HOME never felt so good!

All I can really say is WOW. The past few days were tough.

After the first trip to the ER I vowed I would not return…knew I had some doctors appointments lied out for the following week. Days of REST and more rest and I returned to work late Monday. Barely able to make it through the lessons as soon as I hit home things got scary. We headed back to the ER for some treatment and before you know it we were NOT going home.

Severe dehydration, the lack of nutrition, and the intense flare up had me in my worst state EVER. Yes, I had flare ups before lasting 4-6 months but never this severe, they were managed well by medication and listening to my body and resting as needed.

Ironically my GI doctor was the on call gastroneurologist for the week so he was able to come see me every day. It took 7 huge iv bags to have to go to the bathroom. And after losing over 8 lbs, I soon blew up so much that I did not even recognize myself. I didn’t care about anything though, just wanted to get healthy and feel normal again. I soon had cankles, swore I gained 15 pounds (later to find out only three), and looked like I had collagen injectons all over my face.

Many have asked what causes the flare up and so just to address it, it is not “caused” by stress or nutrition. It is that I continually have inflammation due to ulcers in my colon and it needs to be attended too, once a major flare up occurs (which for me comes on quickly and strong) then anything (ie: stress and nutrition) become a huge component it getting it to settle. So I was on complete bed rest, iv bags and liquid diet (chicken broth and jello). They do not know what causes ulcerative colitis but is very similar to Crohns disease (on a smaller scale). I had heard of hospitalizations and individuals having sections of their colons removed but truly never thought I would be in this situation.

My tests all came back negative so I have started the Remicade treatments (yep, they run from t $7,000-$14,000, thank goodness for insurance). I responded very well to the first one, as I was actually moving and was able to eat solids starting the next day. I was pretty exhausted immediately following but with the help of amazing friends and family the time was spent much more pleasantly than having to go through this solo. I had the most beautiful flowers to look at (thank you Johnna, Ryan, Bryn and the Cunninghams!), magazines galore (Thank you Bri, Bridget, Jenn, Kirsten, Sarah, Karen, unbelievable that there were no "repeats!") (BTW the black blazer is the hot item now!), a fantastic new lululemon scarf/blanket/do anything cover, a real toothbrush and toothpaste, room spray (Miss Bridget is like a mom!) , the cards, the FB messages, the concerns, and an ipad that has EVERYTHING a girl could want to watch and the little trip for a cute lulu tank and deodrant was over the top (thank you Beth!), itunes gift card (H* thank you!) , and visitors that made the time fly by (You guys are the best!). And thank you everyone for taking care of Mark during this time too, he was more of a trooper than myself I believe (the sandwiches, the pretzels, the banana bread, a trip to Azteca- he likes food!, but the messages too....I can't thank you guys enough).

I have another treatment in two weeks, then in four, then in 8, etc, etc. It is a progressive medication that does have many side effects but if I lay low and rest then I hope to continue to respond like the first treatment.

As for training, that is no more for now and there is no time to telling as to when. But I promise to be the best spectathlete to all of you out there pursuing your fitness dreams! My time will come! I am pretty okay with it for right now. Just had a small bout of sadness when looking at the pro list for Lake Stevens this Sunday. That quickly changed though when I had to “walk” around the hallway (which I had not been out of my room in 3 days) and felt dizzy just doing that. Amazing to go from 100 mile bike rides, to walking 50 steps as success, baby steps I know! Leaving the hospital was pretty emotional, seeing the sun, going home, and having this new amazing husband that could not have been any more supportive made me appreciate life even more.

I know most of you reading are triathletes and taking time or days off is really hard to swallow. I wanted to just remind you that are bodies are pretty amazing things and they “let” us do what we want on a day to day basis. It is important to listen to it and know when to say when and also to appreciate it and on those days you are looking for motivation just remind yourself how “lucky” you are to just be out there doing what you love. So often athletes are so focused on the time goal, the PR, the winning, and truly it is so much more than that. But yes, I understand that winning is fun! Triathlon has kept me fit, given me the best job in the world, has let me travel the world, but what I think of most is how the sport has one by one added new amazing friends to my life. The support and the messages that rolled in during this past week reminded me of what a family this multisport lifestyle really has become. What I will miss the most during this time is that which I get to spend with my friends, the fun memories we create while doing these crazy workouts and the laughter. The races are the icing on the cake and as much as I love to race….it can wait for now!

Tonight we are hoping for a great nights rest of no more pottying in toilet hats, no more BP and HR reading on the hour, no more iv’s, no more moveable beds (to prevent bed sores), and to the lady next door whom was on “high alert for falling” whom bed sung “Mary had a Little Lamb” like the ice cream truck was driving by every time she would’t wait for a nurse….you will NOT be missed! (PS, this was more than an hourly occurrence, no joke, ask my visitors!!)

Cheers to your health and to being able to appreciating what our bodies can do for us!

New Path.

So simple, yet so complicated.

It’s simple to say I am done for an indefinite amount of time off of racing and even training. NADA. U.C. (ulcerative colitis), which you don’t see, is that this disease is taking a toll. Nobody can see the disability so it can be hard to believe I have it, but quality of life has diminished.

Amazing that one can be stopped in their tracks so quickly, training and living life to the fullest. One of the reasons I did turn pro was because I had been so healthy for multiple months. Exercise is the last thing my body will accept right now, so now I rest, and rest. I have accepted that training will increase appetite (which I am unable to eat) and adds stress onto my body (that needs to heal), along with adds to issues of dehydration. No fun :(

Two months of trying to get coverage of a pre-existing condition, and now dealing with finding new docs has been a ridiculous challenge. But thankfully, after a trip to the ER the docs finally found it urgent enough to see me quickly and we are on a solid path to getting out of another repeated flare up.

Since regular meds are no longer working it looks like (assuming I pass all the tests) I will be on a lifelong treatment of Remicade or get the colon removed (which honestly, I would not mind at this point). There is a super high success rate with the i.v. treatment , so finger crossed I pass the test to qualify for them. However, there is no end in sight for when and if training and racing will ever begin.
This liquid diet of Ensure is not as bad as I thought it would be (I have tried all flavors now) , but ironically the weight loss is out of control. I always love being fit and healthy and being super thin and not healthy is not the ideal lifestyle. I feel weak. So whoever wrote “ Being Thin Never Tasted So Good” or something to that extent….I don’t agree. “Being Fit Never Tasted So Good” would be my book!

I am accepting this as a path I was meant to take, a journey to make me appreciate health, training, racing, and more than anything living.

There is a big picture to this that I am anxiously awaiting.

Canada Camp 2010

We headed up the second annual Ironman Canada Camp this past weekend. I will write about our absolutely amazing, dedicated, hard working athletes and their adventures at http://www.tnmultisports.com/.

With the busy weekend of keeping our athletes fueled/hydrated and clicking away at the miles we left early to get in our own "solid" training and get focused on the camp. We left mid day on Wednesday and arrived at a descent hour but were so exhausted that unloading the car was like miles 17-19 of an ironman. Where you are just going through the motions and not really seeing the end in sight. We crashed.

Woke up the next morning, did some computer work and Mark ventured out for coffee and pancakes for us (Denny's 101!). After some breakfast in bed we fell asleep AGAIN! Some training weekend so far, huh?!. We vowed to get up and be on our bikes by 12:30, well 2pm it was. We can't say thank you enough to K-swiss for the amazing cycle gear that not only was comfy, but made us look like the super-matchy-matchy couple (I like it!!!). Thanks K-Swiss! The weather was stormy and there had been talk of thundershowers rolling in on the news. We headed out on the ironman course and we stuck dead on with the wind, it wasn't too bad, until we had to turn around due to a fire, then it was WINDY.

Just when I was "over" the ride, Mark remembered an awesome ride he had down with Thomas while training for his first ironman in 2006. It was beautiful! We cycled for hours, and unlike our cycle to nowhere that occurred a few weeks prior, this one lead to the most amazing little town and spa resort. It was stunning. We stopped to have our water topped off and for some yum pastries.

(happy riders and happy bikes taking a super happy break for delish yums!)

Penticton is absolutely beautiful and riding to this beautiful place made me appreciate it even more. I had quickly forgotten about the first hour of non-sense and truly appreciated this great ride with Mark.

Upon returning home I needed to swim. We biked by the peach and the start and it was white caps galore, no swimming for me in there. While Mark ventured out on his transition run I searched, and searched, and searched for open pools, with zero luck. All having major renovations. I attempted the 90 degree bent 10 yd pool, but the sight of it with lots of children too made me walk straight back to the hotel room and vow to swim the next three days in a row (mission accomplished).

We finished the night off at Earls with an amazing strawberry spinach salad. YUM!!

(take note on who had to be in front to take this photo....ha! J/K...I had intervals!)

Can't wait to experience this ride again and thanks Mark for making it into something wonderful!

Seafair 2010

This is the sprint race of the year for Seattle and our tri team showed up in full force. I have done this race, um, for YEARS now and each year learn a little more and try to go a little faster. So I went back, did a little research, and as you can see each year something improves, or lacks, or I place lower with faster times. Racing is about fun and learning and you can see by way of time that each year provided a different race, a different result and all on the same course!

In consecutive order from 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010.

Swim: 11:27, 11:07, 9:53, 10:05, 10:10

T1: 1:25, 1:08, 1:04, 1:14, 1:12

Bike: 37:30, 32:44, 33:43, 32:36, 32:25

T2: 1:24, :55, :1:05, :58, 1:05

Run: 24:12, 21:40, 22:25, 22:21, 21.19

Overall: 1:15.39, 1:07.35, 1:08.11, 1:07.15, 106.08

2005: obviously a little new to the sport!

2007: was a transition fool! Need to get back to that and was super ambitious with track workouts!

2008: no fat salmon swim the day before...hmmm, training for first ironman.

2009: Consistent, but uber tired!

2010: one step closer to putting it all together!

This year I made an honest effort to fuel better post Fat Salmon event in an attempt to not be starving within 10 strokes of the swim. Amazing what the power of food brings! I have been working on my swimming and although the time says slower than previous years, I truly believe the course was a tad longer with the top guys (who are always the top guys here being over 30 seconds slower). Backing up a tad, you guys think an ironman start is brutal, try a SPRINT start with testosterone ridden men...YIKES!!! I battled it out with the best of them until the first buoy and then finally made a little room for myself. There was a lead pack, then two guys in another pack and then me and a few fiesties on my feet. After the last turn buoy I caught up to pack two and we all swam neck and neck in for the last 100 yds. Note to self, their dolphin dives are way faster than my swimming, I need to master that! Hence, they hit that timing pad right before me.

Back to the race and it was a mad dash onto the bikes. These guys were all doing their flying mounts as I graciously did my ever-so-not-so-speedy, scooch-scooch-kick one leg over the seat ballerina move. The bike was the bike. I gave all my legs can give going from ironman training to sprint triathlon. On I-90 we do an out and back, unfortunately the tunnel is DARK so it was super challenging to see teammates and buddies, but we all knew were were cheering for each other in spirit!

To the run, I felt great and truly believe the slight change in run training this year is making a big difference on how I feel running off the bike. A little side note though, the national speedster Kim Pancoast was racing and I knew there needed to be a ginormous gap with her running me down (and Johnna was hot on her heels too!). So going into the race I was just hoping to move as fast as I could and better my time from previous years, especially the run, which you can see from above was not my best performance last year. I held that girl off as long as my legs could and she passed me right at the beginning of the downhill at the turnaround. I tried to copy her beautiful gait as she passed and just sense that I was her running, minus the 5 steps I take to her one! I saw Johnna too close behind and another girl who trailed her by 15 yds the whole race, talk about pressure!

(Stellar gals in every way! Johnna, Bridget, T, Kim)


I crossed the finish line in my best Seafair time to date!!! Kim Pancoast was waiting at the line with the win, we were both anxiously waiting to see Johnna round into the final stretch as TNM swept the girls overall landing in at 1-2-3!

This race is a blast for a few reasons, #1 it hurts, but it is a quick painful hurt, #2 all the local fun triathletes come out so everywhere you look you have a buddy by your side, #3 to race and train with these amazing girls makes it even more bittersweet especially whom we know are all in the middle of some heavy training blocks and just digging deep to make this race happen! And Bridget Jones our other training buddy placed in the top 10 too! It was an amazing race all around.

Thank you so much to the amazing sponsors of TYR, Rudy Project, Base and my team of doctors for all your support!!!!

Until 2011 Seafair, thanks for the memories!

Fat Salmon Take Two!

The annual Fat Salmon event was this past Saturday. A 3.2 mile swim along the shoreline of Lake Washington. A race where the non-wetsuit division is as fast as the wet suit division. Basically all the "swimmers" don't wear wetsuits and the triathletes (the smart ones) wear them. Therefore, I am smart and wore the absolutely fantastic TYR Hurricane wetsuit.

("The fish", myself, and Liz- the most organzied, well-run, supported event EVER! -she rocks!)

We arrived early and did some volunteering, Liz (race director) has been absolutely amazing and supportive of TNM and it was the least our team could do was to help out. Of course there was some competition as to whom had the best writing for body marking!

(Steve and Mark getting ready to do some damage on the numbers!)

Dang the weather has been cold here BTW. It finally hits a high of 70 around 4pm, so race morning didn't have me anxiously awaiting a beautiful dive into Kona-like waters. It was shivers and cold and actually warmer in the water than the crisp air.

I learned a bit last year (chalk one up for a little experience) and planned my race strategy a lot differently. And it worked, but I owe someone half of my 25+ pound salmon. I swim with this man "Tom" often, okay, maybe not often because I can only manage to get in the water at 5:30 in the morning on average twice per month and on a good month 4, but my average is closer to 1/2 a time a month these days.

I started swimming with a pack of about 4-5 (one a girl that kept swimming on top of me....couldn't figure it out since she was on the "feet" directly so it wasn't like I had the "good" seat on the bus). Eventually it panned out into a perfect line and I was in the perfect place, behind two guys. I swam and swam and kept cool, not getting to anxious to go faster. Then leader man, aka "Tom" (whom I didn't now was Tom at the time) kept swimming really close into shore, I kept following, but knew it wasn't the most direct path. Then swimmer man number two in our line decided to venture on his own path. I stuck with Tom a little longer until we hit close to half way and decided to swim ahead and take the lead and give him a break and hopefully swim a tad straighter :) At this point to, I figured he was ready to turn around and clock me with how much unintentionally "tapping" I was doing on his toes. I know "thee-most-annoying-thing-EVER". Good thing he likes me, well hopefully he still does ;)

We swam past the 1.2 mile start and could here cheers from the racers. Mark and some fun TNM mates were doing this event. I could feel their cheers and it made me even more excited to be racing and nearing the finish line!

As we neared the final turn I knew I had some people right behind me so I had to put my head down and go for it. Later found out it was the two guys that lead me through the first part.

I learned that I need to know where the finish line is because, as with anything, I need to be told 101 times before it registers! "Cross the line"! The director stopped me after the first mat to get my number.....they may have been plotting for someone else to win (ie: Tonya Harding style...ha!). Pretty funny to laugh at though!

And WOW to Mark who placed 2nd in his divison for the 1.2 mile swim!!!!!!

Thank you so much to TYR for the amazing non-foggy fit like a glove Tracer goggles and the Hurricane that has amazing range of motion in the shoulders and speed built right into it! Thanks swimmer dudes for the fast feet and happy to return the favor....Tom- as the salmon is being fillet, you will be getting half of it!!!

Exams, Ocean, and Sunshine!

Late night cramming, mid day naps be-gone, permanent bike fixture in my living room..... some serious catchup going on around here. I have been MIA playing exercise procrastination. It worked well with my college exams, but not sure how great it works with racing. This upcoming weekend is two back to back races. I was O.U.T. of swimming, let alone training, so my procrastination technique will be put to the test. Good thing no "A" races are this weekend, or I would be in double trouble. I just love to RACE, so this test I will take on as "extra credit".

This past weekend we went to Ocean Shores where two of my favorite people raced. Two different agendas to accomplish and two wins were the outcome. I claim Mark won (results say third), he was the first one to finish the entire course...so I give him the victory dance!

(Champs!)

The ocean was gorgeous and I was lucky enough to the opportunity to run along it the day before the race, chilly, but breathtaking.

The next day was my ENDURANCE day and was lucky enough to be able to meet up with my favorite guy riding buddies. We ventured away from the "normal" route and just kept riding, and riding, and riding and vowed to continue to ride until we found civilization (ie: a mini-mart). When we finally arrived, after passing pastures, horses, llamas, 4 wheelers, but not running out of a thing to talk about, we arrived at a mini mart with the long forgotten pay phone (hadn't seen one since forever!). Sorry, no pics since no place to carry camera when the the opportunity for tan lines were out in full force.

We had a blast laughing and riding to nowhere, and that was riding to nowhere fast. We covered 110 miles in record time (it was flat) and chalked up another day of perfect practice!

The sun is gorgeously shining in Seattle and I just wish someone could come up with a neoprene suit we could tan through!

Bliss.

It's not everyday the sun shines through to the workstation and coffee! Bring on the sunny sunshine!