Oh hey! Training journal update here. This summer’s training has looked nothing like I’d hoped it would, and I just wanted to document it for myself. Everyone has “stuff” you know? Luckily this chapter has just been more about 1st world issues and sicknesses and stress (vs actually big stuff), but man, has it kicked my butt.
Let’s start by saying I spent many years — YEARS! — cheering for Matt as he chased Kona slots and raced on the Big Island. And I dreamed that someday, when we were done having babies and those babies were in preschool (read: when I'll have a few weekly hours of childcare help), it would be my turn to train and race hard. Specifically, to KQ and race well in Kona.
With Kona’s future up in the air (💔), I said yes to a Kona slot earlier than planned. Better early than never, eh? I knew real long-term IM training wasn’t really in the cards, but I pictured being able to put together a semi-decent training cycle this summer. That just hasn’t happened.
A few culprits:
-Straight-up, my family comes first. I have very busy big kids and very active twin toddlers. With no family nearby and no childcare help, it's a hard combination from a “free time” perspective.
-For the first time with 4 kids, Matt & I were both trying to train for full Ironmans at the same time.
-We started off the “summer” being sick for 4/5 weeks with bronchitis & sinus infections. Training load and fitness just bottomed out by early July.
-“Summer” is said rather sarcastically, because it was 60-degrees with daily thunderstorms and hail. The worst/wettest/grayest/coldest here since 1876.
-Vitamin D was therefore in the toilet and I was dealing with seasonal affective disorder. In June and July.
-Running finally started to be okay again by mid-July, but biking and swimming were just not there.
-Our two out-of-state rental homes (kept from previous bases in case the military moves us back) both simultaneously became nightmare scenarios. We are talking TENS of thousands of dollars of damage.
-As we approached our year-mark in our new-build home, the fight over warranty issues escalated. The VP randomly showed up at our house one day to apologize. It’s been bad. We still have fairly big issues so the headache and back-and-forth and having to sit around during work windows for subs continues.
-We also hit the deadline for our military move claim and began our official fight with the moving company. Ridiculous things like them offering $0 for our dryer that they busted in because they said it was existing damage. Good thing we have videos of it in pristine condition being loaded on the moving truck, but cue hours of back-and-forth to prove it. For more than 100 items that they trashed. We’re still in the middle of it.
-The amount of time sucked and stress caused by said house/move problems has been INSANE. Instead of using my “stealth mom” training hours (when the kids are sleeping) to train, I've had to spend them dealing with property managers and subs, making decisions on new carpets etc., spending hours carefully going over every single word used in emails because the lawyers said they could end up in court (our OH house will), searching for pictures and videos of damaged items before/after the move… You get the idea.
-All while trying to give my kids a fun, happy summer while being locked inside with the horrific weather. I am unwilling to have my kids get the shaft for my training, so instead I averaged <6 hours of sleep all summer and still barely got any passable training in.
I finally — finally! — started making some progress in the past few weeks as the house stuff started to die down. Last week actually looked like real Ironman training, and my fitness started clicking!!! Hallelujah.
Then in the past few days, after declaring that we were getting past the bulk of our problems? A dishwasher died, a $2K HVAC repair was needed, and… here’s the kicker… We got c🦠v 1d. All it took was two weeks of back-to-school germs. So this week of training is a wash, and next week will have to be light… and Kona is in six weeks.
It’s honestly such a bummer to have the reality be so far off of expectations leading into a race I’ve dreamt about for years. But six weeks still = four weeks of training before a two-week taper, so I’ll make the most of it!
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