Islander Aquathon I

Although I am banned from any big races, I have received the okay to do some smaller events. I am avoiding the swim/bike/run all together stuff for now, but don’t be surprised if you see my name on a start list of a local tri at end of season :).

The Islander Aquathon consisted of a 1000yd swim and a 10K run. After looking at the results from last year this race would take me right around an hour which is PERFECT for my fitness right now (run course differed this year). We have been working on building up my swimming right now to build up a solid aerobic base, as anything over 2 hours on the bike or 1 hour on the run leaves me exhausted for the remaining portion of the day. I would be sleeping my life away if we had any other plan!

As usual, the decision to race would be last minute. It fell on a Wednesday and the Friday prior I had Remicade and the doctors attempting a new medicine (DHE) to help prevent the post-treatment-migraine-ER-visit-chaos. After 1cc of the DHE (prescription called for 10cc) I had the worst reaction to medicine ever. Jaw went numb, then chest, then closer to my sternum, then began sweating profusely, followed by excessive vomiting (sorry guys!). Needless to say, it didn’t work, and by 2:30am on Sunday morning we cashed in our frequent flier miles once again to the ER. Was feeling fine by Tuesday and wanted to race. I have accepted this now as my just “normal” routine and want to play when by body says play.

By 5pm Wednesday it was a gorgeous 70 degrees so we strolled to Mercer Island to let me race for CHOCOLATE (the grand prize).

(The trusty fast TYR Hurricane wetsuit and myself!)

The swim: I started out fast on this two loop course, okay, maybe too fast….as I dove back in I was a tad nauseous (typical two loop fashion. ie: ironman CDA) and had to slow it down a tad to keep some fuel in me. I was happy to land my one and only goal of the day of having the fastest swim split!

So lucky no one passed me as I was “sitting” in T1 trying to get my wetsuit off, not on purpose, but because I literally fell on my booty trying to get it off using the “tap-dance” style that needs to be re-perfected for sure.

(gorgeous trail run through Luther Burbank Park)

The run: 4 loop hilly up and down on gravel, on grass, on pavement, and on sticks. On loop two I ran into a girl who had made a slight wrong turn landing us side by side. We ran within two feet of each other, taking turns on leader, for nearly three loops. It felt good to be “racing” again and especially to be pushing the pace while running! By the middle of the third loop I will admit, I was D.O.N.E. The goal going in was to just run as this would be my longest run in some time. I found out the girl I was racing was one loop behind me, “phew”. I backed off, or just slowed down in general, and enjoyed just smiling while running!

(On the podium with great speedy friends!)

It was so much fun to be out racing, to push the pace again, and to have so many friends out there! The Luna Chix-Seattle were “manning” each corner and seeing each one of them FOUR times was a treat! And then super-buddy Kirk Sall was there to witness my victorious fist-pump. And of course to have so many teammates and Mark (reminding me of “no-pressure, just fun”) too made the day such a blast. And SO much chocolate we got to bring home!!!!!
The same event falls again at the end of the month…..hmmm….I can’t wait!

*On the medical front we are stopping the Remicade and switching to Humira (assuming insurance gives us the okay). These are self-injections every two weeks with the first treatment being in the ER (lets hope this is the last ER visit for eternity). Fingers and toes crossed that this will have way less side effects, in less than six weeks we will know!