Let's jog my memory

Melanie, Carla, Darcy (me) Amy

The one regret I have with my 1/2 Iron Man training is my lack of documentation. I had fully expected and wanted to write about this journey. I have never done anything as physically demanding as this has been and I wanted to write about it the whole way so that I could look back and say "see how far you've come?" There is just something unfortunate with memory, which is, once you have accomplished some great physical feat you somehow forget all the blood, sweat, and tears it took to get there.

I remember the day when my mom arrived in Sacramento, California to visit her daughter (me) because I had just gave birth to her first grandchild. I was exhausted, nervous with the responsibility ahead of me, and quite frankly wasn't sure if I had it in me to be a good mom. My biggest challenge was nursing, up until I had the baby everyone told me oh it's so natural to breastfeed, while it's natural that milk did come out and the baby liked it, everything else seemed very unnatural. If it's so natural why does it hurt so bad it curls your toes? Is it natural to have bleeding nipples? Is it natural to cry every time the baby latches on? These were all the things I was feeling and when my mom arrived I was ready to be rescued. In her wisdom and I am sure hoping to take the suffering from me she came up with a great plan. She said "Darcy, I want you to keep track of how long this hurts, and then write it down when it stops hurting." not quite picking up the point of the exercise she continued. "Then when you have another child, and are nursing again, you will have a written record that it only hurts for 3 weeks (for example), or however long it will be, that way you will know that someday the pain will end and you can look forward to feeling better."

I have found applying that principle in my life in other occasions has really helped. So that was my main goal when I started my Iron Man training, I wanted to see how far I have come and how hard I can push myself. Unfortunately I didn't do that, now I have 5 weeks left and I can only rely on my limited memory to show the progress, but I do know it's there.

So picking up from where I am this is what I have done (and how it felt)
Yesterday (5 weeks till race day)
Swam: 20 laps = 1/2 a mile
Biked: 40 miles
Ran: 5 miles

The swim was hard, we had about 7-8 people in one lane and we swam in a circle. While it pushes me to keep swimming it's out of my comfort zone to not have any breaks, which I did because I was sweating in my wetsuit and had to get out and take it off.

The bike was also hard, my legs felt pretty good, but it's just the amount of time it takes, I had people to talk to for about 1/2 of it (20 miles), but the other 1/2 we were single file and conversation was limited. The last 5 miles were the hardest, I was getting antsy and ready to get off the bike. My shoulder/arm was really hurting (this has been a problem that last 3 rides I have had), when I got off the bike and finally relaxed my arm I was in tears from the pain of my arm (I gotta get that checked out this week!)

The run, the only word to describe that run was AWFUL!! It was the hardest run I have had in a long time. I felt like I was in a slow fog, I actually tried to shake my body, do a few leaps, just to get out of the trance I felt I was in. They say going from the bike to run is a very difficult transition, ummmm...that's an understatement it was awful! But I did get 5 miles in and I was very happy about that. Funny thing though, I get emotional when I do hard physical things and I started telling my running friend (Amy) how much I love Darrin, I just really needed her to know that I really do love him, little embarrassing now, but I think she understands we all get a little emotional. =)