run this amazing day

The first thing I did post-race, like before I packed up my bike and had a second shower, was to come down with a raging sinus infection. After a day or two I hit up a doctor for some antibiotics, which did nothing except be my most recent contribution to creating super bugs that will one day wipe out the population, The Stand -style.  We drove back to Philly, we flew back to Boulder, and for the next several days the only reason I left my bed was to go to work and cough all over everyone (you're welcome).   I was inclined to blame the fact that I rinsed most of Mirror Lake through my sinuses while getting pounded on in the swim, but it really doesn't much matter why I got sick, I got sick and it whopped me good.  And you know what?  I had nothing to do, nothing to worry about, so I let it rage on.  It's certainly about a billion times better than what I did last year in the weeks after ironman.  I drank five thousand cups of tea and ate whatever sounded good and NyQuil&

The first mile of any run off the bike, I try not to do anything.  Don't eat don't drink don't look at the watch don't think.  Just run, just get to the first mile marker and THEN start doing work and making decisions.  (No idea what's going on here, probably something along the lines of fuck yeah I'm about to run a marathon! ). So I didn't think, I just ran.  And my legs felt like crap, but my stomach was the bigger problem.  I made it about eight minutes before I dove into a porta-potty.  I spent about one ugly minute in there, hopped out, slammed the door, and kept running.   One of my process goals for the day was to run the entire marathon, no matter how slowly I was moving.  I knew after that stop that I still had some problems to solve, but I was determined to run while I was solving them.  So  I ran through the first aid station without taking anything.  I still was holding my bottle of EFS, but I didn't try any sips quite yet.  Mile two click

The first thing I did after clipping in was to shove some calories down the hatch.  It was raining, and it felt like it was coming down pretty hard, but when you're on the bike it always feels that way.  I didn't want to drop my large bag of nutrition, so I pulled out about 100 calories of chews and sent them down, then started working on a bottle. I hit the first little incline about two miles into the race.  I geared down to spin easy up the hill, and while I spun up, about three dozen men wearing white spandex on flashy bikes with noisy wheels went by doing 6000 watts, and, amused, I turned to the guy next to me and said, We're only at mile 2, right?   I know this happens at every race but it never fails to make me laugh. I caught up with Caroline a few minutes later.  By this time I was soaked and I reminded her that this was HER crazy idea.  She was pretty chipper, and it was nice to chat for a few minutes as we traded places (legally) back and forth.  We were t

I've heard from so many other athletes about how wonderful Mirror Lake it.  Calm, beautiful, cool, delicious, there's a magic cable and maybe unicorns live there too.  I did a practice swim on Friday with my girls, and we laughed and swam and did flip turns and backstroked and I felt at ease.  I wasn't worried about the swim, the swim is my happy place. Sunday morning went just like race morning goes.  It was raining when we drove into Lake Placid from Wilmington but dry in transition, and other than an extra-long porta-potty line, the morning rolled right along.   Yasi and I had only a few minutes to squirm into our wetsuits, and I nibbled on one more bite of a bar, kissed my husband and waved to my parents goodbye, and then headed into the scrum to line up. A couple of months ago, I had a dream that I swam a 1:08.  Just a dream, but when I talked through my race plan with Sonja, I told her about it and said, I'm going to swim a 1:08 .  That made it easy to line