Back Pain, Exercise, Race, Running, Swimming, Training, Triathlon

Thing’s don’t always go the way you planned them

Triathlon #2 is in the books!

Well… sort of.

You know, I’ve been talking about my swimming training a lot lately. Swimming is the discipline I’ve put the most work into over the last year since I last did the triathlon. I enjoy swimming the most because I’ve always been a fish and loved being in the water. I struggled some on the swim last year but I was ready to smash my swim time this year!

Well, Friday morning I was checking Facebook and I saw this:

Iron Girl Columbia Triathlon Swim Cancelled

No longer a triathlon, now a duathlon. Just like that. I suppose the water quality was too poor to be swam in safely as well as there being an issue with releasing water from the dam following the freak flash flood that occured in Ellicott City last weekend. Since the swim was cancelled, there a quick (uphill) quarter mile run added in place.

My initial reaction was a sinking feeling and utter disbelief. I’ve been struggling with so much pain, especially over the last week and so the swim was my only real chance to make a great improvement on my time from last year.

I can’t lie and say I didn’t cry a little. I’m a very emotional person and it had already been a hard week week for me with higher amounts of pain than normal. This wasn’t news I was prepared for or even expecting to hear. I was in Michigan for Brady’s graduation when the flood happened and I didn’t tie in that it may affect our swim in Centennial Lake. It’s a hard thing reading about the destruction caused so close to home and the devastation is obviously the bigger picture. Still, I don’t feel the need to have guilt over my emotions and disappointment following the cancellation announcement.

I spent the rest of Friday going through my own 5 stages of grief while processing the news (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance). Maybe it sounds silly, but after dealing with chronic pain for so long and multiple flair ups through this training session, I was really relying on my swim to help me reach my goal.

I struggled with many negative emotions over the weekend and Sunday was a very difficult and emotional race for me, but I’m happy now to have crossed the finish line and be able to see my sister’s success in her first big race.

I finished in 2:08:37 and I’ll be posting a full recap with a breakdown of my emotional race hopefully by tomorrow.

Hopefully I’ll be able to stay awake at work today…

To recap my triathlon journey, visit my Triathlon page.

via GIPHY

In other quick news, have you been watching the Olympics! Some crazy stuff has been going on. I mean, did you see Katie Ledecky swim last night?! I’ve been loving the swimming and gymnastics! I’m really looking forward to the men’s and women’s gymnastics finals today and tomorrow so be watching with me.

Are you watching the Olympics? What’s your favorite/most anticipated event?

Let me know if you did any races this weekend! 

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