Flash back to 5 weeks ago, I sat in a hammock outside on our balcony the day after IM Cozumel, feeling about as down in the dumps as I've ever been in my entire life. I can say this. I've had to cut marathons short before due to nagging injury/illness or "playing it safe" because I had another bigger event coming up in the proceeding months. And sure, that sucks. I read back to a blog I wrote back in November 2012 about having to only do 1/2 at the San Antonio Rock N' Roll. How sad I was. But in that case, and in all other cases, I was able to pick myself up, sign up for another marathon 2-3 weeks later, and get it out of my system. Nothing, and I mean nothing, has ever left me with a bigger void than not being able to finish an Ironman. Especially when you look back and can say it was totally out of your control. And what sucks more? It was at the end of a season. Today, there was a 140.6 race in Naples Florida (not an "ironman" branded event). Had I had the monetary means and the timing wasn't awful, I could tell you I would have been there today. But it wasn't in the cards. The nagging sinking feeling that I didn't get the job done was overwhelming.
Side note: You can think I'm melodramatic, or whiney, or say to yourself "I wish this chick would shut the eff up about her non Ironman race.", but point is, 1. you're reading my blog, your choice 2. this is my story and I can tell it if I want to and 3. well, this may reach someone that has gone through something similar and help...I've read plenty of things that have helped me over the last 5-6 years. So maybe.
Coupled with the fact we got home and immediately moved, it was a lot. I didn't cry real tears at all in Cozumel. I would start to get misty and just breathe and move on. In the plane as we landed in Harlingen, I shed a couple, but basically, that was it.
We got home Wednesday December 2nd at 11pm. Woke up and I promptly started packing, sold the contents of my studio to Ms. Heather George, continued packing. Went through the nightmare realization that someone at our lending company dropped the ball and didn't do their job in the 87 days we had to close on our home. Which started a domino effect. We were to sign papers remotely for our home on the via a notary familiar with home closings. But due to the above, we didn't get paperwork until 630PM on Thursday, had to print out 99 pages of home docs myself. And you know how when you buy a home they lead you through the paperwork page by page as you sign your life away? Yeah, well, I lead myself through that in front of a clueless (but very nice) notary at the UPS store, made the Overnight FedEx drop by less than an hour. Went "home". Woke up, packed a truck, was told at 10am that everything was fine, they had A LOT of our money, and we were good to go. Packed 4 dogs and 2 cats into the car. Hit the road about noon. Get to Robstown, Texas. Receive a phone call that the notary missed a stamp on our paperwork (on the 2nd to last page...), they can't close our home, AND the current owner wouldn't release us keys.
So here I am with all I own in my car and in the 26ft box truck behind me driven by my husband. And I have to call and let him know that as of that moment, we had no where to go. Apartment had been leased, movers scheduled to unload us. No keys to the house. And well, the lady at the title company, she got it. And by "it" I mean, she got the flood of emotion of several days of build up and disappointment and anxiety about change and moving and life and unstableness and everything I was feeling. She got it, in about 5 minutes of total unabandoned sobbing with me saying over and over that she had to figure out a way for us to be in that house that night. And that wasn't even her job (I've since hugged this lady...we're cool now). About 50 miles from Lakehills, we finally got a call that the owners agreed to let us have ONE key to the house, and the bank called at 7:45pm to let us know they had verbally funded our home loan. We officially closed that Monday, but man. That was a kick in the ass. Can I recommend not taking an international vacation, doing an ironman, moving across state and closing on a home in the same week? Yeah.
So here we are 5 weeks later in Lakehills, settled in. It's been a hustle and bustle of activity since we arrived. I immediately put up Christmas decor, and we had friends and family galore in and out for the month of December. Our house felt like a home really quickly this month because we've already made memories in it. And I love our home. It's beautiful and quiet and big enough and updated and I have a huge jacuzzi tub with jets and my dishwasher works really good and there's donkeys and deer next door and I love it. All of it.
And during December, I started running. Which is new to me, becauseI really haven't just run in a long long time. The day after Cozumel, in all my despair, while looking up things to do to redeem myself, and knowing that the trip to Naples Florida was likely not going to happen, I started to look for trail races. And I found one. A 100k/50k event in Bandera Texas, not 30 miles from my new home. And before I ever left Mexico, I had committed to 100k on January 9th.
So in December, I ran. I ran 7 miles of hills, I ran 8 miles of hills, I ran 5 miles of hills, I ran 14 miles of hills, I would run 3 miles of hill sprints, I ran. I wasn't Forrest Gump or anything, but I did do a lot of running. But it was all on the road. The hills I was running were paved with nice and neat gravel or asphalt. It would be fun to power up them and then come flying down. It was nothing like the race I had committed to. I may have spent the month of December running, but I also spent it reading blogs and reviews of said Bandera 100k. And well, by late December I had decided that given my month of training only on roads, I would likely be setting myself up for too much by trying to do the 100k. Given I hadn't done ANY trail running, and well, hadn't run any distance over 14 miles. And since this race was a WANTED to do, not a part of my total 2016 plan of attack (I do usually go into the year with a plan of what races I'm going to do and their relative importance to me...A. Race, B. Race...etc), I figured 100k was probably a little bit of a reach given my novice-ness.
Elevation Profile of Bandera 50k, about 3000Ft of Climbing
Here's the thing. To all those around me, and everyone in my life, I know in my heart of hearts that I didn't "fail" at Ironman Cozumel. I didn't. It was not my day. My purpose that day, I have come to believe was to be there for my husband. He needed me that day on the run, I was able to be there, and he finished. BUT, still, not being able to cross that finish line left me gun shy. I was afraid to fail. And the more I read about Bandera, the more I heard about horror stories of it being icy, of it raining and being so slick and dangerous it was the most miserable race ever. I heard stories of all the DNFs and the DNS', and well, I was scared to fail. What if I didn't finish it?
So I waited. I waited until I could see the forecast, know the weather was going to cooperate, and have some sort of confidence that I was going to be able to do it. And that's a hard thing to admit. That I was afraid of that. But I was genuinely afraid of it.
Last Tuesday, I ordered a pair of new Salomon Speedcross 3's on the recommendation of Coach German Madrazo, and on Wednesday, I signed up.
Yesterday morning was cold. As per usual, I didn't sleep much the night before. And of course, my foot started hurting. Damn foot. It's done so well the last 8 weeks or so, but of course, it started to act up on me a bit after my 5 miler on Tuesday. We headed out of the house about 6:00am, it was so dark on FM 1283, I think you could see every star. And I was nervous. As we wound back into the State Natural Area, the cars lined up, and you could see trail runners of every age shape and size.
Trail running is a unique endurance sport. Its like the hippie endurance sport if you will. Triathlon is so "tech-y" with all the gear and the gadgets. Trail running is so much more laid back and relaxed. No one has a fancy anything really. And I had NO clue that yesterday morning we were standing right next to the eventual Overall 2nd place winner who happens to be like a big deal in the sport, NO clue. It would be like someone standing next to Andy Potts and being like "so."
It was so cold. 40 degrees and the winds yesterday were up to 20mph. I was so glad Kristofor had decided to run with me, and I was so glad that he had the foresight to grab a couple of beanies to wear as well. Once my ears were covered, I was much warmer.
Ready to start!
And then it began. I had read that the first 10 miles was the worst part with brutal climbs and descents back to back to back. And it didn't disappoint. We started climbing immediately. And what I noticed most within the first mile was the rocks. It was so rocky. Every step my ankles would twitch one way or the other. Every step you would get jabbed in the foot with a rock. And then sometimes the rocks would give way leading you to have to catch yourself as you climb up and up and up. The views from the first climb were breathtaking. So breathtaking that within the first 2 miles, I was fishing for my phone to take a sunrise photo.
What a View!
Side note: I had only a couple of goals for this race. 1. To finish 2. To not hurt myself or "burn myself out" so much that I would have to take weeks off to recover. After all...I do have 2 Ironman's planned for this year, and I'm on a base building bike plan right now, and I'd like to continue to run and see how that goes. So being stupid and trying to "hurry" was not in the plan. Taking photos, enjoying the experience and getting a finisher medal was the plan.
Too pretty to not stop
The climbing continued. And so did the laughing. The first 6-7 miles of the race, we were packed in to the hills pretty tight in a line of other runners, and the guys behind me were offering up some valuable chatter about their previous jaunts on this course. I was learning a lot about Bandera trail racing just by listening. Hearing their stories about how crazy it is at night (I CANNOT IMAGINE DOING THAT AT NIGHT...), how shitty the weather has been before, how the people in the camp site last night were smoking out of the largest bong he had ever seen. Ya know, good stuff. I was entertained during those first few ascents and descents to say the least.
Speaking of descents. Lets talk about going down the hills...that are really like mountains. I promise they are like mountains. Normally, I love the downhills. Who doesn't? You get to earn the hard work you put in going up the hill. Except on this race. Going down was downright scary. Because, there's steep drop offs on the side of you, and the rocks are loose, and there are rocks, and there's Sotol Cactus (more on that later), and you have to try not to die, and if you fall you might hurt the people behind you and in front of you, and my legs are short and I can't step down as efficiently as some other people. I didn't like it. It was not the downhill I liked. And I think mostly, and I hate to belabor a point. I didn't trust myself. Kristofor kept harping on me to "trust my shoes" "trust my feet", but I couldn't. I sucked at the downhills. As Kristofor would skip down them from side to side, I was carefully thinking about each step trying not to hurt myself or make a wrong move. I was scared. I was scared to not finish.
Ummm. Scary.
There was no real aid station until mile 10, and by the time we got to it a little over 2 hours into the race, I was starving. I inhaled 2 pbj squares and drank the nectar of the Gods, Mountain Dew (I promise there is no better during an endurance event), refilled my water bottles and we continued. The next 5 miles were a little less eventful that the first 10. Uneventful in that we were actually able to RUN, instead of power hike like we had done much of the first 10 miles. On these miles we started to separate out from the crowd a bit. The more experienced had enough juice in their legs after miles 1-10 to start running and making some headway. Those of us that were bascially 70% spent by the end of those miles did a walk/run combo where you walked up the climbs (there was still climbing...just not as bad), and ran down them (the not bad ones that is). We struck up conversation with 2 girls that had done a few IMs, we talked at length to a lady who was training for a 5 day Ultra event and was using this as a training day, we shared stories about our lives and our jobs and we talked a lot about our dogs. And you know what. It was nice. It was so nice to be in an event, with no time looming over, just taking the miles one by one. In fact, I had NOT looked at my watch until mile 14.5 when I really really needed to go to the bathroom and I had no idea what time it was until the dog sitter texted me at 11:15am and I was shocked to have phone service in the hills. It was so nice to just BE on a race course, not worrying how long it was taking me to get from point A to point B.
By mile 20, everything pretty much hurt. Knees, feet, ankles, shins, lower back, HIP FLEXORS. All of it. As we headed into what is called the 3 Sisters part of the race, the toughest climbs (so they said...) on the last half of the course. I was starting to get tired. And then came the Sotol.
There had been Sotol Cactus the whole way, but others had alluded to the fact that there was a part where it just covered the trail and you had no choice but to power through it. Think of it like a pretty green plant with razor blades on it. A saw plant if you will. It will knick you and cut you and make you bleed. I was wearing thicker tights (I read that this was an issue), so my legs were shielded, but I am so short I encountered another issue. It was tall up to my face, and a few times it knicked my ears and my cheeks and I was trying to not let it get my hands. Basically, that stuff sucks. Cactus sucks. Running through cactus, sucks. And the 3 Sisters climb is FULL of pretty views, rocky ascents and descents, and Sotol. It's everywhere.
Why am I smiling?
Once we came back to the aid station Crossroads, I ran quickly off for a final bathroom stop before our last 5 miles, and then I ate the most amazing DAMN QUESADILLA of my life. That quesadilla. Props to Tejas Trails. That thing, it was so life changing. So so so clutch. We headed out to the last part of the course. 4.2 miles to the last aid station, 4.7 from the finish. Thinking the worst of it is behind us, running comfortably in the surprisingly flat forest area, ready to get it done.
Until. Well, there's evidently one more climb. Lucky Peak. And the ascent wasn't too bad. I was so lucky to have Kristofor because he helped me up so many steep rocks, waited for me to climb down. Just like Tough Mudder, sometimes the elements aren't in my 4'9.75" favor. So Lucky Peak. It's safe to say by that point, I had had it. We were moving at a 34 minute mile. I was ok climbing, but I can say...AND I have read that others agree, that this is the worst descent of the entire course. And at mile 30, I was over it. I didn't have the mental strength as I had earlier in the day nor the physical precision to navigate down as easily (and it wasn't easy for me earlier). I, for the first time, had to sit or put my hands down to lift myself down the side of the hills, and I was mad. I yelled "SERIOUSLY BANDERA, REALLY?!", and well, Kristofor told me to stop whining that it was almost over. And it was, but it still sucked! We made it to the last aid station, stopped for just a second, we were told we had about .5 miles to the finish and we ran much quicker than we had been going all day all the way into the finisher chute, and we crossed together.
A little over 8 hours of power hiking, climbing, descending, winding our way through the Texas Hill Country. Definitely not my best 50k time. But if I'm fair, that was not anything like any of the trail runs I had done before. Not even close. Mesquite Fire 50k last year was muddy, but it was flat and not technical in the least. Lighthouse hill ranch had some steep points, but its steepest pales in comparison to the climbs at Bandera. And my first ultra could hardly have been called trail. THIS my friends, THIS was the real deal. I can now confidently say, after that, I have done a TRAIL run. If Bandera is trail, then I have a lot to learn before I choose to go further. And you know what? I think I'm up for the challenge. I like the atmosphere and the change of pace. I also liked that I got 7th in my Age Group. Not a podium, but I can say I wasn't trying to do that yesterday, obviously. But I have my medal, and I have my mojo back.
DONE! And at the OST eating all the food.
I crossed a finish line. And I feel like I'm in a place where I haven't been in a long time. I'm comfortable doing me. It's hard for me to put this in the right words because I would never ever ever want it to be taken the wrong way. Because I honestly love training and coaching and this last year of going 100mph with everything Team Healey has been some of the best days of my life. There is nothing like seeing all these people you've coached make their dreams come true. I love it. But I lost me. They say that in order to be a good wife, mother, daughter, friend, coach, etc. You have to take care of yourself first. You have to take care of your needs. When you get on a plane, they say they'll drop oxygen masks and you need to put yours on first. And I think in some ways this year, I got so busy putting on other peoples masks that I was over here gasping for air. It's such a touchy subject for me to talk about because I'm not resentful or regretful, I've loved doing it. But I know I couldn't have gone at that pace forever and done the job that I wanted to do. I want to do the absolute BEST I can do for those that love and trust me with their goals and dreams. And I don't believe I was doing my best towards the end, because I had so much going on. And I definitely couldn't do the best for me in all that, because my needs and training weren't getting done how I wanted them.
So I'm in a place where I haven't been in a while. I'm being a little stingy. A little selfish. And I don't like that word, but I don't know what else to call it. I'm trying to take care of me a little bit before I make any big moves or decisions on what I'm going to do next with my business and my life. I'm excited to start training some ladies in San Antonio at the end of the month. And I'm excited to do a 5k with my client Lindsy next Sunday. I'm trying a little harder to be more appreciative of all the things my husband does for us (like works a job so I can have the luxury of taking my time getting all set up), and I'm trying to really put a lot into learning more through my CEUs I have due and the triathlon training I'm helping with. Instead of racing through it because its just a number on a list of things I have to get done with. I'm trying to slow down and breathe for a bit. And I'm still catching up on sleep, and I started using wrinkle cream because I noticed about mid December that I have them, and I started wearing makeup again, and I started blowdrying my hair a little more. And yes it gets lonely, and yes I miss everyone, I miss my Mom and Dad being there all the time, and yes I feel like I'm missing out on fun things that are happening in the RGV when I see stuff on FB, and I'm looking forward to visiting, and I'm still really scared about how everything will end up here for me business-wise, but I'm hopeful. And I'm still immensely grateful for all the lessons and the learning and the people and the ups and the downs.
And I'm happy that in the quiet of the hills yesterday, I got to spend 8 hours with my husband climbing and laughing and kind of running and just enjoying life and where we are. And where we are going. Wherever that may be.
Thanks for cheering me on,
Lacy
