I don't have my own dog.  I haven't since my old childhood dog Shannon died while I was in my last semester of college, at the ripe old age of 13-and-a-half. 

My sister and my brother-in-law adopted Marley just a few months later.  They had just moved into a new house in New Hampshire from their suburban first-floor split level rental in Malden.  Jeff's parents never let him have a dog, and Katy grew up mostly having a dog in the house.  So they found a litter of puppies, picked out the one with the orange thing tied to his collar because he was the one who followed them around the most, and brought him home.  I used to "babysit" him when he was a puppy and before they even had kids for me to babysit for. 

They went to the effort to train him and for the most part he was an obedient and easy-to-live with dog.  I don't ever recall hearing of him chewing anything up.  They never gave him people food so he never expected it or tried to steal it off the table.  He never tried to run away because he just loved being around his people so much. 

His only bad habit was that he went absolutely bonkers anytime anyone new showed up at the house.  Now, he didn't bark or jump up on people, he'd just run up to you and sort of spin around in circles, step on your feet a couple of times and maybe eventually sit on your feet and pretty much convulse because he was just so happy to see you.  Most of us had adapted our own version of the Marley defense stance to prepare for his imminent, ecstatic greeting.  Except of course if his "dad" was home, in which case he would do his best to pretend he wasn't going to launch himself at your feet but you could tell it was taking every ounce of his control to remain somewhat calm. 

In spite of his craziness he usually wasn't completely out of control.  This is his baby sister, Moira, when Marley was only about a year and a half old.  To be fair, once the kids got older he'd been known to accidentally knock them over in a fit of running in circles all over the house in the excitement of a new visitor.  We all thought that once he got older he might calm down a little.  He never did.  If anything I swear two weeks ago when I went to watch my nephew and Marley came to meet me at the door he was even more crazy than usual.  He did always eventually calm down though so you could visit in peace, it was just the initial greeting.

In fact, about three weeks ago we were at the lake house and my brother had had some friends stay over after a nearby wedding, and when Marley arrived with my sister and there were six new people in the kitchen he was just running all over the place and sliding all over the wood floor, so excited and undecided as to which person he wanted to say hi to first since he was so overwhelmed. 

When Marley was about three, we became neighbors, so I got to see him a lot.  It was great, having lots of the benefits of having a dog without all of the responsibilities of having a dog.  I'd see him outside when I ran by and of course he was there every time I visited them.  He would also sometimes sleep over if his family was going away for a night or two. 

He was a lot of fun when they brought him to the lake when all of us were there.  He learned to love jumping off the dock into the water, which he would only do really if someone else was in there and he seemed to think they needed "saving."  Except one time he went up in November and jumped off the dock in his excitement and I'm assuming the shock of that one meant he wanted to see a human enjoying the water first to make sure it was warm enough.  Just last month I was outside with Marley and my niece and nephew watching them blow bubbles and watching Marley put in extensive effort to try and 'catch' every single one. 

He even went on the boat and enjoyed standing up front and catching the wind in his face.  That all ended when my dad bought the Chris Craft in 2006 and Dad was not that interested in having a dog in his nice, new boat (to be fair, the first week we had it Dad promptly spilled a huge cup of coffee all over the rug) but he still loved the lake. 

He loved to eat snow being shoveled, too.  I guess he did have one other flaw, and that was he was awful on a leash.  I mean, you could go almost anywhere with him and he'd stay right by your side, but if you put a leash on him all he wanted to do was pull you around.  To demonstrate this, last year when I picked him up to watch him Timberman weekend my sister told me to just look at him there in front of us, not going anywhere, perfectly content.  She clipped the leash to his collar and immediately started pulling her to the end of the driveway.  It's like he assumed having the leash on Timberman expo that afternoon on my way to the lake house.  My arms were sore the next day from reining him in. 

He had a gentle leader, which any other dog owners probably know is a leash that actually attaches to the dogs' snout.  It looks sort of like a muzzle, so once or twice when I brought him hiking with me and would pass people coming in the other direction they would assume he was vicious and it was keeping him from biting.  I don't think Marley ever bit anyone.  But at least he couldn't pull the leash too hard. 

As Marley got older, his fur got whiter and he looked a lot older but we always talked about how he just wouldn't slow down.  He was still as excited as a puppy and never had any physical problems.  So last week when my sister mentioned he hadn't been eating and wasn't feeling well I didn't think that much of it.  I was going to ride with Katy and Jeff to this open house thing at my brother's office last week so I went to their house to meet them and my mom was going to watch the kids. 

Upon my arrival, Marley did not immediately rush up to greet me at the door.  Katy and Jeff were still upstairs so I thought maybe he was up there with them.  Then I saw Moira in the kitchen and walked in to see Marley lying on the floor in the doorway to the next room, barely lifting his head to see what was going on.  Immediately I knew there was something drastically wrong with him.  He eventually decided to stand up and come see me and my mom, who might have been standing three feet from him and he had a terrible time standing, an even worse time walking to us, and his feet were slipping out from underneath him as he struggled just to sit at our feet.  He all-but collapsed. 

My sister came downstairs and said he had gotten dramatically worse just since that morning and it was decided that he would go to the vet that night.  I didn't think he'd make it until morning if he didn't see someone right away, although looking at him even then I figured this was probably it.  It was about 5:15 and he got an appointment at 7 so we went to the open house and my mom was going to take him in and we'd meet her there.  It took a minute or so to drag Marley to his feet so he'd go outside to pee, which he finally did and it was basically rust-colored which also of course did not seem to be a good sign.

When we arrived the kids were sitting in the waiting area and I sat with them while Katy and Jeff went in to my mom and Marley.  They had no idea what was going on and they asked me really important questions like, "Was Indiana Jones based on a true story?"  And, "Do you think anyone has ever built a real lightsaber?"  The minutes ticked by and I pretty much knew once again that this was probably it. 

Then my mom came around the corner with tears in her eyes and said, "Do you want to come say goodbye to your dog?"  Moira, who is 9, couldn't believe it.  Conor, who is 5, really had no idea what was going on and actually provided some much needed comic relief by blurting out random, funny things to ease the tension during this difficult moment.  My sister mentioned something about him going to sleep and Conor said, "He's gonna sleep here?"  And my mom said, "No, he's going to heaven with Papa."  

Marley was still just lying on the floor looking so sad and in pain.  He was almost like a zombie, not really that interested in being petted, not wagging his tail at the attention.  I never had to say goodbye to a dog before.  I petted him and then Moira came down to pet him and then Conor blurted out, "What, just pets and no huggies?"  So Moira gave him a hug and then Conor got down on the floor and gave him a hug, still really not showing any sign of knowing what was really going on and then me and Mom took the kids home while Katy and Jeff stayed with Marley in his final moments. 

Apparently he had liver failure.  Possibly he had cancer and a tumor that caused it, but it doesn't really matter.  It was amazing how quick that happened.  Like I said, less than a week earlier I'd been there and Marley was his usual, jubilant self.  Flipping out when I got there and making it very difficult for me and Conor to play Operation when he went to lie down on top of the game board.  He ran up the stairs when we went up there, ran down when I was leaving.  I suppose it's good that he didn't suffer long, and it wasn't one of those on the fence thing where you're not really sure if he still has some quality of life left, but still, it was an amazing shock.  We all expected to see him start limping around a bit in his old age before something like this happened. 

So Marley is gone and almost the minute we left the vet and weren't even in the car yet Moira asked, "Can we get a puppy?"  No word yet on any decisions there.  Probably a bit too early to jump into things.  It was so strange though to go over there for dinner the next night and not have Marley come rushing to greet me at the door.  Although for once I didn't have to contemplate which clothes to wear over there that I would not mind getting covered in dog hair and/or possible dog drool.  He was a great dog and we'll all miss him a lot. 

How cute is that puppy?  Anyway, I know this blog has become a serious downer.  Training starts officially next week and hopefully I'll have other things to write about that are more in the spirit of why I started writing this in the first place.  It's a long way to Ironman Texas and we can probably think of the next seven and a half months as my last chance workout.  Almost time to get serious!  Although I will say that this morning when it was pouring rain and dark and there was even a thunderstorm going on I did not so much mind not having a workout that I absolutely needed to get done. 

A Fresh Start... Again.

It is crazy to me to think back and realize that it has been five years since I had my best season, and how badly I squandered things after that.  Sure, it wasn't entirely terrible, but I brought personal worsts to a whole new level over the past two years.  The worst part?  It is entirely my fault.  I really can't blame anyone else.  And as hard as it is to admit it, much of my demise was probably preventable.

Sure, there have been a few injuries and those are really going to happen no matter what.  But it's how badly I let them get to me that made them effect me that much worse.  My first major issue in 2008 had me out of running for six weeks but I let it completely destroy me mentally and even somewhat physically and the repercussions lasted far longer than that initial period of not running.

For a very long time, I was the person who would never miss a training session.  I'd get up at crazy hours to run 20 miles before work, spend most of every Saturday on my bike, get on the trainer at 3:30 in the morning to get a ride in before getting on a plane, plot out what I was going to eat day after day.  I didn't make any excuses because I wouldn't have accepted them as legitimate.  And you know what?  My performances were the result of this dedication.  I'll admit that I was completely surprised by a lot of the things I had suddenly become capable of doing, because in a way it sort of seemed "easy" to me.  Just do the training like you're supposed to, sleep and eat well, have a great race.  It's really not that complicated and there isn't some magical quality that fast people possess aside from unwavering determination.

After I had my breakthrough year, I think I got a little scared.  How could I top that?  It was so far beyond anything I had even dreamed of accomplishing.  "Winning" Lake Placid, seventh in my age group in Kona, riding away from the field like biking was the easiest thing in the world and even somehow managing to run well.  I decided right away that there was no way I could top it.  So I started training and racing that way.  Well, I can't do any better, so I don't really have to try as hard, right?  The decline was very slow, but it was certainly there.

Aside from my injury, I still did the training, but I stopped taking care of myself otherwise.  Weight started to pile back on which made me feel like more of a failure after having worked so hard to shed the years' worth of evidence of my teenage addiction to Doritos and Pepsi.  I didn't take action, I simply gave up.  And like I said, the race performances showed it.  I remember how I used to show up at race start lines feeling like I'd done absolutely everything that could be done to have the best race possible.  Suddenly every single race I showed up at had me feeling like a kid who forgot to study for a final.  There's nothing you can do at that point but fake your way through it and accept the inevitable of your failure to prepare adequately.  Sure, I could still finish races, but I didn't get into this just to cross finish lines.  If I did, I certainly wouldn't train so much.

So we all know that earlier this season I had to drop out of Mooseman because my foot was bothering me.  My foot had been bothering me since at least Mother's Day, but it didn't really hurt enough for me to think much of it so I just altered my run stride a bit.  Then I found out it was broken.  I was pretty much out for the summer.  Oh, and out at least $1000 worth of race entry fees that might as well have been flushed down the toilet.

A lot of other years this sort of news would have been devastating to me.  I cried when I found out I had a stress fracture just two weeks before Kona in 2009.  I cried on the run I was on in 2008 when my back brought me to a screeching halt.  This time, instead of getting upset about it, I decided to treat it like a good thing.  First, it would keep me from having what I knew were going to be a series of disappointing races over the summer.  I just wasn't in a position to do well.  Second, it gave me a reason to stop training for a while.  And I mean really stop.  Not the couple-week break at the end of the season, not a break from running but continuing to swim and bike like crazy, but to just completely and totally stop.  Sure, I swam and rode here and there, but there was no set schedule.  I did what I wanted when I felt like it.  I slept in pretty much every day and stayed up past 10 on a regular basis.  I participated in family events without going home early because I had to train early the next morning.  I only had to do about 25% of my normal laundry amounts.  I didn't have pressure on myself about coming back as soon as possible.

do have time and as long as I do all of the little things I'm supposed to do, I can be back on track.  Ironman Texas is eight months away.  That is a pretty long time.  But the work does need to start.

So let's just pretend that I didn't squander the last two years and maybe just train like there's no way I can fail.  I've got friends I used to train with that I haven't been able to because I got way too slow, and it'd be nice to be able to train with them again.  I'm hoping to spend the next month slowly getting back on track, still without a schedule and still without running because I'm not there yet.  But biking, swimming, lifting, elliptical, just generally starting to get into a regular routine again.  Then hopefully I'll talk to my incredibly patient coach, Jesse Kropelnicki, and we can pick an official start date.  Three years ago he brought me back from the dead.  I dug myself a similar hole this time, and hopefully we will both be able to bring me back again.

So here's to hoping that my blog will now turn back into updates on my training and how things are going well.  Oh, but if only my Garmin 310XT didn't shatter last weekend after falling off my wrist during the race :(

One Year Later

I apologize for the lack of updates.  I promise once my entire life gets back to normal (which I'm hoping will be very soon) I will put blogging back on track.  But for now, sitting around and not training and staring at my booted left foot doesn't make for interesting blogging.

All right, instead of working chronologically, I'll start off with the fact that somehow today is one year after my dad died.  I haven't seen or talked to him in a year.  It seems unbelievable both that it has been that long and even still that it happened at all.  It still feels like some sort of horrible dream that I've yet to wake up from.  The only problem is that for the past 365 days I've awakened to the reality of not having my father with us anymore.

While the year was not without a few bright spots, it's probably safe to say that it was the worst year ever.  I've been told that the first year is the hardest and I am sincerely hoping that is the case.  This past Saturday night, after dinner my mother, brother, sister and I took the boat out and spread some of Dad's ashes over the lake.  We didn't go far, Mom told me to stop a ways out but just make sure that he could still see the house.  Afterward we spent about an hour just talking, just the four of us.

While the circumstances surrounding that evening were obviously horrible, it's probably pretty rare that any family, even one as close as ours, takes the opportunity to just sit and talk for a while, just those of you who grew up under the same roof.  We all felt pretty much the same.  We've all been pretty well checked out for the past year.  So I apologize to anyone who I may have alienated in any way or just not seemed like myself, I just found it difficult to muster up enthusiasm for much of anything.  And everyone else who was on that boat with me that night felt the same way.  We're hoping that it can bring some form of closure and the beginning of what can maybe be a much better year.  It seems unfair that all that we can really do is move on, but that's just the way it goes.

My mother has been amazing through all of this.  As much as I know it hurts me to miss Dad there is the added knowledge that Mom doesn't have him anymore.  You often hear how marriage is work, but my parents made it look like the easiest thing in the world.  A chance meeting at a bar in Boston turned into a relationship that spanned over forty years without any significant road blocks.  Obviously they loved each other, but they also just genuinely liked each other and enjoyed spending time together and just talking.  I even said to my mother on the boat that the two of them set an impossible standard for marriage and my unmarried brother agreed.  How do you replicate something like that?

Mom reaffirmed that everything I perceived about them was true, and that is a good thing.  She also told us how proud he was of all of us, even though when she first married him he apparently took a bit of convincing on having kids at all.  Hard to believe that someone who was such a great dad wasn't really that interested in the job in the first place.  It was a nice evening and thanks to our house guests who let us abandon them for a bit and even cleaned up after dinner.

I had feared the summer as a whole was going to be awful, given that that was where Dad really thrived, driving the boat, riding his bike, golfing, just enjoying life in general.  I inherited the job of boat driver and did my best at trying to get my brother and sister competent at navigating the lake and which side of the buoys to drive on so as not to destroy the propeller on some rocks.  I got to drag the kids behind the boat on the tube and saw why Dad always seemed to have so much fun seeking out waves and trying to send the kids flying.

So to be fair, we did have some fun this summer, though there was no denying there was something missing.  It wasn't really until the last couple of weeks of August that I really started thinking about it.  Mostly that that time last year everything was totally fine and I had no idea that everything was going to change and I'd never see my father again.  We talked about him often, though, mostly the good memories.

Labor Day weekend was especially difficult although we purposely involved some major distractions.  We had quite a few visitors up on Saturday, and in spite of me still being relegated to the boot, I decided to do a triathlon on Sunday morning.  You see, last year the Circle Triathlon, the race just down the road from the lake house, was the last race that Dad saw me do before he went out that afternoon on what turned out to be his last bike ride.  He never went out in the afternoon, but he came to my race instead of riding, putting that off until later.  He zipped up my wetsuit before I got in the water and cheered me on even though I was terribly slow and it capped off a dismal tri season from a performance standpoint.

The nice thing was that this time there was no pressure to perform.  I'd been riding for two weeks after having two months off along with swimming a bit.  I really only had to make it through the first two parts before I walked the last portion.  Most unfortunate was that my Garmin fell off my wrist at the very end of the bike, the strap separating itself from the watch itself, and the screen is now shattered from being run over.  Also racing was my cousin Jeff, the other Zahr triathlete, although he hasn't done a whole lot of races.  Of course it would've been fun to have beaten him even with the boot but I couldn't pad my lead enough with the swim and bike and he passed me on the run.  Next year, Jeff.

I got a lot of funny looks but probably more cheering and encouragement on the run as I walked along in the boot.  It was 2.7 miles, not exactly an incredibly long way to go, though the boot did leave me some nice blisters.  I will say it was a lot easier than walking the entire second half of the marathon at Ironman Utah last year.  I crossed the line way behind where I normally would have, and while most of my family was there to witness it, it was certainly obvious that there was something missing.  And that afternoon as time moved on, I would think about how at noon last year after the race things were still fine.  Everyone went home and I was just watching TV before my mom came upstairs to get me at 3:15, crying.  It is just still so amazing to me that things can change so fast.

The rest of the week has been something like that, too.  Thinking back to last year and spending every day in the hospital just wondering what might happen.  I'll admit that from the beginning I had held some sense of optimism that at some point Dad would wake up and we'd have him back, even if it would take a lot of rehab to make him so that he could ride his bike again.  Mom knew from the beginning.  While today is the day that his heart stopped beating for good, she still considers September 5th to be the day he died.

I sometimes think about how if this were a movie, that death would've just seemed totally unnecessary.  We didn't need to lose someone to bring our family closer together.  We didn't need for him to die in order to realize how amazing he was or how much we should've appreciated him.  But unfortunately in life sometimes stuff like that just happens.  And I will say that as much as I hate what happened, since then I've certainly heard of worse tragedies.  Young fathers, kids, mothers, daughters, whatever.  As unfair as I feel it is, I do know that things could've been a lot worse and I'm incredibly grateful for the time that I did get to spend with him.  I just wish it could've been longer.

So now begins a new year.  Each one will hopefully get a bit better although I doubt there will ever be a time in which I'll be able to think of him and not wish he was still here with us.  Whether it be any major life events or just watching the first Patriots game of the season.  Working the grill on a random Saturday night, driving the boat while I fall asleep in the front, taking me skiing and of course being there at the finish line of my races.  I do hope that I can cross a few more finish lines in the future knowing how happy he would've been to see me do so well.  I don't think I will ever lose the vivid memory of how excited he was when I was leading and then crossed the finish line as the first female in Lake Placid.

As an abrupt segue I will now mention that as of Tuesday's x-ray I am finally boot-free.  There is still a fine line in the x-ray and I've not yet been given clearance to run, but I can wear matching shoes, I can bike, swim, lift, walk, even elliptical.  I'll be honest and say that while it was frustrating to basically miss an entire season, it was probably a good time for it to happen.  I think I needed the break in more ways than one.  It took me a little longer than I thought it would to really want to train again, and I think I'm finally there.  I also got to spend much of last week with my best friends from college who I never get to see anymore thanks to a wedding, and not being able to train gave me an excuse to not miss time with them for training and wearing the boot to the reception gave me a solid excuse not to show off my complete lack of dance skills.

So this is it.  A year later, a lot of changes and a lot of unfortunate firsts.  But I'd just once again like to say that I've got an incredible family and I know we don't say it really, because we know anyway, but I love you guys.  As great as my dad was my mom is equally amazing and we are handling it as well as we are because of her.  My aunts, uncles, cousins, everyone has been great.  And thanks to my friends, some of whom came out of the woodwork after not having seen me for years.  Every note, card, bunch of flowers, bit of food, visit, hug, phone call, e-mail, comment and even facebook "like" meant a lot to me.  Losing Dad sucks either way, but it certainly makes a difference knowing I/we have so much support.  So just know that it is greatly appreciated.

We still miss you terribly, Dad.  Even though sometimes it feels like we just saw you yesterday.  While I know we can't have you back, we can at least try and continue to make you proud.

Day Sixty-Three of My Captivity...

It's been two months since Mooseman, when I ran three miles of the course before deciding that whatever was wrong with my foot could no longer be ignored.  It was another two weeks before I got an x-ray to confirm the fracture but I haven't run since I stopped at the medical tent just past mile three.  I'll be honest and say that I probably needed a break.  From the beginning of this I've tried to look at it from the perspective of me having been training hard since 2002 without ever taking a real break.  And I mean more than a couple of weeks.  So maybe this was just what I needed to be completely mentally and physically refreshed.  Admittedly I took a pretty significant break last fall, too, but the circumstances surrounding it didn't really make it feel like the refresher that I probably needed. 

So I've been doing a whole lot of not training.  The timing worked out that there have been some family events that might not have otherwise been enjoyed as much by me due to having to go to bed early to get up and train the next morning or being exhausted from another seven-hour workout day.  Also, for a while it was an exceptionally hot summer and I certainly didn't wish that I was out running when it was 98 degrees out.  Not to mention the fact that my laundry loads have diminished by approximately 300%. 

But, wow, am I ever sick of this!  I had another x-ray last week that showed that the bone had barely improved in the last three weeks.  I'd fully expected to be good to go by now.  And yet it continues.  You know, when your entire day is really built around whatever workouts you have to do it's like losing your identity when suddenly you can't really do anything.  The most annoying part is that it's one, stupid little bone that doesn't even really hurt that much.  And yet it has essentially ruined an entire season. 

So while not training all the time I instead have to get overly introspective and panicky about what the future holds when/if I finally do get to start training again.  I realized it has been two months since I last ran which is a new record for me since I started running regularly a little over ten years ago.  It took me five years from that starting point until I got to being a fairly decent runner for that very brief period of time in 2006.  I don't have another five years to wait, yet it feels as though I'm going to be starting from scratch again.  I get jealous now when I see people out running, though.  I don't even remember what it's like anymore to return from a run all tired and thirsty and sweaty. 

With the season pretty much shot I had one last race I wanted to do.  It's hardly anything, really.  A tiny sprint with no awards, mostly first-timers, one you can show up to like twenty minutes before the race and still be okay.  I can sleep in my own bed and ride my bike to it in less than fifteen minutes without breaking a sweat.  Old mountain bikes dusted off from the garage and baggy shorts are far more the norm than race wheels and aero helmets.  A quarter-mile swim, a twelve-mile bike and a two-and-a-half mile run and that's it. 

So why do I care?  It's not that it's easy and close by.  It's that it's the race my dad came to watch the morning before he went off and got into his bike accident.  He was there early and he zipped up my wetsuit for me before high-fiving me as I went off to get in the water.  He smiled at me anyway even though it capped off my worst ever triathlon season (until this one, I just keep on "improving"...)  We were even going to go to dinner that night to cap off Labor Day weekend.  It was my last real experience with him, although I did see him heading off on his ride later that afternoon.  So it makes me feel like I really need to do the race again.  Just recently the race organizers posted a bunch of pictures from last year on facebook and there was one of some spectators waiting for the bikes to come in.  And there was Dad, his eyes down the road, waiting longer than usual for me to come in. We can be pretty certain that that was the last picture ever taken of him.

It probably doesn't mean as much as I think it does, but I feel as though it might bring me some closure.  Sort of finish out the first, tough year after everything changed.  Now that it's August and we're closing in, I keep thinking back to the end of last summer, not knowing that those were the last few weeks I'd get to spend with my father.  I was quite lucky that I did spend that time at my parents' house on the lake. 

See, this is why I need to be out swimming, biking and running like crazy.  When I do that I'm far too tired to think about much of anything!