Visualizing Whirled Peas

Thank you all for your comments yesterday!  And I'm super excited because I have 50 wonderful readers now - welcome both "old" and new!  It makes me happy to have more bloggy friends....

Well, the bike ride didn't get done yesterday.  I hoped it would, but it didn't.  Instead, my darling bike went to the bike shop to just have a once over and then it was off to pick the girls up from daycare.  I needed a new tire as the cut from the glass the other weekend had spread and why risk the race?  Other than that Aerodite is in good shape and ready to race.  When I got to daycare, the girls were happy to see me, so that was nice too.  Of course, the rest of the evening they just wanted to play only the two of them... which in a way was a good thing because it let me straighten the house and fold 4 loads of laundry and put them away.  I would have had to do that after they were in bed otherwise.

I had what I've started to call "bad energy days" yesterday.  It's funny because if I don't take my medicine in just the right way, I sometimes have these days.  I've found I have to take my synthroid 45 minutes before my other morning medicines, then wait 5-10 minutes after the morning medicines to take my B12.  BUT, I have to take the B12 with food or my stomach isn't really happy with me.  Since I had to fast for my blood work yesterday, I had to wait to take the B12 until I ate, which was much later than usual because I wasn't about to eat breakfast in front of the termite inspector.  That would have been rude, unless of course I had made him some food to eat too.  Anyway.  I think that was the thing that did it because by 3 pm I could have used a major nap and was having a hard time focusing and I had that grouchiness that hung out pre-thyroid medicine and B12, but I did my best all the same.  Thank goodness the grouchiness was controllable.  Pre medication, not so controllable, but now at least I'm not on the outside of my own brain looking at me being grumpy.  So I let the girls play and do their thing and talked to them when they were willing, and did housework. 

I even started piling things up to pack for St. Anthony's.

I decided this morning I was not going to swim as the schedule said but being somewhat close to race day I also wasn't going to do 15 miles at race pace.  Instead, I did 30 minutes at race pace on the trainer (because as Training Buddy said to me, "you can't coast on the trainer") and then 30 minutes of yoga.  When I finished my yoga, I saw that my lovely DVR was taping another yoga that had focus on spinal flexibility and core strength.  So I am thinking that tomorrow I will do a 3 mile walk and a 1/2 hour of yoga (but probably the episode that works on balancing the energy of the sides of the body... I did that when my back bothered me one day and it was like magic.).

I have to admit I'm getting a little nervous about St. Anthony's.  Part of my nervousness has to do with timing my medicine right - I definitely do not want to have a bad energy day on race day.  Part of it has to do with my back.  It's been doing the clicky thing, but not a ton.  But still.  Any clicks are not welcome at this point so close to race day.  I haven't had much back pain, which is good, but I still have a little here and there.  Part of it is just because it's a race and I always get nervous about races.  Part of it is the fact that Mr. Darcy and the girls will be almost 5 hours away.  Part of it is that I really want a PR, but with this wonky season so far between my Aunt dying and my back I don't know if I'm putting too much pressure on myself.  I also don't want to have the worst finishing time out of the Team in Training Team.  Not that being a mentor means that you should be faster than everyone (and goodness knows I think that almost everyone is faster than me on the run because they're almost all marathoners who decided to try triathlons... and we know triathlon is really won on the run), but I feel like I should be faster than at least most them.  Realistically this is not the case.  Plus, I want to have a really good race and race weekend because I know it will probably be awhile until I do another Team in Training event because of the time it takes away from the family.  (Although I think that in a couple of years I'd like to come back and train for the Nike Women's Marathon.  Yes, I realize my back will not likely be pleased but at the moment, my brain doesn't really care.)

As I got on the trainer this morning, I decided that I needed to take some time to "visualize whirled peas," as I like to call it.  So I closed my eyes and I started imagining the race and how awesome it was going to go.  And as part of my visualization, I even told myself that my back was going to be happy and I was going 5/1 it all the way home to the finish line.  But I also told myself that even if my back was not happy, I was going to do what I could to stick to 5/1s and that even if I ended up having to walk because of my back that I would be happy because I was out there getting it done all the same.  I visualized myself crossing the finish line with my arms up and victorious with a time of (I'm not telling- I don't want to jinx it) on the clock.  And then I realized that I still had 20 minutes left to pedal and that I had started my visualization when I was already swimming in the water.  Since one of my goals is to NOT freak out during the swim, I decided to start over and re-visualize the entire race, but this time starting from the time I woke up at 4 am.  I closed my eyes as I pedaled away and imagined everything from what I ate, to setting up my transition area, to starting and finishing.  I even imagined getting kicked and bumped in the water and still remaining calm, swimming my race, getting into my groove, and just doing what I need to do and not worrying about everyone else.  On the bike, I saw myself doing my best but also enjoying the race course and beautiful surroundings and sipping from the speedfil and hanging out in aero (which really is my favorite position on the bike; I'd rather be in aero than up on the bars any time) just enjoying the course.  A happy run, 5/1's all the way home but with permission to listen to my back and legs at the same time.  And again finishing with a smile on my face and with that same special time on the clock.  Ironically, I only had 5 minutes left after that visualization and I felt pretty relaxed. 

I am ready for the race.  As ready as I'm going to be and I'm looking forward to it.  I'm sure that nervousness will return a bit when I go to pack this evening, but I'll just try to visualize whirled peas again and hope for the best.

Mr. Darcy is being very sweet to me and taking my car to get the oil changed during his lunch break.  His office is a good bit closer to the Honda Dealership than our house is, so it's faster for him to do it.  But I really appreciate him taking his lunch to do that for me because otherwise I would have had to do it tomorrow before I leave town, and this week has felt like I had so much to do and not nearly enough time to do it in.  Yet things seem to be getting done all the same.

I'm hoping to take a little bit of time and go shopping for some clothes if I can squeeze it in.  I seem to either have super casual clothes, training clothes, or business clothes but nothing in between.  And I don't want to be over dressed or to wear one of the cotton dresses that I have that people often think I am pregnant when I wear them.  I am seriously considering the tummy tuck again.  But this time I mean it.

Of course, that idea would have to wait until after my season ends... and I'm not finished until the end of November.  So it may be awhile, which is fine.  I need to save money and shop doctors for it anyway.  I hate my stomach.  It is not a beautiful vestige of pregnancy, folks.  It's a thing with a mind of it's own that I can tuck, pull and move as the skin only gets looser the less fat deposits it contains.  I can't do my wheelbarrow pose properly without readjusting the skin folds. It honestly disgusts me (and probably just disgusted you too - sorry about that) and I would rather not find myself disgusting.  My fear though is that once I give in and have plastic surgery that I'll start to want to "fix" other things too.  That and I fear I'll regret it because I'll end up with a scar that goes from one hip to the other.  But I won't regret fitting into smaller sizes.  I am realistic though.  I don't think I'll end up fitting into a size 4/6 again like I was pre-pregnancy - my hip bones and rib cage spread while pregnant with the Little Ladies, so I'm not expecting miracles.  I'd just like to be able to wear loose cotton dresses without people asking if I'm pregnant.

I still dream though that my thyroid medicine will correct my metabolism so that I'll slough off enough weight that I'll be able to tuck that stomach into smaller pants and decide that I don't need a tummy tuck after all.  So I may resist the idea once again.

But for now, I'm hoping to just focus on race weekend, enjoy the time in St. Pete and the race itself.  Forget about stomachs and other silliness.  And let myself remember why I am doing St. Anthony's - the joy of movement, for the blessing of my Mom's recovery from cancer, in Angela's memory, for Doug and his journey with his bone marrow transplant, for the quest to find a cure for cancer, and the sheer joy (and even some of the pain) that is being alive.