This race was a last minute decision, and even as I
registered, I wasn’t sure my body would be up for the task. The last race I did was the Odyssey SwimRun
in Austin in 2020, and I was signed up to do it again with my badass friends in
2021, but I unfortunately had to pull out due to injury. That race in 2020 was incredible, and I had so much
fun partnering up with my fierce friend Kris, who had done quite a few other
hardcore SwimRun events, so my goal for race day was to not be the weakest
link, haha! I loved the challenging
training my coach threw at me leading up to that day, and the challenging day
itself. Icing on the cake (pun intended,
that chocolate cake was amazeballs) was that I got to celebrate my birthday smashing
myself out on the race course with my besties.
Wish I had blogged that play by play, I love writing, it’s so cathartic,
just sometimes struggle to find the right words in certain seasons of
life. So alas, those words never hit the
pages, kept chasing that forward momentum, had some of the best virtual runs
I’ve had in years that spring (right at 2-hour half mary virtual, best post
THR!), until the non-operated hip decided it was time to speak up. And I knew what it was when it happened, of
course I had to get all the MRI/Xray information, but I was fairly positive
what the results would be. My surgeon
didn’t sugarcoat it, he never does, and I love him for that – just tell it to
me straight, don’t beat around the bush.
So labral tearing in the left hip, which in and of itself is not a huge
ordeal, many people have tearing and don’t even know it, but certainly more of
a tricky scenario in a dysplastic hip, and labrum repair would be off of the
table because of that. So it was a
summer of swim and bike training, and I was just hoping the sucker would wait
to rupture until after the cross country season was over. I had thrown my hat back in the coaching ring
the previous spring, I was super stoke about it, and I needed to be able to run
with the kiddos, to recon the courses at the meets, etc. I still ran in the fall short distances, but
it was painful, and would catch, so I’d have to stop, then start again, and
pretty much didn’t run farther than a few miles. When I went back for a follow up in November,
I was expecting to schedule a replacement for that hip fairly soon in the
future, I had no doubt the sucker would rupture on me soon. It’s why I pulled out of the SwimRun race in the summer,
didn’t want to get to that race in November, have the hip crap out on me, and
let my friend down. My surgeon told me
otherwise at my follow up. That
according to the latest films, the tearing was not any worse off than it was in
July. That we knew what the end result
would eventually be, but we could not predict when it would rupture. He went on to tell me that what happened to
my right was abnormal, certainly it was substantially more dysplastic than the
left, but they normally do not rupture like that (unless due to a traumatic
injury of some sort). So, in other
words, who knows when it will be. He
knows that I run on the operated hip and that I had been running on the injured
hip. He just smiled at me and told me to
come back in a year to see what things look like then, or if something
substantial happens, then of course come back sooner. It took me a little while to process this new
information, like, how should I approach this thing? Of course, the cautious side of me was
chastising me in her sternest voice possible that bike and swim training only
should be the new order of the day, to preserve the non-operated hip as long as
possible. But the gritty athlete in me,
the one who has been chasing goals and smashing herself for 3+ decades was
screaming at the top of her lungs “Let’s
fucking gooooooo!” So I listened to
the latter me, and got back to work. And
those early “longer” runs were so painful, lots of
stopping-walking-cussing-fighting myself to get through runs. By early January at the triathlon club
meeting the idea of Galveston was being kicked around, and that was that. I had made my decision. I refused to sit around and wait for things
to happen, I’ve spent plenty of time in limbo this past decade (non-hip
related, another blog post hopefully one day), forward momentum it will always
be. I refused to be afraid of what my
body might not be able to do one day and instead relished in the challenge of
seeing what it could do right now, and I am always in awe of how amazing the
body is, how it seems to rise to the challenge again and again and again.
THE SWIM
So while I’d much rather be swimming around Key West, or
another 5K, the swim will always be my favorite, even in the shorter
distances. Swimming was the jumping off
point for everything else, where I first learned about myself as an athlete all
of those decades ago. Setting goals at
just nine years old, I was driven at a young age, and am grateful for what
drive and passion have taught me, what they still teach me today. It brings me such joy watching my mini-me
find her niche in sports and I hope she will continue to chase what she is passionate
about later in life with the voracity that she chases it today. I loved that her and hubs were out there
cheering me on at this one, that she got to see me in the struggle and in the
joy, as I chased down my goals out there.
Since the fam accompanied me, I was a little later getting to
transition, but still managed to get all of that situated just fine, but I was
having to haul ass to the beginning of the swim line. Since we now can seed ourselves, I like to be
right at the 30 min mark since my goal is always to be right at 30 or
under. Unfortunately, I didn’t quite
make it there, was at like the 32-35 mark, but that was just fine. I also chose to go sans wetsuit, because I
hate wetsuits and if I can withstand the water temp, I’d rather go without. Water was a beautiful 70 degrees that
morning, which was perfect. Pretty much
everyone else wore wetsuits, saw a couple of guys without them, but mostly it
was a sea of wetsuits around me. When it
was time to jump off of the dock I hit the water ready to move! It was chilly upon entry, but my core heats
up so quickly the water was perfection to swim in. Fortunately, my sighting was better for this
1.2 than it was for the 5K last September (hahahaha!). I stayed right along the buoy line for the
majority of the race, veered off a couple of times, but mostly on course. There was, however, quite a bit of contact in
this swim, so lots of kicks to the ribs, being swum over, etc. Not a crisis, I am comfortable enough in the
water to be dunked, but it does really mess with your rhythm. So I was much slower in parts than others,
and pretty sure I was not going to even be right at 30 min mark. Kept pushing hard right up to the swim exit,
hopped out, watch read 32 min, which I was pumped about! All smiles as I ran up the hill towards
transition. Hubs caught one of my
favorite shots as I was coming out of the swim, lava berry and sunrise are my
all-time favorite kits (lots of symbolism for me with both of them) so I was
super stoked to be rocking the lava berry aero suit for the race, love it so
much!!!! Struggled with my bike shoes a
bit in T1 so transition not as fast as I was hoping but tried to get out of
there as quickly as I could! On to the
beautiful bike!
SWIM = 31:49
T1 = 6:09
BIKE
We were blessed with beautiful weather out there that day,
four years ago when I did this race, the cold front came through and the bike
was COLD! However, no matter what the
weather brings, we did know that we could count on some big winds on the bike,
and this time was no exception. Nice
tailwind on the 28 miles going out, nice headwind on the 28 miles going
back. I also knew that my bike training
had not been where it was four years ago when I did this race (I PRed that
bike, 2:59!), that my longest ride outside had just been under 40 miles. Combo of registering later instead of already
having the race on the docket, and some other life stuff that just pops up as
it often does. So the overall bike
mileage in general had not been where it should have been, although I did put
quite a few bike mile deposits in the bank in the summer, so I would be pulling
from that as well. Coach Hillary had
given me some specific instructions to follow on the bike and the run so that we
would have a great day out there, so my plan was to stay within those
parameters. On the way out it was so
much fun (as a tailwind often is, hahaha!) - I stayed controlled, didn’t push
too hard, stayed on top of my nutrition, and generally just enjoyed the ride. I was flying, and felt pretty good about
myself at the turnaround, then came back to reality, lol! I could not get off of that island fast
enough! The bridge back over to the
mainland was literally THE WORST. I
watched my numbers continue to dip, and was like good lord, I’ll be lucky to
make this bike in 3:30 at this rate! I
pushed hard on the way back, had to stop briefly a couple of times for a few
seconds along the way just to get my head back in the game. I figured by the time I got to the run after
the bike my legs were going to be toasty toast toast, but had to make it back
first. And I was deep in that pain cave
on the way back. I’ve always been an
athlete who understands that you train how you want to race, and that’s how
I’ve coached my own athletes over the years.
So average bike training means serious suffering in the headwinds, but
my decades of experience as an athlete also has taught me how to be mentally
tough, that I could in this case “gut it out”.
It wouldn’t be pretty, my legs would be trashed, and I certainly would
not be as fast as I would have liked to be, but I could, and would, get it
done. So I kept turning the legs over,
clicking off the miles, and was overjoyed when I saw we were going to be making
the left hand turn heading back towards Moody Gardens. Four years ago I was sad to see this turn
because I was flying on the straightaway and knew that it would slow me
down. Not sure if the winds weren’t as
bad then or I was just in better bike shape – I’m guessing the latter, hahaha! Such a reprieve to get the crosswinds, but
then on the final stretch we had to turn right back into the headwinds,
noooooooo! I swear I was going like
14mph down that stretch, that’s all my legs could do at that point. Finally hit the turn to cruise on into
transition, and I was so super stoked to get off of the bike at that
point. I was hoping for a faster T2
transition but no dice. On the bike, my
aero suit started chafing me really bad (apply body glide before, rookie
mistake! Argh!), so I needed to apply that pronto before heading out for the
run. I slathered myself in Aquaphor, hit
the porta potty, then finally headed out for the run! 2 down, 1 to go!
BIKE = 3:07:09
T2 = 8:00
RUN
So this would be the true test. And although I built up to about 10 miles for
my long run, these runs weren’t without pain in that hip, and sometimes the hip
would be so snarky I would have to pull the plug or call the run
altogether. I appreciated so much that
Coach Hillary always reiterated to me after these disappointing runs that it
was part of the process, to just see how the next one goes. And sure enough, as I put more miles under my
belt, I would have more relatively “pain-free” runs. I say that in quotes, because there was
usually always some pain at the start or finish, but those that didn’t force me
to stop or slow down my pace were considered “pain-free”. I was actually feeling more confident about
the half-marathon as it got closer to race day.
As I headed out on that race course, even on trashed legs, I felt
good! As per discussed with coach, I
didn’t even look at my pace those first few miles, I just enjoyed the energy on
the course, and kept my eyes out for my people.
This course is super spectator friendly, so I was sure that I would see
them multiple times throughout the run. Beautiful
weather, the best energy, hips weren’t snarky yet – I was feeling all kinds of
grateful to be out there running on that course when just a few months prior
there wasn’t a running goal in sight. So
this course is 3 loops through the Moody Gardens Park, as I headed through the
first loop, I was surprised that I hadn’t seen the fam yet. They had plenty of time to get back after the
swim, and this course was super easy to post up at a place and see your people
all day long. As I continued along loop
2, this uneasy feeling crept in, and if any of you ever have any kind of
anxiety, you probably already can guess what is coming. If you know you know – and I did not know
most of my life what that kind of anxiety looked like until the past decade or
so. I had just passed mile 5, was
clicking along just fine, but was so anxious that I hadn’t seen my family
yet. Of course they were there. They had been there. Hubs had so many pictures just from the run
course. But in that moment I did not
know that, and was overwhelmed by that anxiety feeling. I ran up on aid station #2
and just lost it. I melted down right
there sobbing that I couldn’t find my family, and could I borrow a phone so
that I could call them? And can I just
tell you, the volunteers at these races are literally THE BEST. Like hands down, would give their shirts off
their backs, would run that last mile for you if they could. The one in transition in 2018 took off my
bike shoes and put on my run shoes since I lost all feeling in my fingers on
that cold bike ride. A godsend. I cannot put into words what these strangers
meant to me in that moment, these ladies immediately grabbed their phones and
kept saying “we got you”. One couldn’t
get hers to turn on since it got too hot, the other got hers working and I
accidentally gave them my own number first (whoops!) then finally gave them
hubs number. He picked up after the
second ring, and later said he almost didn’t pick up but then seeing it was a
Houston number thought it might be medical so he
answered. Me sobbing into the phone
probably didn’t help things but once I asked where they were and I couldn’t
find them, he immediately knew what was up.
And was like we just saw you, and got so many pictures! I could hear
munchkin in the back ground yell we just saw you mom! I laughed through my
tears and told them I loved them. Then
handed the phone back to the volunteers and thanked them so much. Literally, THE BEST. As I headed away from the aid station I
refused to berate myself for the next 8 miles, and instead gave myself
grace in that moment. Found my rhythm again, and not
long after ran into my friend Dawn, whom at the triathlon club meeting in
January we had been the ones to be like “Are you doing Galveston? I don’t know,
are you? Let’s do it!” I shared my
meltdown story with her, we talked about the gnarly bike, and how grateful we
were for the beautiful weather! She headed on out in front, and I got back into my
groove, and saw the fam as I headed back around the second loop. I was on the other side so I had planned to
stop briefly for hugs as I went back around again on the third loop. Honestly, looking back I wasn’t surprised
that I didn’t see them, and I shouldn’t have been. On a race run I can get into a flow state
where I can block most things out, like even if I scan the crowd, my brain
doesn’t actually register anything. I
can achieve that state in a pool in a challenging set, but harder to do out
where you have to be more aware, like an open water swim, or a bike ride, or
even just a training run. Even on the
bike in a race, we are still out with traffic, so it’s a necessity to still
keep your wits about you. But on the
closed run course where we were running the same 3 loops on mostly a closed
course I could get into that deep flow state just focusing on pushing myself and nothing else. Except for that tiny off-road
section in the sand and rocks, then I needed to make sure I wasn’t going to
roll an ankle, lol! So I was staring
down loop three, still feeling great even on the trashed legs, even after post
meltdown. Actually stopped to give hugs
and kisses and high fives to the fam on this loop. Then it was time to finish it. 3 more miles, I got this. In previous half ironmans I’ve always gone
out pretty fast, and struggle to hang on until the end – the exception was
Longhorn 2012 where I descended each of the 3 loops and that one is still my
fastest run off of the bike in 2:03. But
this run was just as well executed, and those last 2 miles I was able to push
pretty hard, and pass people along the way.
It’s usually the other way around, people are passing me. My last mile was my second fastest mile in my
half marathon that day, I felt like I was flying! I felt so strong out there, and as I ran hard
into the finish, I felt nothing but gratitude for finishing #9! Not a PR but to be within 10 minutes of my PR
(that I got on this course 4 years ago!) I was ecstatic! The fam was right there, and munchkin of
course was fascinated by the medal, and got a few of her own at her gymnastics
competition not too long ago. She said
she was so proud of me, and I couldn’t have kept the tears from flowing if I
tried. She asked if I was excited about
the medal, and I said that the medal itself is fun, but what it represents
means even more. She doesn’t quite get
that yet, lol, to her it’s a pretty medal!
But one day, I hope that she understands that it’s always about the
journey. The process. What you learn along the way. I hope I always make her proud. She inspires me always. As do all my kiddos. It’s hard to put into words how much they
have impacted me over the years, those I have taught/coached. Many of them are grown up now, with families
of their own, out there kicking ass and taking names out in this world. I am a better human being because of
them. It is this journey as a whole that
will mold us into who we are meant to be if we let it. Lean into it all.
RUN = 2:13:10
TOTAL = 6:06:15
