Second Season

I spent the past week reflecting on the past 5 months of training and my race at Boise. I had scheduled to take 4 days off after Boise and re charge the battery before getting in a little of training this past weekend. I went out for a run Thursday night and made it 10 minutes before I had to walk due to my asthma. I jogged, yes literally jogged, home. I haven't worked out since. I gave my body a full week to recover. The incident Thursday night, 5 days post race, illustrated to me how bad my airway really was in Boise. I mean I hadn't done ANYTHING since Saturday night and I still couldn't jog without my airway completely shutting down.

So tomorrow I will try and get back at it. The remainder of my season is focused on Ironman Canada at the end of August. The first half of the season was to build a solid base so I can absorb some solid training blocks the next 6 weeks. After my race in Boise, I debated jumping into Pacific Crest Half Ironman this weekend as I feel like my performance last weekend was not an accurate depiction of my fitness level or ability. Then I had the incident Thursday and realized that I needed more time to recover and racing so soon would only set me back further. So instead, I'm excited to get back into some solid training. I will have 3 tough weeks that each will culminate with an Olympic Distance race (Hagg and Blue Lake respectively). I will then start to enter into a low and slow taper to get the body and mind right for Canada.

It's been an interesting season so far. I felt like my run was right on pace early season and once again was ready come Boise. I thought my bike was where it needs to be and I'm happy with how my swim has developed despite limited availability to swim most of the spring. All that being said, I don't have a race on the board yet that I'm happy with this year and that is frustrating. I'm proud of how I've fought through some races, but not happy with any of the outcomes really. That is what I love about this sport though. It's about more than the finish time. It's about the experiences you have getting to the start and the finish line. The moments you have in training and racing that you just can't describe to others that haven't gone through similar experiences. At the end of the day, I am just happy to be healthy! I wrote that before Boise I would be content knowing that I had given everything I had out there. As I sat in the ambulance getting O2 pumped in, I knew I had.

Thank you for all the kind remarks that I have received from you all in this blog and elsewhere. I keep this running tale of my experiences because I think it is fun and hopefully will help one of you out. Yet, I'll be honest, there are times when I drag my butt out of bed because I know you all would want me to! Thanks for reading everyone,

-T