Watch out 2016...

My beloved older sister once told me, “wait until you turn 40, then your body will really start to fall apart”.  I turned 40 last year and was still fine – this past March I turned 41 and shit started to roll down hill very quickly!  For the first time in decades, I went to the ER for me (obviously I’ve been there a few other times for kids and Kevin but not for me).  I had a migraine for more than 5 days and wanted to kill myself – I’ve had bad headaches before and most members of my family suffer debilitating migraines but this was my first one that stopped me in my tracks.  It was so bad that I had to go to the ER and get morphine (I thought they stopped using Morphine with Laura Ingalls – who knew it worked like a charm!).  Then a month after the migraine, I had 2 bulging discs.  Only old people have back problems – never heard a 20 year old say, “can’t run today bc of my bulging discs”.  Maybe there are young, healthy people out there with back issues but this was my first and it was brutal.  I couldn’t walk or put any weight on one leg – I had my first MRI of my life.  Needless to say, 41 hit me hard.

Once my back healed and I got back to training, I vowed to pull my shit together for my 2016 year of racing.  No more of this bullshit, pretend training I attempt to do.  For instance, I did the West Point Triathlon in August and instead of doing any sort of swim training AT ALL, the week before the race I went to the pool and swam 800 meters.  That’s the exact distance of the swim in the race – just wanted to be sure I could make it through to the end.  Then I wonder why oh why I’m so tired on the bike and run after using every ounce of energy I have to just “get thru” the swim. 

I also tend to lose focus A LOT!  I get on a roll of great training and great successes and then something happens and I fall off the wagon.  The problem with that for me is that I don’t have years and years of fitness to fall back on.  So when I stop for any period of time, I lose any progress that I made.  My favorite saying: If you're tired of starting over, stop giving up.  So that’s my motto for 2016.  Stop Stopping.  Just keep going!  Train hard.  Work hard.  Have successes.  Be healthy.  Have fun.  Perhaps keep my weight/nutrition in check and stop letting it continue to yo yo. 

Along with my vow to up my training and fitness, I’ve also vowed to work on my diet and nutrition.  It’s never been great but gets better with each passing year of my life.  My sugar and carb addiction is so strong and so difficult to kick but I’m working hard to keep things in balance.  I’ll never go through life without cupcakes and pizza but I’m trying to make sure it’s not my #1 source of nutrition for all 3 meals a day (and I certainly could do that!). 

I’ve started making my goals for 2016, here are just a few:

5K: beat my PR time of 27:38 

10K: sub 1:00 – PR is 1:03:09 but I want 59:59 or less

Navesick or Swim: beat last year’s time  52:41

Rev3 Quassy: KILL time from last year – when I came in DFL in my AG.  Will come up with an exact time goal as it gets closer

IMAC 70.3 RELAY: 13.1 – sub 2:23:39

I’d like to also set a goal of how much mileage per week or month with all 3 disciplines plus Pure Barre.  In order to make that happen I need to sit down with a calendar and figure it all out between kids/work/logistics in general.  I’m not expecting to light the world on fire but I’m going to push myself to continue to get better and fitter with each training session. 

Just like Kevin says, “go fast, then go a little bit faster”.  It’s a great motto to keep repeating while racing.  He always has great motivational tips as I could do none of this without him: the best NLLP on the planet and training partner =)