Last night I stayed up till 1 am to watch the cannon go off at Ironman South Africa on the live footage at ironman.com. This morning I woke up in time to watch the finish. Kind of a nice way to do it, actually, since the live coverage mostly shows transition and that's kinda boring to watch for 8 hours...
Chrissy did it again! She not only won the women's race, but she broke her own world record and came in 8th overall. She is incredible. The best part though is watching the last of the age groupers finish as Chrissy puts their medals around their necks. It just astounds me and makes me so proud of this community. I want to do a race where Chrissy competes, and I wouldn't be unhappy to finish slowly if that meant she would be there to give me my medal. She's such an inspiration.
Also, did you know that on her website she has posted all of her drug test results? She has encouraged other athletes to do the same. I think it's an interesting idea and I support it.
http://www.chrissiewellington.org/drug-tests/
Anyway, enough about Chrissie (I think my wife is gonna smack me if I mention her again...). I am still depressed about my hip but watching some Ironman definitely helped to brighten my spirits. I am injured often enough that I have started to develop coping mechanisms, and the largest of those is creating a plan. A plan to get me through, a plan to get to the next race, a plan to heal. It's hard balancing all three of those with so much of my pride resting on triathlon (not to mention time and money invested...).
The new plan is to skip my runs this week and add in an extra bike and extra swim day. This is a tough call for me to make, but it's necessary. I have less than a month till my first race, but the race is only a sprint. I can get through a 5k with relatively little run fitness, it just won't be my fastest time. It's not my key race (which is the Washington DC Tri on June 19th) so if I don't turn up a PR it's not the end of the world (keep tellin' myself that). SO a week off of running completely. That means no elliptical either. Just swimming and biking and strength (maybe I'll even have time for yoga!) AND seeing a doc.
Normally I just go to my dad, who's an orthopedic surgeon. But I think this time I need to go see someone, in an office, get something done about it, ya know? We'll see.
On top of all of that, today was a nice bike day. A bit colder than the weatherman promised, but not too bad. Got in a few little hills and had to deal with a bit of bike traffic in the park, but overall a good day. Still, wish I had met up with a group just to push my speed. I have trouble focusing on going hard when I'm out by myself. Hopefully I'll get that to happen this coming week with my extra bike day!
Staying positive! And GO CHRISSIE!!!
Given the fact that Chrissie won Kona on her first time out, I don't doubt the idea of posting her drug tests online was not fully hers. haha I'm sure plenty of people questioned her. But I do agree that aside from her physical abilities, she is an AMAZINGLY considerate athlete. She's always willing to help out and give back to her fellow competitors. Definitely a shining example of how any sport should be run.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I hear she is incredibly cool person. sounds like a good plan. good luck!
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