Ground Force IT Power Sprint Tri 2013

"No worries, the first rule of Triathlon is to NOT DROWN. I've so got this."  ~ spoken with far more confidence than I felt about 8 minutes before I jumped into the Shady Grove YMCA pool.

On a starless Sunday morning in May, I got up well before any sane person in the world, and went with varying levels of dread and excitement to meet my TriWife DeNiece so we could head to our first TRI of the season. Lot's of folks we know raced Ground Force IT Power Sprint, including Potter, King, and Catalyst J. Everyone had an amazing day in one way or another.

I'm the fool who seeded myself on my best 300m time of the season. I admit, a week before the race, I was pretty nervous about my swim seed position. I mean, if everything went PERFECTLY I would be fine and could make the 5:29 goal. <~ when does everything go perfectly on race day?
right.

Still, an hour after sunrise I found myself standing in gooey mud waiting to swim with only 86 people swimming ahead of me. I chatted with the guy behind me and wondered whether he would catch me. Always my fear in the pool. So my strategy on this length TRI swim is to go all out for the first 100M, settle in for the 2nd 100M, and don't drown in the 3rd 100M.

I lined up in the doorway with T-15 seconds till start and listened to the hollow sound of churning water. The volunteers rinsed the mud off my feet, and "GO". I jumped into the dark chop, pushed off, and went for it.

At about 200M I caught and passed the swimmer ahead of me.

By 250M I wondered if life wouldn't just be easier if I sucked in a lungful of water and died rather than maintain the brutal pace.

The swimmer behind me never caught me (or the guy I passed).

I flopped my nearly dead body onto the cement deck, gasping for oxygen and staggered to my feet... oh... freaking yea. I'm running to transition now. At that point I had NO clue how fast the swim was... you lose time when you catch the swimmer ahead of you, because you have to pass them at the wall and there's a loss in "fluidity". And I never timed myself jumping in and swimming and then climbing out of the pool with dead limbs. But still, it didn't feel like the swim of my life. bah. WTFC? I was glad it was over.

05:53 Swim Split very slow compared to every pre-race time trial.

Transition felt fast. Didn't look at my watch - that woulda taken time. Shoes, helmet, bike, go. I decided to take a lesson from my son & race without socks.

Swim to Bike 02:09

Also, I was still muddled when I went to mount, but I got on and got moving. The bike was great. I freaking love my new bike. Did I mention that? 

"Keep pedaling, Beautiful!" I heard as Catalyst J passed me going about 9087 mph on his yellow bike.

Catalyst J - 1st in A.G! So proud of you friend!

I passed a few people, got passed by a few people, passed a few more. It wasn't the sufferfest from my last TRI ride. It was great. Did I mention...? 

I paralleled the run course, and there was Catalyst J again! He looked strong and fast!
"GO Catalyst J!"
"GO Beautiful!"

38:11 Bike Split holy freaking bike ride batman! It's a 4 minute bike PR on this course! 19.2mph!!!

Before I knew it, I was back in transition pulling on my shoes, visor and race belt so I could go for a run.

Bike to Run 01:25

As I ran out, I heard my name, looked up, and there was The Good Dr taking my photo. Right in front of him were my 3 awesome cheerleader kids. It was sweet.

Remember when running was my favorite sport?

It's so not my favorite sport any more.
That was wicked hard. My achilles started to whine about 1 mile into the run. Every step felt in slow motion. I watched the time click away on my watch. I knew it would be like this, because I haven't been running in weeks... but still...

Thankfully it was a 5k, so despite my pace, the finish came quickly.

27:43 Run Split so incase you wondered, that was 1:43 slower than I'd hoped to pull off.

And the MC felt like interviewing me for some reason as I was having my chip removed. It went like this:

"VIRGINIA FLYNNnnnnnn, FROM HENRICOoooooooh, JUST FINISHED. VIRGINIAaaaaaa, HOW WAS THAT RACE FOR YOU TODAY?"
~gasp~ "it was" ~gasp~ "a great day" ~gasp~ "out there" ~gasp~ "today".

The Good Dr & T were at the finish to greet me. And I got a few sweaty hugs before covering my injured achilles with ice. I watched DeNiece finish and walked up to her to wipe black... mascara? off her face...?

And she laughed and showed me her hands. "I threw my chain. This is bike grease!"

Anyway, with Catalyst J's EPIC results (first place AG finish!!!), hot showers inside the Y, bike grease, Bouncy Houses, Potter (AG place as well), and all kinds of food stuff flying around, I never really even looked at my time or rank or anything.

I couldn't be bothered. For some reason, I wasn't pleased with my race. I think it was because I was shooting for an A, and I got a B.

And then I remembered something right as I fell into bed for a mid morning nap:  Oh yeah. On March 17 I was standing at a post race "party" coughing so hard I pulled a muscle. I couldn't take a full breath. I was using an inhaler 4X a day and sleeping 18 out of every 24 hours ... It's only May 19. I maybe need to cut my sorry self a little slack on this, and be happy with my race today.

So I realized that a lot of variables went into the race... but the ones that matter are that I have an amazing support crew. I am lucky. I am able to get off the couch and race.


I finished:

8 of 27 A.G.

35 of 143 Female

140 of 325 Overall

01:15:21

That happens to be a PR for me.

Also, as a side note, Richmond Multisports put on a great race this year. It was the smoothest I ever recall and the Rev3 timing was great. Thanks RMS.

A Galactically Bada** PowerKids Tri Re-Cap

This is not my recap to re-cap. Thus I'll turn it over to quotes from my son all day...

"I'm a little nervous" - 0645 on what turned out to be a very rainy chilly Saturday morning.

"Oh. Sweet." - 0705 Walking to transition, showed him how to walk his bike by holding the saddle with one hand.

"I've got this"- 0715 setting up in transition, in response to, me shouting at him to put your cycling shoes in front of your running shoes!

"What?" - 0730 upon being told we needed to go pick up his chip.

"What's the chip for Mom?" - about 2 seconds later.

"I want to wear my swim cap now" - 0745 (<~ his race started at 9a.m. and he was in a late wave)

"Wait, how long?" - in response to my indicating that it would be a long.long.wait.

"I am not going to do the swim cap" - 0900

"Let's get in line." - finally, 0930, we wandered over to where the kids with his numbers were huddled for warmth.

"What if I win?" - right before he left me to get in the pool... to which I said, well G, the point of this is to have fun. Just do your best and see what happens.

1009 G hit the water with a splash, and I gasped when I realized, hey, my boy is swimming in a triathlon, and... he's kicking it!

omg! G's out of the pool 2 minutes ahead of what we thought! um... WOW! (he was the 3rd kid finished in his swim wave, and he passed the other boys on the run into transition!)

Catalyst J, Did you see that transition? (a blistering fast transition put Gregory on the bike faster than any of the boys in his swim wave and most of the kids in the wave ahead of his)

"Seriously, he clipped in faster than I do" <~ a quote from Catalyst J, who came out to spectate G's first race.

PICK IT UP G!!!! ATTACK THE HILL! MOVE THAT BIKE! <~ probably not my best parenting moment ever, but what ever, stop pretending like you wouldn't have been yelling that to your child if he'd been racing....

Holy what? He's done on the bike already??? Catalyst J & I ran for the transition, but by the time we got there, OC (G's bike) was racked and he was gone.

He really brought it on the run..

And then, before I knew it, we were watching him finish.

I didn't even think to look at the clock. And neither did he.

He proudly showed me his 3 Bike Hash marks from the bike course, and the Red Run mark from the run course. (Sharpee markers & volunteers kept 300 kids on course today)

"My entire body hurts" - a few minutes after the finish. to which I said, well that means you did it right.

"That was fun. I can't wait till the next one!"

 "A little kid crashed into me coming into transition off the bike". He had an outside chain tat, which he says might have been from the other kid's bike. "I just didn't stop. I got up and got moving."

Love.this.kid.

M

Henrico

VA

Male 11-12

11 of 43

18 of 97

31 of 187

5/18/2013 10:42:40 AM

00:33:40.173

Titled "also known as the post where I acknowledge that it might be time to rename the blog"

"Are you a Runner who does Triathlon, or a Triathlete who runs?"

Huh. My gut instinct was to proclaim, "What the F$(# kind of question is that? I'm a runner who cross trains... "

But the truth is that my answer kind of shocked me. "I think I'm a former marathoner, who's now a Cyclist who does Triathlons so she can still run sometimes because she loves it."

(it's ok if you didn't follow that. I'm not 100% sure I followed that either)

In the last year I have been plagued with injury & illness & injury. I'm sick of it. I'm tired of not getting anywhere. Maybe running is too hard on my body. <~ it hurt me to type that.

I went to the Witch Dr this week. He gave me good news.

I got permission to race on my injured leg this weekend... he's "cautiously optimistic" about it.

So while the news wasn't terrible, the news wasn't great either. The damage wasn't able to heal in 5 weeks of rest. I really want to ask "If I took a few months off running and put my efforts elsewhere, do you think I might get better?"to see what he says. I'll be asking that question next week.

So I probably need to rename the blog. But I don't want to, and probably won't, because it's my identity... it's my voice.

You know how I always profess:
runners are weird

I have to ask, Are cyclists weird too? Cos if they're not, how in the world could I possibly fit in with them?

Acid dropping

There’s this person I come across in life, quite frequently, who is always dripping with sarcasm. Somewhere in her life she must have heard that it was funny, or clever, or something, so she does it all the time. It’s her regular language.

Every time she opens her mouth it's to cut down the person nearest her.

She even greets her friends with acidic comments, without thought to their mood or current state of mind.

It’s unpleasant. And ironic. She's the first person to point fingers if anyone is less than exquisitely polite to her. 

And I can’t help but wonder if she never ever listened to her mother’s wisdom on the topic of sarcasm, or perhaps if she missed a key element in her education that would have helped her keep or maintain friendships. 

I used to be like this, by the way. When I was a teenager I was always sarcastic. The glass was half empty. I had a snide comment for everyone. In fact, it still sometimes sneaks out. But not as much anymore. I'm approaching a birthday that rings deeply of "Late 30's", which is definitely close to 40. People in their 40's know better. Usually.

worst painting ever- but it was a fun,
relaxing way to spend an evening.

Ironically, this is one of those things I learned to articulate because of a skill I acquired in one of those “fluff” classes that mean “nothing” in college. Isn’t that odd? In nursing school I learned to start an IV, perform CPR, monitor a patient’s vital signs... but one of the greatest life lessons was earned in drawing class.

Life is a measure of contrasts.  

In order to appreciate dark, you have to have light. In order to understand light, you have to have shadows.

In order for the piece you are working to make sense, you must have varying degrees of color. A tree that is one shade of green is a green blob. In order to paint a believable tree you need green, white, and black.  And maybe yellow, but you could get by without it. With the three colors you can paint a tree with depth. In fact, you can be a terrible painter and still convey a tree to your audience if you have shades of color.

I am, in fact, a terrible painter.

But I know that the viewer needs light to see shadow. 

And we need sarcasm to appreciate irony. 

And we need variety to recognize consistency. 

In theory, kindness would go unnoticed if everyone was kind.

but I still wish everyone was kind.

As I go through life this spring, dipping my brush into wells of white, black, and green, I’m trying to remember not to overwork my piece. I need to make sure that there is enough light on one side to see the shadows on the other.

And if I happen to have a little yellow come onto my brush like a drip of warm liquid sunshine, that’s great too. It’s like an added unexpected bonus. It will make the shade feel that much cooler.

brb

By the way, It's hard to write a blog about running when running takes a back seat to everything else in life. But then again, that's just how life goes sometimes I suppose. Also, I'm playing catch up on the last 16 or so weeks. Give me a sec. I'll be right back.

Distractors

Nursing school is about seeing through the distractors to understand what the question is actually asking. While I certainly understand the point of them, I have to wonder at what level my nursing school takes this challenge.

Possible test question distractors usually include age, gender, illegal drug use, and antianxiety medication taken on the morning of the exam.

Well, these are the standard NCLEX question distractors.

At the nursing school I attend, there are other distractors though.

Distractors on the final exam for med surge also included things like “The exam is worth 30% of your grade”. This means that if you miss enough of the exam questions, you’re going to fail the class, even if you came in with a strong grade. To be perfectly honest, I was completely unworried about this distractor. I spotted it on the first day of class, and despite being painfully stupid, I managed to arrive at the final with a 90somthing% test average.

Another distractor presented was; “The 80% rule is inflexible, if you screw up, you’re screwed. Also, we don’t round here at this school. Ever. A 79.9% is a 79% and that is failing. However, on the test, when calculating medications, remember to round”.

And then there was the unforeseen ATI testing distractor. This is possibly the cruelest distractor the school has implemented. They give us NCLEX predictor tests that cover the material we’ve covered in our classes and tell us the results are kinda important because they’re accurate.

So, after studying for days, using the method I have used all semester, as well as taking the advice of my professor, the professor who presumably wrote the final exam, I arrived on test day with two sharp #2 pencils confident that I was going to kick ass and take names.

“The patient taking Vitamin C supplements arrives in the hospital wearing white shoes, bleeding from her gums after a fight with a jack russell terrier in a neighbor’s yard. Her temp is 98.3, her HR is 92, her IQ is 123 and she didn’t go to nursing school. What is the priority assessment?

First identify the distractors...

White shoes before Memorial Day – definitely a distractor.

Neighbor’s yard – what fool goes into a yard with a jack russell wearing white shoes?

She didn’t go to nursing school & her IQ is 123 – my IQ must be less than 123 because I went to nursing school...

So I read the question and I think, I know the answer. It’s to check for bleeding. HR is high normal and she’s bleeding from her gums which can indicated a clotting issue... the answer is going to be assess for BLEEDING, and if not that, it’s going to be AIRWAY.

I check the options:

a) 1 + 5 = 6 (ok... so that doesn’t make a ton of sense, but it’s a true statement)

b) 2 + 4 = 6 (also true, but again, it makes no sense in relation to this question)

c) 77 – 71 = 6 (oh crap. Where is “bleeding”? The answer is bleeding... it has to be... terrier fighting white shoe wearing non nursing students who are afebrile should be assessed for bleeding... so the answer is going to be d....)

d) The patient has bradycardia because it’s Tuesday, notify the physician and prepare the patient for a self-breast exam (uh. Anyone? Bueller?)

After 50 or so of these questions, with three right answers and no correct answer, I start to wonder if I’m smart enough to even be sitting in the room with all these smart people.

Its true. The people I go to school with must be amazingly smart.

The bad thing is, as this realization dawns, the information relating to MedSurge that normally resides in my brain decides to check out for a short break. Nausea is rolling over me in waves and my skin is prickling (~sigh~ what kind of hallucination is that?).

I can no longer read all the words, and the ones I can read don’t even make complete sense.

And at some point all I want to know is the answer to the most important question that is being presented on this test:

How does a student with a 93% in the class, who achieved a Level 3 score, in the 99^th percentile, on a Med Surge ATI NCLEX predictor test, get to question 52 on her final exam with a firm grasp on the fact that she knows nothing about anything to do with nursing, and should probably just quit now?

Risk for Situational Low Self Esteem related to stupidity as evidenced by the number of questions answered wrong in the first 45 minutes of a final exam.

Once the grades posted my fears were confirmed, and I ended the semester with the belief that I am worthless in the classroom.

I am worthless. I studied. Hard. And this is the result?

I comforted myself post exam with beer and the idea that maybe this test was just hard. That it was a bad day for me. So, the test was difficult, and that’s why I struggled... people will identify with this. Hard tests result in low grades. It’s not you, it’s the test.

Or, at least I can tell myself that until my professor says, “That exam was easy, what happened?” 

I very honestly want to look her in the eye and see her reaction when I say, “ok. I’m sure it’s not the exam. If you tell me the exam was easy, and I know how I studied, then I am too stupid to be in this nursing school. I guess I better figure out if dropping out is viable, or if I am going to continue here at the risk of bringing the school down with my stupidity for another 32 weeks.”

My ATI test showed that I have a firm grasp of material, as compared to students in other programs. So if the purpose of ATI is an NCLEX predictor, what was the purpose of Med Surge Final Exam?

So far Nursing school has done a great job. I can start IVs, confidently watch O2 sats and determine when they’re for realz dropping or just fluctuating with patient position. I know when it is time to be firm, and when to hold someone’s hand.  And that challenging a question or test grade will be, to quote the professor, “a waste of your time”, despite my concern that all the test was testing was my resolve and dedication to continuing forward in my education. Today I’m going to have to diagnose myself with:

Powerlessness related to alterations in roles, relationships, and future plans as evidenced by an inability to communicate effectively...

In the mean time, I have 13 or so weeks off to recover from this insult. To convince myself that, even though the “test was easy”, it was a fluke that I scored so poorly. That I am not lacking in intellect.

That I deserve to be here.

That my worth is not tied to a number.

Ta-Do

on my 'ta do' list is study for my final exams. There are 3 left and one of them is worth 30% of my grade. Basically, you can f*%# it up and fail the class, even if you go in with an A. For the record, I don't plan on f*%#ing it up.

also on my 'ta do' list is be a mom. There are 3 kids to consider, and at an average of 12 math problems per kid per night, this shouldn't be an issue, but damn... sometimes it's a FREAKING ISSUE.

items also on the list are train to swim, bike, and run and not drown. or suck. not sucking at swimming biking and running all seems like a sound a reasonable plan.

and let's not forget further down the 'ta do' list is drive a taxi service. If you don't like driving, I'd advise you have only one child, or only have dogs. Dogs are great actually, I understand they like to walk.

'Ta do' list also includes be thankful the car started today. or better yet, just plain old, be thankful.

Something happened today that reminded me to keep it in perspective. It should be on my 'ta do' list.

My perspective was brought to me by my favorite therapist. She's black. I only mention it because she sheds, and wearing white is a challenge. She reminded me that

today is the best day ever.

You want to know why? Because I took her for walk this morning before I left the house.
We walked NO WHERE.
In a 5 minute CIRCLE, if you will.
And yet, it was THE BEST DAY EVER because, it just was...  it was the day she got to spend 5 minutes with me, savoring our time together. She smiled the whole time. And even though it wasn't our longest or most adventurous walk, she was all wagging and smiles and sloppy wet kisses when we got home.

And here's the truth of my life.

Today is just what I make of it. Maybe I'll be a good mom, be a great athlete, or be neither and do nothing but take a walk with my dog...  it's all how I look at it.

So today, was the best day ever... 

even though it wasn't.

~savor the run~