Buying A Bike- Chugging Along

I am in the process of buying a new bike.  It has taken a while for me to really get going on this because, well for one, it is really expensive.  And two, I was a bit like a deer in headlights with all of the new options.  A big thing for me, besides narrowing it down to what I can afford (which is not much these days in the world of super bikes) is...what fits?  The new "super bikes" are a little intimidating to me with the fit.  Now there is "pad stack" and integrated systems where you can't just buy a new stem.  That is what makes them fast- and that also makes them a little more challenging to fit it seems.  One mistake I made years ago was buying a Quintana Roo, that I loved, off of the internet in a size that "should have" fit me.  For all general purposes, I am a 48-51.  But not all 51s, or smalls, or any size are created equally between brands with respect to stack and reach.  Fortunately, I found a buyer for that bike and was able to get my Slice, which served me well for many years.

Fit matters.  A lot.  I don't have a fitter here in Nola that I trust, so that is going to be a relationship I am going to need to find and build.  When I am comfortable on a bike, I will be fast, regardless of how "fast" the bike is.  And I know I could reach that place with a super bike.  There were a few options out there for me, but when I started adding up the costs.... wow.

SO, after hemming and hawing, I am sticking with Cannondale.  The frames fit me, the price is right, and I have had good success on them prior.  Now, I am in the process of getting what I need/want with it.  Of course I want to switch out a ton of components.  I want SRAM, as I have loved their components in my previous set up.  I am also going to Shimano pedals due to the nerve problems in my feet I had last year.  (I will need new shoes too, which is another expense.)  The process of buying a bike and really getting what I want is just really expensive.  So, some things won't make the cut this time around.  I am not getting electronic shifting or power.  I just can't afford it, so, oh well.  Basically, I will have almost the exact set up I had before, with new components.

Hopefully this will all happen within a month?  I am excited to have my own wheels under me.  Until then, I will be eternally grateful to Sue Marston, Team Wattie Ink Teammate, for sharing her P3 with me.  What a friend.

MY MORNING BIKE RIDE

This is my morning bike view- maybe 3-400 yards from where I am living.  Of course I had to stop and take this picture the other morning, only to get my phone sweaty and now it is dead.  Life with technology is expensive!  (I think I have used the word "expensive" many times in this blog post today).  But what bike view, yes?

Running is picking up.  For the first time in 3 months, I am running 20+mpw consistently. (well consistently meaning 3 weeks, but I think it will stick this time).  It is odd, because in 2015 I was running 40-50 mpw for most of the year, but this is where I am now, and I am just happy everything is coming back.

MY MORNING RUN VIEW

I get to watch the cruise ships leave New Orleans and come back right during my run time, and it really is incredible.  They are just a stones throw away from me on my run, and I can't believe how big cruise ships are.  

I am learning to see the city at different angles and to love my view.  I only have a 5 mile loop to run on my side of the river, so I am having to find the extraordinary in the repetition.  

And a quick note on the swim.  I have been swimming by myself- MAYBE 4000 yards a week on big weeks, but mostly less than even that.  I am bored.  I love to swim, but I am just tired of doing it all by myself.  There are no real master's programs here in Nola, and I am very used to having a coach on deck and lane mates for shared suffering.  But, there are groups of friends that get together and swim; however, my excuse for not joining in was I didn't want to wake up a 4am to drive 30 minutes to swim.  Well, today, I did just that.  If that is my option, then I don't really have a choice unless I want to continue to swim by myself. Overall I am just proud of myself for starting to make things happen again.  

Weekly Outtakes:  

Lunch date with Isla and her friend, Josh.  (really it was just as much fun for Audrey and I to decompress and catch up!)  

Isla, my little animal lover :) 

Isla loves her neighborhood friends!  We really live in a great neighborhood.  

Saturday Art Day!  

Almost Settled

I am trying to keep this blog up.  I feel like the blog may be a big reflection of training.  When it is on a roll, so is the blog.  When I stall...so does the blog.

News:

-We have a contract on our house in Memphis.  With a few repairs to do, our house should be sold by mid-November.  Selling the house has taken a lot of mental energy from us, so we will be happy to close on it and look forward to furthering our transition here in Memphis.  Plus, owning a house in one city while renting in another has made finances tight.  Too tight.  So, this is great- fingers crossed for continued smooth sailing.

- I am back and forth with momentum on the job front.  I will have plenty of work one week and think, "hey!  I can do this!  It is working out!" and then I will have a low week and the feeling will completely shift.  And now, for the first time in years, I am also working in 2 places that I just dislike.  Really dislike.  One is unethical.  The other is very overbearing.  The management is not kind.  It is hard to believe at this age these things exist, but I am also not surprised that the two companies where I experience this are also the two "rehab management" companies that don't actually own the facilities.  It is all about the numbers, which is never employee friendly.  So, I have not found my home here yet in the work force.  I would say this is may be my biggest stressor from both a financial and soulful position.

 - Dave and I have been doing new and unusual things.  This city is just a great place for really exploring different parts of your personality.  Here I am reading on stage...in a bar...for banned books week.  Don't ask me how this happened.

 - Isla is loving school.  She has many sweet friends, and I already know many of the parents.  I feel a huge sense of community in just a short amount of time.

 - Yes, we are just having a lot of fun with life.

-And soccer.  Isla is playing, following directions, and having fun.  After noting the complete male dominance and lack of organization, I finally stepped up today.  I didn't play soccer my whole life and fight to my highest level possible to watch the kids not get the most out of the experience.  So, today I stepped on the field, and it looks as though my days of watching on the sidelines (a whopping 2) are in the rearview mirror.

-Training and health:
My lab tests came back in good shape.  No real sense the EBV is active now, so that is good.  All other levels look solid.  My doc has been great and we chatted on cell phone yesterday.  Next up is heart check and hormone panel.  I just have to stick with it and not get stalled on the process.  And that- getting stalled when I have momentum- has been a real issue for me the past few years.  It is a sign of disorganization.  So, the skill I am working on as a mother/employee/athlete is to FINISH what I start.  I am working on buying a bike...and I have to finish the process.  I can't let it drag on for a year, which I will do if I take my foot of the gas.  I have to get help to figure out why I got so sick this year...I can't let up!

I am consistently doing something to "train" every day.   It is all Z2 and very slow, simply because I am so out of shape my Z2 is slow.   But, until I feel healthy and strong, I just can't handle anything hard.  I have some posterior tibialis tendonitis, and that also really stinks.  For the first time in my 28 years of running, I have had my first soft tissue injuries with the hip earlier in the year and now this.  It hurts.  I don't even know how I got it since I haven't been training.  But, I guess when your body is not strong, stuff happens.  But, no excuses...I am pushing forward.

Back to watching Kona.  Damn it Raelert with your penalty!  Don't do that to me!!!!!  Fingers crossed he smokes it back to the podium.  Cheers to all of my friends racing, and best of luck to everyone in their training.  See you out there soon.

D

Resource Base

Hola!

So, we are in the middle of September and nearing the end of the racing year.  I never got off of the ground this year, for multiple reasons including a big move to Nola, a stolen bike, and loss of health.  It certainly has not been for lack of loving triathlon, running, or racing.  I am just dying to be out there.

The ITU Long Distance World Championships are coming up soon, and they are in Oklahoma this year, which is great for us Americans.  The great news is I qualified.  But, I never registered because I thought I would be pregnant and didn't want to lose out on a bunch of registration money.  But the race is here, and I am neither pregnant or racing.  It is a bit sad, but mostly it just gives me reasons to contemplate and move forward.

So, where am I.

Yesterday I met with a WONDERFUL physician in New Orleans, Dr. Rousseau.  She was a kind and patient listener, as was her med student.  I was in there for a long time as we sorted through my history since 2012.  (Prior to 2012, I had no real issues short of a R knee surgery that just took rehab).  2012 was a great year that was following by a lot of sickness that we concluded was Epstein Barr Virus, hormone issues, and an injection of walking pneumonia.  I didn't really end up pursuing much treatment for it because I became pregnant and ended up just resting for 9 months :)

2013-2015 was quite a year for me physically.  I was recovering from a c-section and my first lumbar spine injury that may have been initiated from prolonged back labor.  Isla wasn't sleeping at all, so neither was I for 2 years.  Dave was in the most stressful place he has ever been in with his job, and he was suffering too.  Because our household was in shambles, Dave and I barely cooked and I was often starving.  I also breastfed for 2 years.  This was just a perfect stress storm.

I also dropped a ton of weight, and it was very unintentional.  It was mostly muscle, and I withered away to nothing at one point.  It wasn't because I wanted to lose baby weight, it was truly because I wasn't having time to fix myself food, was working out of my car and not getting meals, and breastfeeding my kid.  My body took care of Isla, and to do that, it took from me.  Totally worth it.  But, next time I will have a better understanding of how much more I need to eat.

I had some okay racing in 2015.  I was an All American Triathlete and qualified for Boston.  But, I never felt good or normal doing it.  It was really not a satisfying year.  Of course when I read aloud the paragraphs above, it makes sense.  And then, in September of 2015, I stopped breastfeeding.  2 months later I was really on this rapid decline physically.

So, all of this was at the forefront of my mind as we discussed November 2015- till now.  I went from being able to play, to being sidelined indefinitely.  Runs were massively slower with no warning.  I stopped being able to keep up on the bike, even at the slowest paces.  I was making progress in the swim, and then I couldn't keep up on even on the slow intervals.  And I have been at this place for months with no real solution.  

For the past 6 months, I have really tried to figure it out.  Is it hormonal?  Am I deficient in something that is nutritionally achieved?  Is it a flare up of my Epstein Barr Virus (and why hasn't rest helped it?) and, I really started to wonder if it is my heart.  I just can't explain to you all how hard it has been to run 1-2 miles, even at a 12 minute pace.  I will sometimes just feel so sick and have to walk back to my car.  No matter how easy and slow I go, it just sucks.  Of course I was then was able to run that trail race (At a 12 min mile pace) and it gave me hope that maybe it was just a matter of time.  But then I look at the big picture, and it has been a large and steady decline for 10 months now with a 1% success rate and 99% downward trend.

Back to the doctor, who again was great.  We are definitely testing EBV (which a lot of doctors won't test, but she is curious).  She is also testing the things like anemia/B-12 issues, which have been something I have struggled with in the past.  I did not test low in these areas in January, but perhaps I have gone backwards a bit.  We are testing thyroid, although I am doubtful it is that.  We are not testing hormones, as she would not treat them anyways.  So, if we rule out other things, then I will go to OBGYN to discuss those concerns.

And the interesting thing is she is going to test my heart.  She does hear a heart murmur, which in itself is not a big issue.  I was told I had one years ago in college, but NO practitioner has ever mentioned it since or heard it.  But, this doctor did and so did her colleague.  It could be something as simple as an increase in the murmur because I am anemic, which is something I can easily address.   So, I could be feeling some increased stress if there is something going on there.

So, with some contemplation, this has just been 4 years of my body being off and probably robbed a bit on the nutritional side, even though I have really tried to put a lot of healthy things in my body.  I think when you are in a deficit for a while, it is hard to climb out unless you are really intentional, and intentional for a long time.  And if there are hormone issues, I can hopefully dig myself out of the hole by addressing other things.

So, I am eager to move forward on this and do whatever it is I need to do to get this body at its optimal functioning state.

And one thing that really sticks out to me is Dr. Jeff Spencer's idea that you cannot reach optimal performance without first building your resource base.

"Step number four is the base. This is where you build your resource capacity and your material resources that you’re going to need to safely and effectively get to the top, then on to master, then to become your champion."


So for me, this resource base is

1.  Job/Income: which I am progressing towards having enough work and income, but I am not there yet.  I still have some resource building to do in this area as we have moved cities.  Without this, trying to participate in triathlon is futile as I cannot afford things like a new bike.  Plus, when I am working very consistently with good income, I feel much less guilt about training.

2.  Health:  an increase in this area would mean more capacity to train, which would bring results, which would bring more motivation, and on and on.  3 years of training at so-so health is not satisfying, I can assure you.

3.  Equipment:  bike.  bike fit.  coach.  functional equipment.  etc.

4.  Organization at home:  when my family is running well, I train well.  This has to be a part of my resource base, because I draw from the energy in my family.

5.  Training Groups:  I don't have these yet, but on some level will be important in the future.

Right now I am on 1 and 2.  Then I will worry about a bike.  Etc.  Etc.

I am eager to get some results and continue to move in the right direction.  I feel super hopeful and extremely glad I found a physician that gets it and does not think what is going on for me is normal or just "overtraining."

I am getting my act together :)