Normally. The OLD normally. The NEW normally is a bit different :-)
Lim, obviously, is not competing in anything besides "most weird medical issues in one year". Bim, on the other, surprising hand, is actually planning to race the M&M... a true shock, considering she declared late last year that she did not like tris and had no interest in ever doing another one. Then, out of the blue this week, she asked us (M, Lim, and me) "what do you think about when you are running?" -- which of course elicited responses ranging from "THIS SUCKS" to "Squirrel!" and everything in between. Finally we settled on asking HER what SHE thinks about when she is swimming, as the mental conversation she has to encourage herself during a race is probably similar to the one Lim or I have during ours. M, on the other hand, falls squarely in the "THIS SUCKS" camp, so was actually kind of less useful on the topic. At least we understand the miserable scowl on his face in every picture of him running, lol.
So, it appears that the one who loves racing will be watching and the one who loves watching will be racing. Go figure.
Then, Sunday, is the Oly. Now, M has a big weekend ahead of him, as he has actual goals and an actual chance to achieve those goals. His wave starts 15 minutes ahead of mine, which will be kind of fun since we might actually see each other on the turn around on the bike, and the run (if I make it that far). I am very psyched for M and am actually toying with the idea of not racing AT ALL just to cheer him on... in part because he never gets to be the focus and in part, frankly, because there is not much point in me racing.
This has already been a bizarre year training-wise. For the past 6 months the girls have been with us almost exclusively (the biofather had them for 3 whole weekends between Oct 31 and Jan 15) and they HAVE been with us exclusively since Jan 15th. This is a wonderful thing, but it has required some juggling and adjusting of training on my part.
Of course, the adjusting and juggling went nuclear on January 22, when Lim got her concussion. So, it took a little time to adjust to THAT, but I did, and ran a great River Run race. That race gave me a great boost training-wise, and the confidence that the new training plan (involving far more rest and adjusting on the fly than I had ever wanted, lol) could work.
Then, I stood up from a chair and almost fell on my face because of some weird pain in my right knee. Weird. The next day I went for a simple 6 mile run, and experienced a sensation in my knee I've never felt before -- far different than the standard knee pain that is, well, standard. The run left me limping horribly and unable to push off the wall or straighten my knee. An MRI showed no "structural" damage but a heap of inflammation. Amorphous nothingness in terms of fixing it...
I tried short runs twice more, with the same pain. Switching to non-weight bearing water running gave me 25 minutes of pain free motion before the same pain kicked in as on the road. So, for the past few weeks, I've done NO running (in OR out of the water). I've biked moderately, and swum plenty, but...
Add in very little rest during the three week poopathon (culminating with a whopping 3 hours tonight, through no fault of anyone but my own damn brain) and I don't have low hopes for Sunday, I have NO hopes for Sunday. The current plan is to do a swim/bike brick and then play it by ear. Of course the forecast is for 15mph winds out of the east, so it might not be even THAT much if they ace the swim again. Since it will be the first time I've taken any running steps since the MRI, who knows how it will feel if I actually come out of T2 trying to run. I'm kind of terrorized that I will take a few steps and, even after several weeks of no running rest, it will feel like it felt when it first happened.
What little killer competitive instinct I had going into this week pretty much evaporated last night anyway, as sometimes being the keeper of the emotions and the worry leaves me drained and listless. I am sick of drama in our lives -- medical issues, biofather issues, incompetent coaching issues to name a few sources -- and sometimes worrying about the minis (especially Lim right now) just eats me up. Call it a design flaw in my brain, but... the more tired I get the more my stupid brain spins around and around and around about stuff. Hence the not overly restful three whole hours of sleep two nights before a big race.
So, this weekend will be about Bim and M, two team members who seem to always take a back seat when it comes to the tri focus yet who are just as talented as the other two, broken, team members. It won't take much for me to talk myself into taking my focus off of dreading my own race by leaving bumblebee home, and putting it on M's race exclusively. He deserves it.
...that's my why, what's yours?
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