Don’t Worry, Be Happy

On Sunday I had a long bike ride which I titled “Hills of the Gallatin Valley”.  The ride included Hyalite, Triple Tree, Kelly Canyon, Dump Road, and Naya Nuki hills which is a big circle around the outskirts of Bozeman and totaled about 78 miles.  I rode really hard on the hills even getting out of the saddle a few times on each hill which I don’t like to do because it's hard but, Matt tells me I need to build strength – so I do it.  :)  It was a really fun ride and I was really happy with how I did on the hills for the day.   Days like this are real confidence-boosters for the CDA IM (August 21).  I finished the day feeling strong, happy and thrilled with the effort - came away thinking “I can do CDA IM".

Kelly Canyon View

Then there are other training days where I end up thinking – ‘what makes you think you can do this?’, ‘you can’t swim’, ‘you can’t change your bike tire’, ‘you are running like a turtle’.   That happened the next day after my awesome hill bike ride (Monday). 

On the plan for that day was a 3750m open water swim (OWS), 20 mile bike – easy effort, followed by a 5K run with the Women Who Tri (WWT) group.  When I went to load my bike in the truck the back tire was flat… oh no… On my new bike I have trouble changing the tire – the tire is so tight I can’t get it back onto the rim by myself.  Pat was not home so I wasn’t sure how I was going to complete this task.  I got the wheel off the bike (no easy feat), then got the tire off the rim (again not easy – took me at least 10 minutes to do that), then put on a new tube and tried to get the tire back on the rim.  I struggled with it for another 10 minutes (probably more) and finally walked to my sister’s house, and together we were able to pull it onto the rim.  Total time to change the flat about 30 minutes – NOT GOOD!  But, it was changed, so I loaded the bike in the truck and headed over to pond to swim.

3750M in the pond is about 4 laps.  The first lap was awful.  I wasn’t swimming straight, I was stopping every couple minutes to catch my breath and when I was swimming it felt like I was thrashing around in the water not making any headway.  In my head, I’m thinking ‘what’s wrong with me, why can’t I swim’.  The second lap was a little better.  I still stopped frequently but, my sighting was better and I was starting to relax a little.  I told myself to ‘shutup and just swim, you know how to do this’.   That worked!  The third and fourth laps were much better, I was thinking about my stroke, my body position, keeping my head down, kicking and being long in the water.  Finally my brain was focusing on what it should be thinking about.  But, the swim was slow and as I got out of the water, I was thinking about the IM swim time cut-off and wondering how in the world I was going to be able to do it. :(

I got done with the swim, took off my wetsuit and noticed the back tire on my bike was flat again.  JUST GREAT!  I didn’t have a spare tube with me (I had used my last one when I changed it earlier in the morning).  So, I drove to a bike shop and asked them to change it for me.  By the time I got back to the East Gallatin Rec Area I didn’t have time to complete my 20 mile ride so I rode about 10 miles, practiced some turning drills.  It was fine but, not what was planned, and that always annoys me when I have to alter my plan and do less than what is supposed to be done.  SIGH! 

After the bike I met up with the WWT group for the 5K run.  By this time, I was kind of flustered with how my day had gone, and I had a headache so I wasn’t feeling great.  I ran easy and was glad to be done and finally able to go home.

The rest of the evening I was down on myself, wondering how I was ever going to swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 and run 26.2.  I could hardly do any of those activities today, let alone do them at the distances required for an IM.  UGH! 

It’s interesting to me that this doubt still happens.  I have done an IM, I know what it takes to get through the day.  I am well trained right now, and I still have time to get even better.  So why do certain workouts send me into a tailspin???  I know by now that not every workout is perfect, that there will be awesome days and days that just don’t go as planned.  And just because they don’t go as planned doesn’t mean I’m going to crash and burn in CDA.  So next time I have a sucky workout day, I am going to try and not let my head get the better of me – no self-doubt, no worry! :)

DON'T WORRY, BE HAPPY!