My 48 hour trip to Vegas for the Xterra West Championships,
was quick, cold and slow. I was planning on sharing a room with Melanie but she
let me know Wednesday night that she was sick with some type of plague. Having
already spent a month this Winter being sick with a mysterious, never ending
cough I opted for my own room to avoid her Canadian germs. Traveling to races
has become vacation and an almost spa like experience for me. I am HORRIBLE at
relaxing and always find new projects or things that “need” to be done around
my house when I have any free time. A hotel is ideal for me because I can’t do
anything but read or watch some kind of garbage on TV.
Ok, back to the race. Clearly, I am avoiding talking about
my race a bit since it was less than stellar. I didn’t even check the results
until Wednesday and kept asking Doug not to tell me how I did. I have been
beating myself up about my performance because like any driven athlete I always
want to do better and go faster until I’m on the big step wearing gold.
However, I have to remind myself to be patient because I am never fast in the
early season, which leaves me fast and free from burnout come Worlds in
October. This year is no exception and I have my hands in more baskets than
ever before. I’m working harder than ever to strike a balance between the
passion I have for my career and my athletic endeavors. I’m torn with which
direction I need to go and the feeling of not always being able to give 100% to
everything doesn’t always sit well with me.
Ok, really, onto the race.
The swim was COLD, water in the upper 50s, air in the upper 40s. I
jumped in the water and got in about 15 strokes before the race started. How
wonderful…I didn’t swim all week due to some nasty road rash from a crash the
previous weekend and I just got in 15 strokes, great! I survived the swim but
barely. Upon exiting I had serious vertigo and was frozen. In T1, I struggled
to get my wetsuit off and to put on arm warmers and a vest. It was quite
possibly the slowest transition of my life but I finally got out on the bike
and was not shivering. Two years ago at this race I broke my hand on the first
lap of the bike and have had some underlying anxiety about returning to this
course. By using Brainspotting techniques and mindfulness based skills I felt I
was pretty successful in eliminating the extent to which my anxiety and fear
would affect my performance. I rode clean and didn’t have to get off my bike at
all but clearly lacked any type of top end fitness on the bike. As much as I tried to push myself I was unable
to catch any of the women that I would normally have no problems hanging with
on the bike. I did pass 4 girls and moved into 7th place when I got
into T2. Over the Winter I was running strong as evidenced by winning Snowshoe
Nationals. Since then I have let my running slide a bit, which showed in my
grandma paced run split. I was passed by two women on the run and mentally was
checked out. I never like to admit that I get mentally defeated but, yes, I am
human and it happens.
After the race I packed up my bike, watched the awards, took
a quick shower, got a milkshake and was on a plane home. I had grand plans of
planting our garden and working on the chicken coop on Sunday but the weather
gods forced me to stay inside and get this, attempt to relax in my own
home. I’m looking forward to some more
focused training before ITU Cross Worlds in Alabama on May 19th. It
can only get better from here!
No comments:
Post a Comment