Cool Summer Mornings #4 International Triathlon

Wow, those emotions when I saw that I made the podium for my Age Group. We had excitement, relief, surprise, pain, confidence, pride, just to name a few.

This year is not at all how I had imagined things would be going. I thought my training was going to be steady training throughout the year, but life (and some other people), unfortunately, had other plans. My insurance decided not to cover my medication at the correct dose, wanting to remove it to force me to "prove" that it was required. This caused 10 cm of GI inflammation to get them their "proof" (apparently the treating doctor's order, notes, expertise, knowledge of my care, etc., weren't enough somehow).

Once that fight was done, and the medication was finally covered, it ended up failing completely. That's a risk they knowingly took with my life by not covering the medication appropriately in the first place. It never worked again. I was incredibly sick and facing a potential colon removal. I couldn't leave my house. I could barely walk my dogs and often had to call a pet sitter for assistance. I couldn't buy groceries. I couldn't even clean my house or mow my lawn and finally had to hire help once it got bad enough that I was having asthma attacks from it.

The lack of appropriate IBD treatment also had the lovely side effect of worsening the Complex Regional Pain Syndrome in my foot. What are the two things that are high risk for CRPS? Stress and inactivity. Well, I was under an incredible amount of stress because my body was now failing, I couldn't get my medication and my life was at risk, and now I could barely move. The CRPS pain became horrifically unbearable and even started spreading for the first time, going up to my knee. It's frightening because spreading means it could have disastrous effects and become completely unmanageable. I had to start going to physical therapy on top of everything else for nerve desensitization treatment (it's about as much fun as it sounds) to retrain the nervous system to not be in pain inappropriately.

Finally a solution! A new medication, Rinvoq, by Abbvie, hit the market! My insurance denied it. Thankfully, though, Abbvie is now covering the medication through their patient assistance program and they have literally saved my life (and my colon!). I started improving almost immediately. It was almost like a switch. I figured with Ironman California already deferred at this point, I might as well tri and see what I can do!

And that brings us to Cool Summer Mornings #4 International Distance! I signed up with my new tri club, G3 in Gainesville and started meeting lots of new friends. Mark and Kevin raced the sprint! It's great having race teammates! Race week was a rough week. I had been having night sweats and then started having aches and insomnia. I finally realized that these are symptoms of withdrawal. I was finally getting better and not needing as much nausea medication in order to eat anymore. Even when you think you're safe, something can sneak up on you! At least this one was am easy fix- just ride it out and be fine, but it was rough.

The two days leading up to the race, a dog emergency! No sleep the night before (don't worry, she'll be fine!!). I left my house at 4:00 AM to get parking and race day had begun! I can't believe I went down there and strained me knee during my warm up! How on earth did I manage that?? aah. I really had to make a hard decision. This was not an important race. How bad was this? How much of this was just nerve pain? I was not going to sacrifice competing today and risk my Ironman. That would be a stupid decision no matter what. I had to see how it felt walking it off and in the water. The first few steps were terrible, but it seemed to loosen up okay, so I was going to tentatively do it with the decision to drop out at the first sign of trouble.

5,4,3,2,1, Goooo and with that we were dashing into the water to start! This was one of the most violently packed swims I've had since Ironman 😂 and it wasn't even THAT crowded! I started mid-pack because, let's face it, I'm not at top race form right now and I'm being realistic here, and this one chick in a USA suit kept trying to swim on top of me from behind the entire first two buoys! At one point it even sounded as if she actually yelled at me to get out of the way (kind of hard to hear out there, but it really sounded like that). Ummm, you aren't actually allowed to drown people in this sport? And if you are coming up from behind in every single sport in existence, you have the duty to go around. Like, what? I was joking about this later and it was pointed out that women are more vicious in this compared to men. I don't know why, but like, come on. We all got out of there alive haha and I guess this just goes to show how important open water swim practices with your buddies really are for these things! Make sure you throw some fists in there to get ready for the real deal (just kidding 😂😂).

The bike time: oh, man this was such a lonely bike. Once I got to the second loop of the course, I was feeling pretty defeated out there. The first loop wasn't bad. We had a lot of people from the sprint catching up to the Olympic race, so there were plenty of people out there. When I got to the second loop, though, it seemed deserted. I thought I was the last one out on the course and was wondering where everyone went. It was so hard mentally. I had a really hard time not thinking about the times that I used to be competing for top spots and now I'm out here struggling and about to be swept from the course. Where did everyone go??? Triathlon is a mental sport just as much as a physical sport, and, as you can tell, the brain likes to wander. It's hard to get these thoughts out and back on track. I really had to get my mind focused on the finish line and kept thinking about the finish lines ahead. Visualize: International, Augusta 70.3, Sacramento 140.6 finish line. Finish line. Keep going.

Back to transition and on the run! People! I found the people! I wasn't last after all! just keep going. Nice and steady. I had a pretty good first 3.1 miles, but it was a really weird weather day. The morning was really cool (to the point that I had worn sweats for the first time that year). By the time the run came around, though, the humidity just hit differently compared to how it had been lately. 🥵 As I was making my toward the turnaround to the second lap, I could see the guy in front of me about to pass out. It was terrifying. Luckily it was in front of an aid station and they could see it coming on, too, so the amazing volunteers were able to get to him before he went down and help prevent him from falling. I really hope he was okay!!! When I rounded the the corner for the second lap, I was definitely on the struggle bus. I had just done 8 miles the weekend before, so I knew I was capable of running this distance, but I have to admit, I had to walk parts of this. That weather just snuck up on the day like that and the abdominal pain kicked in. I did some running/walking after mile 4 to the end and just had to listen to what my body could do the rest of the way, focusing on just forward motion. There's the finish!

I loaded up my car, preparing to go, but checked to see if they got the times worked out just before I left. I was in disbelief that I had made the podium in my age group. 2nd place AG finish.

"I used to be able to run 40 minutes faster than that." BF, "But you almost died and then came back and got 2nd." We all need some perspective sometimes. I'm still here. Still kicking. Coming back to life. Next stop Augusta 70.3 and on to Ironman California!