Life Is What Happens When You're Busy Making Other Plans

I am in Kona this week as part of 303Triathlon's media team covering the 2018 Ironman World Championship race. It's an incredible experience, and I feel lucky to be here on the big island for the single biggest day of the triathlon season. At the same time, being surrounded by triathletes at the peak of their elite fitness level feels like a slap in the face to my current pathetic existence of shuffling along at something kind of resembling a walk. I can't even get down stairs properly. I almost-not-jokingly want to wear a sign around my neck explaining that I'm three weeks post-bilateral bunion surgery, and really this is not who I normally am. More so, this is not who I was supposed to be this week - I was supposed to be in near peak Ironman-fitness myself. But apparently life had other plans.

As of May 2018, after an appropriately blunt evaluation of my semi-disappointing spring races, Coach and I were making plans. We were making A LOT of plans. We put a smattering of short races on my calendar over the summer to address run speed and to discover my inner bitch, a.k.a. my competitive drive. I'd already picked out a local 70.3 in September, and all of this was building to IM Cozumel in November, which I'd committed to way back in January. We had a Plan, and I am really happy when there's a Plan, so I was pretty darn excited.

I should've known better. It started mid-May with an achiness in my right big toe joint after a fairly brutal but not quite as successful 5k time trial. That quickly transitioned to some weird heel discomfort, which was too migratory and come-and-go to be assumed to be plantar fasciitis. So, like any good triathlete, I figured it was not such a big deal and I could run through it.


That lasted two weeks. I then spent about two months hopping from podiatrist to physical therapist to chiropractor, trying and failing to run without pain, and getting so aggravated that I spent every minute of every day on the verge of completely losing my shit. Finally in late July, upon visiting my second podiatrist and fourth medical professional of the summer, I got an actual diagnosis: bunion. So now I knew what I was dealing with, was told I could wait to have surgery till post-IMCoz (but not much longer than that), and with my chiro and Coach had developed a plan to get just barely, I mean BARELY, sufficiently run trained in time for the race.


That lasted a month. In late August, right before it all fell apart, I was on track with my "barely trained" run plan, my swim was as strong as it'd been in a while (thanks to bonus miles due to such low run volume), and my bike was stronger than literally ever (thanks to weekly - sometimes twice-weekly - ass-kickings on the trainer, courtesy of Coach and TrainerRoad). I had knocked out a 90-mile ride at record pace right before the bottom fell out.


So my 90-miler had been awesome speed-wise, but raised some concern about my bunion. Every time I started from a stop, just those two or three standing pedal strokes were enough to make the stupid joint scream at me. That was kinda worrisome. It made me think back to my "long" 3 and 4 mile runs and that the stupid joint was cranky after just a mile or two. I was worried. Worried that the stupid joint was not going to hold up under the stress of Ironman training, and that all the struggling through the summer and the weekly (sometimes twice-weekly) trainer ass-kickings and bonus swim miles would be for naught.


That weekend the final piece of the puzzle that ended my plans landed in my lap. Some personal issues came up which required taking IMCoz off the calendar and moving up my bunion surgery to September. I was heartbroken. Sure, my run was likely going to suck ass, but my bike was so freaking strong and I wasn't going to get the chance to see what that meant on race day. And I was worried that I'd never, ever get that back. I was actually worried that somehow I'd never get the chance to race an Ironman again. I know it sounds nuts, but there was a lot of uncertainty about a lot of things, and I was terrified that I'd have to let that piece of my life go.


My feet, just a few hours after surgery. And yes,
that is a walker in the background.

Here I am now, three-ish weeks post-surgery, and I’m still pretty terrified that I’ll never get back what I had. I’ve been going to the gym, sitting next to the silver sneakers on the recumbent bikes, staring at a power number that I swear is mocking me. I’ve tried swimming, but when you can’t kick and you can’t push off the walls, it’s pretty fucking frustrating. At least I can do some strength training, but once you rule out squats, dead lifts, leg press, and lunges, lower body work is pretty limited.

At this point, I’m convinced I can literally sit and watch my muscles melting into fat. I’m entering my limited training into TrainingPeaks - I’ll take any credit I can get right now! - but watching that damn CTL curve drop is ruining me. I’m trying to guesstimate how much my FTP will have dropped by the time I’m allowed to ride my actual bike again. And I really, really don’t know if I’m ever going to get back to where I was.

Plus, it’s Kona week and I have an athlete toeing the line at his first Ironman in just a few days. All the talk of races and finish lines is somehow even more emotional than usual. The moment I conjure up the image of screaming throngs of spectators lining the finisher’s chute - any freaking Ironman finisher’s chute - I start to well up. I want that so fucking badly right now!

And that is how I know that I am going to fight like hell to get back to where I was. To get back to crushing a grueling masters swim set, hitting every damn send-off that I thought for sure was never going to happen. To get back to feeling like a badass on my bike, knocking down 80 and 90 and 100 mile rides like I own the road. To get back to running eight or ten miles without thinking twice about it, pushing myself to pull off a negative split and finishing the run depleted but proud as hell. To make sure that I cross another Ironman finish line.

Like I said in the post-workout comments for my last ride before surgery:

Fuck this shit.
When I come back, I am going to kick the shit out of this sport.