Here's where I wax poetic.
Yesterday, I felt like I did after running my first marathon....for those of you who have never run a marathon: imagine getting hit by a truck as you're crossing the street. You stand up and think "WTF?" and it happens again.
That pretty much describes how I felt yesterday. I still hadn't warmed up after drinking 10 or 11 gallons of tea, I couldn't sit, stand, or lay down without something hurting, and I started falling asleep walking from the kitchen to the living room.
Needless to say, the race results really didn't hit me until today.
Everyone who read my blog has been the most incredible group of supporters over the last year. At each point, I quietly dedicated a piece of the road to you.
Cuz I'm nice like that.
Today when I was at the gym doing my "active recovery" swimming, I felt like the weight of the world had lifted. I never really wanted to do the race, but I had to do it.
It wasn't that I had to prove that I could go the distance, I've done it before. It wasn't that I had to prove that I could PR in all 3 events in ONE day. I didn't really even care if I had a little PR or a big one.
I simply had to do the race.
As Billy put it, it was a way for me to overcome the "Idaho Tragedy".
Sometimes you don't realize something bothers you until you have been avenged.
I know that my reasons were ego driven. I know that all y'all would love me know matter what. But it was all about me.
That exact thought hit me when I started running. I was running and running. I was cruising...until I got halfway.
Then I realized that I didn't want to do this anymore. I walked/ran the last half of the marathon.
I knew that the PR was mine and all I had to do was keep moving to get it.
The PR didn't matter at that point. I realized that my heart is no longer in long course triathlon. Maybe in a few years, I'll have the desire to go back and exact revenge on Ironman. Or maybe I'll want to tackle Nationals in the Half Iron.
I just no longer feel like I have to do it.
But for now, I'm done. Today I feel absolutely fantastic about my race. There will always be people faster than me, and there will always be people slower than me. But Saturday's race was all mine.
I felt whole again.
Mike and I are going to sit down and plot out my races for next year but expect to see Oly races, sprints, maybe an aquabike, and most definitely century rides; of course, a couple of marathons sprinkled in (just to keep me honest).
In 5 weeks, I'm running my birthday half marathon. No pressure to perform, just a little birthday celebration with 10,000 of my closet friends.
