The cold hard truth of ironman training

I gave in this morning.  The cold. The snow. The ice. The lack of sleep. The stress. The 10+ hour workdays.  The shoveling. The commute. I gave in to all of that this morning.  This was not my finest moment.  I gave in to self doubt.  I gave in to the feeling that I made a huge mistake by signing up for another 140.6.  I let really horrible, and I mean HORRIBLE, thoughts take over my brain and my body.  Most of it was about my body.  About how weak I was. Mentally. Physically.  About how I weighed too much. About how my races will suffer because I eat too much and don't train enough. If I couldn’t handle a 1:30 bike workout, how am I gonna handle 140.6 miles of racing? 

There are highs and lows during an ironman race and I need to be able to dig myself out of the lows.  I know this.  I trained for an ironman in 2011.  I know better.  But today, I lost a battle.  I lost the battle of my mind.  Could I have pushed harder on the bike today?  I just don’t know.  I’ve been pretty stressed, not sleeping well and waking up at 5am every weekday is cutting the hours I sleep way down. I’m a sleeper.  Sleep fuels me.  I need at least 7 hours.  Do I get that now? Nope.  Some people can function on less.  I’m not one of those people.  But when I get home from work at 8pm and still need to take care of the dog and cook dinner, I’m not hitting the hay until 10-11pm.  Do I fall asleep right away?  I used to.  Not anymore.  Too many things are on my mind.

Do you want to know how badly I gave in?  I’m normally a happy-go-lucky gal that looks for the positives in situations.  Today? I cried. Twice.  I got so worked up I started to have a panic attack and couldn’t breathe.  What the heck is wrong with me???  That’s not me.  That’s not a trait of my personality. Then I cut my workout in half, soft pedaled til I hit 45 minutes, yelled at myself (out loud) and went upstairs.  Woke my husband up by telling him what a shitty morning I was having and changed into cold weather gear.  I had shoveling to do.  I told him not to help and that I needed to be alone. I opened up the door to a swirl of ice & rain on top of 7 inches of snow. Not so nice things came out of my mouth. I shoveled.  I almost cried again.  It was hard work.  My back hurt.  I cursed my house.  I cursed the burbs.  I cursed mother nature.  Finally I gave in to needing help.  I yelled back in the house that I need my husband to help because it was all just too much for me to shovel (or take.)  Then I bitched and moaned some more once he came out. I picked a fight. I apologized.  I tried to keep my mouth shut. Tried to keep my mind shut. It didn’t work.  Finally we were done.  I took a shower and just hoped that all my negative energy would be washed down the drain with my sweat and tears.  I’m not sure they were….

I know I signed up for this lifestyle.  I am grateful that I have an able body that can swim, bike, run and shovel. It could be worse.  I get it.  But sometimes… I have shitty mornings. Sometimes I give in to the negative, downright nasty, thoughts.  My only hope is that I can pull myself out of this funk.  It’s been building up for a while.  It burst this morning. I burst this morning.  Hopefully I can put the pieces of my positive mindset back together.  And soon. 

At least my snowy suburban house looks pretty.  That's something right?!

I know I've only posted 3 times and this one is a major doom & gloom post.  I wanted to get these thoughts down while they were fresh. Before this morning's meltdown happened, I was going to write a January month in review post praising my consistency and dedication.  It's crazy how things can change in a blink of an eye. Training for a long distance event is not easy and I'm sure I'll go back to being happy and positive very soon!