Just keep on swimming....

More than 15 years of endurance training has taught me one thing - in order for me to completely go "all in" with my training, the event at the end has to scare the hell out of me.   For about 12 years that was easy as there were new distances to explore.  My path had a stereotypical build from 5K to 10K to half marathon to marathon.  My triathlon progression mirrored this progression with sprints to olympics to half ironmans to ironmans.  When I felt the road wasn't no longer much of a challenge, I headed to the trails taking on ultrarunning, stage races, Xterra triathlons and mountain bike racing.

An accident in June 2012 forced me to the sidelines for two seasons with multiple surgeries and close to a year of PT.  Since coming back into the world of endurance racing in 2014, I feel like I have been unfocused and lost.  Each year I would lay out a series of races and challenges.  I would work with my coach to lay out a terrific plan to reach my goals but I would get distracted and nothing would get accomplished. I have a million excuses on why this happened - work, illness, injury, self doubt, disappointment.  2014, 2015, and 2016 were years of unmet goals and left me feeling very empty.

While 2016 started off strong with the establishment of a good base in the winter/spring, late spring illness and surgery (on the same injury that took me out in 2012), derailed me again.  But this time, I took charge and was not going to end another season feeling unfulfilled.  So in early July, I took charge and registered for the Swim to the Moon 10K open water swim on August 20, 2017.  The 10K swim would have been the longest swim I have ever raced!  I threw myself into training and for the first time in years, I was not missing workouts.  No matter what the day through at me, I got to the pool and I got the workouts done.  I got stronger.  I got faster.  And I was enjoying training again. The race came and went pretty well.  I reached my "B" goal but was quiet far from my very ambitious "A" goal.  I learn a lot about open water swimming and myself as an open water swim spending 3 plus hours swimming across that lake in Michigan.

Riding home following the race, I didn't feel satisfied.  I had a great day and I was happy but I wanted more.  I wanted more racing, more training, more reaching past what I thought was possible.  It took me a matter of 24 hours to find another (longer) race.  I emailed my coach and asked if it was possible to go from 10K to 10 miles in 8 weeks.  Her answer was that it wasn't ideal but we could definitely get it done.  So within 48 hours of my first 10K OWS finish, I registered for the To The Bridge and Back 10 mile OWS in near Richmond, VA.  So for the past 4 weeks, I have just been swimming.  And for the next 4 weeks, I will just keep swimming.  All while enjoying feeling like an athlete again.