Seattle Ironwoman

Lake Stevens is less than 40 minutes from downtown Seattle, so Isaac and I decided to go watch the Lake Stevens Ironman 70.3. We had assumed earlier in the year we couldn't race this half Ironman 3 weeks post Ironman Canada and didn't sign up. We saw some participants wearing their IM Canada 2015 Finisher hats and were a liiiiiittle jealous. Would have loved to participate, but who knows how that would have felt on my knee, which is still hurting on runs post race (but my brain was wishing I was out on the course the whole time!) The swim start was in waves, which I'm assuming was fantastic. Nice and calm, surrounded by your age group instead of 2,000 people! Swim start So foggy on the lake! Coming in from the swim T1 and T2 were in the same spot. This portion felt like a normal tri - you have your transitions preset and have to get your run gear wet while you strip out of your wetsuit! I really loved having gear bags and changing in tents in two separate tra

"I can't wait to have my normal life back again!" I said that multiple times a week during training. Every time I said that it was after turning down a happy hour after work, a night out downtown with friends, a weekend away... At the time I meant it. I was counting down the days until I could do all of that stuff again. I basically stopped drinking alcohol for 6 months. It was too hard to drink and wake up at 5 am the next day for training. Have you ever tried to run for three hours or bike ride for 5 dehydrated? It sucked constantly turning people down, but I had to. I couldn't wait to finally be able to say yes! While I have thoroughly enjoyed  reconnecting with all the people I care about the last few weeks and am looking forward to more this next week... I still just miss training.  It's a void that I haven't figured out yet how to fill in the next 6 months without training. I've started running in the mornings again, for about an hour or so at a ti

I never considered myself a runner despite being an athlete my whole life. After an ACL injury took me out of competitive sports in high school and I went through 9 months of physical therapy, I started running on treadmills to try to get back into shape. It makes me laugh now because you couldn't pay me to run on a treadmill. I was too afraid to run outside; I am by no means some incredibly graceful and natural looking runner. I didn't do cross country or track in high school... I don't look like the Nike ads - and that made me self-conscious. Little did I know the beauty of it all is that no one looks like that. Hit a trail any Saturday  or Sunday morning and it is filled with all kinds of people - old and young, skinny and heavier, graceful and clumsy; they all have something in common - they're trying! And they're all runners. I started dating Isaac when I was 20. A few months into our relationship, he made a simple statement - "running outside is h

Ironman Canada is over. Training is over. I have all the free time in the world to do whatever I want. You would think that after training for 6 months, I would be excited to get my life back... but the feeling is totally the opposite. Sadness, let down, feeling lost... what do I do when I don't train? Am I still an Ironman when I'm not training for one? What next? What now? PID's - Post Ironman Depression  - Definitely dealing with this post race. I've always felt a little let down after marathons, but I've never put as much of myself into a race as I did for Ironman, so the letdown has been pretty huge. The worst part about the weeks after race day is being unable to workout to make yourself feel better and get those endorphin's flowing. You can start swimming again a few days after the race, but I got an m-dot tattoo last week (first tattoo ever - WOW, tattoos hurt...) so no swimming for me for a couple weeks. We're allowed to start biking after a wee