Learning to Deal Smart

I have been very remiss in posting in my IM blog and really have no excuse, other than training like a fiend and cramming the rest of my life into whatever time is left.

Having said that, I am going to make two entries to get up to speed on my journey to Ironman Florida.

The month of August seemed to fly by with my training in full swing with lots of hill biking, long swims and longer runs.  I registered for the Bracebridge Olympic Tri which was being held the second weekend in August.  This was going to be a training race for me, but I had planned on racing strong and hopefully seeing some improvement over my results two years ago.

Training Review - 768.51k / 58:38 hours / 51 workouts

We travelled to Bracebridge on the Friday so I would have lots of time to get ready to race on Sunday.  The weather was perfect and we enjoyed some time in downtown Bracebridge, shopping in the small stores and having lunch by the water.

Unfortunately on the Saturday afternoon, I began to not feel well.  By the time dinner rolled around, I had been violently ill several times and could not keep any food down.  Needless to say, racing the next day was going to be a race morning decision.

On Sunday morning, I had hardly slept and hadn't kept any food down, so I made the call to not race.  While I knew that this was the right decision (eye on the prize, Kerry), it was very difficult for me.  I am not a quitter.

Once I decided to not race, part of me was relieved that I could get better so I wouldn't lose any training time.  But part of me was thinking - suck it up, it's just an Olympic distance.  This is where my life lesson came in - learning to deal smart.

It was absolutely the right decision for me not to race an Olympic tri and risk getting sicker and impacting my IM training.  Everyone told me I had made the right decision - I had to learn to accept it and move forward.

Even the best laid plans sometimes go sideways and something totally out of our control throws us for loop.  We can't change it, but we do have control over how we deal with it.  I said at the beginning of this journey that one of the things I wanted to get better at ws to accept that I'm not perfect and not everything will be stellar.

Here was my opportunity to see if I had grown (just a little).  While I did have my moments of wondering if I could have gotten through Bracebridge, they were fleeting, and I had full confidence in the decision I made being the right one for me (not anyone else, for me).

Guess who's grown just a little...me.