It's Personal You Can’t Go Back You may now be a mom rather than a marathoner, or a career woman instead of an elite athlete, but is that such a bad thing? By Dimity McDowell I could picture the finish line – and me striding across it effortlessly. Never mind that I was a year out from having a baby, my jam-packed 25-hour workweeks felt more like 60 hours, and my endurance levels were less than ideal (read: a 30-minute run was challenging). I had marked April 30, 2005, on my calendar with the word comeback, underlined twice for emphasis, then filled in the details: the Wildflower Triathlon, Lake San Antonio, California. Although I loved being a mom, I also sorely missed my old self: an elite rower, a marathoner, a woman who defined herself by her athletic accomplishments. I planned to reconnect with her by training for and then conquering a 1.2 mile swim, a 56-mile bike, and a 13.1 mile run at one of the country’s most popular triathlons. Eager to return to form – when I soaked a sports bra and drank a protein shake at least once a day – I hired Kate Timms, an online coach and former triathlete for Canada’s national team, to help me rip across the finish line. An ambitious middle of the packer with three triathlons on my race resume, I knew I wouldn’t win or even place in the top -10 in my age group. Instead my goal was to race as hard as I could, not just participate. I wanted the epiphany and the pride that came with pushing myself to levels I previously thought impossible – a sensation I hadn’t experienced in at least three years. The first week of my six-month training plan, titled “Getting Started,” had eight workouts, with a caveat from Kate at the bottom: “You may find this is too little, but I don’t worry about it now. The intensity and frequency starts low and builds.” I wasn’t worried about its being too easy; I was worried that my quads were shaking from exhaustion after the second workout. Within two weeks I was up to 10 workouts a week, and a few weeks after that, a typical weekend workout was something like this: a 70-minute run on Saturday, followed by a 90-minute bike/40-minute run on Sunday. I had slogged through a long-distance triathlon before, so I knew the commitment and the hours of long, slow endurance training it required. But my life had changed. Instead of being able to work out-and nap- anytime I wanted, my workouts were squeezed in whenever I had a moment; and, with deadlines, a toddler, and a husband, there was no time for luxuries like a post-workout shower. I never stretched; I kept forgetting to take my daily multivitamin; I fell into bed at 8 p.m. almost every night; and I ate unsatisfying lunches of suspect nutrition, like the crusts of Amelia’s (my daughter) grilled cheese, a handful of raisins, and four Oreos. The challenging preparation, combined with a life that was already packed with to-do lists and diaper changes, took its toll on my 33-year-old body. My back ached constantly, and I was out sick twice, each for nearly two weeks (years, in the cardiovascular world) – once with a virus and once with a sinus infection. “At least you’ll be rested for the race,” Kate wrote when I was finally healthy again. But the pain my body was going through was nothing compared with the mental anguish I felt. My arms-flung-up-in-triumph vision morphed to one of complete doubt: Would I even make it to the starting line? And if I did, would I be embarrassed instead of proud? Despite the setbacks, I knew I’d invested too much –both time and money – to call it quits; plus, motivational mantras fro my past athletic life, like pain is temporary, pride is forever, echoed through my mind way too often. So, with the help of too much Advil, I barely finished a few key workouts, one a three-hour ride followed by a 45-minute run, and headed to California. Before I left, though, I had to adjust my expectations. Just surviving the race at this point was optimistic. There was no way I would be able to push myself as I originally wanted to and not end up in the medical tent. I cried a lot before I left, knowing that what I wanted and what I’d get were two entirely different things. Arriving at the racecourse, set in a region of central California so remote that a campground, not a hotel, was the preferred accommodation, I was immediately sorry I came. Everybody seemed to have body fat in the single digits, and they were already wearing their stoic game faces. Attending the prerace dinner, where once the pros described the course as “one of the hardest I’ve ever done,” didn’t help matters. Once the starting gun went off, though, my competitive instincts kicked in, and I was in the top five out of the water among the 104 women in my age group. On the bike, I tried to focus on the lush fields of flowers I was passing instead of on the gobs of women who whizzed by me, numbers written on their calves of steel indicating that they were my competition. One particularly hard hill nicknamed “Nasty Grade,” a 5-mile, 1,000-foot climb at mile 40, nearly made a DNF appear next to my name. “How much farther?” I wheezed at an aid station that I thought was about halfway. “Too soon to be asking that,” replied the volunteer. By the end of the bike, I’d fallen to the bottom third of my age group. Then, during the last mile, I surprised myself. I didn’t dwell on the on my tortoise like pace. Instead, I got tears in my eyes and was overcome with pride, an emotion I’d felt juts as strongly when I’d throw up after a crew race. As I slogged out the last few steps of the race, I also had the epiphany I was after: my former, faster, self-centered self was gone, and I’d only make myself crazy trying to recapture her. But in her place was me, version 2.0, who was still an athlete, but also a mom, a wife, a writer, and a woman who wouldn’t compromise any of those roles to get better at the other. Version 2.-0 came in seventy-second place in her age group-or 1,342nd overall –and, in the end, couldn’t have asked for a better experience. Well, maybe 1,341st place, but there’s always next time, right? |
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