Disappointment

"Ok seriously, enough with the camera already. I'm cute. I know. Get over it. I am trying to focus on playing here."

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Today i find myself in Houston airport in transit between Rio De Janeiro and Vancouver. In the last 5 weeks i have spent 5 nights on planes and last night was the best one. i am getting the hang of it. How to position myself, the seat and pillow comfortably so that i dont wake up with every bump, neck bent and contorted. Its always nice to see progress, even in the simplest of tasks.

Since DNFing at IM Brazil I have had to deal with disappointment on many levels. The main disappointment is that my hopes of going to Hawaii this year are squelched. It was a long shot but now its pretty much impossible. This actually has an upside in that now i can plan my comeback to racing with a little less urgency and a little more smarts. Also on the list of disappointments are; the loss of income, the 9 days spent away from Clint and Rosalee when she is only 6 months old, and last but not least, the disappointment in myself for deciding to end the race. (Now before all my extremely kind and well-meaning friends jump in with various reassurances and reasons i should not be disappointed in myself, give me a chance to explain why i feel this type of disappointment is actually a good thing. This is not a pity party.)

First of all, the main reason i did not finish the race is because I did not sleep the night before and was thus, not coping mentally with the task of racing a full Ironman. And when i say i did not sleep, I mean, i did not sleep. At all. Not 5 minutes. Not even 30 seconds. This has happened to me before. It happened at Ironman Brazil in 2009. It happened in St. Croix 4 weeks ago. In 2009, I managed to finish the race, but it was the most painful of my career. In St. Croix, I was actually feeling ok on race morning, still positive and ready to go. But it was not a full Ironman.

This time, i managed to stay positive through a long night of tossing and turning. Even when the clock said 3am i was still thinking "i can have an hour nap and be good to go!" It wasn't until I got out of bed at 4am and started getting ready for the race that i really lost the desire and will to put myself through it. A cup of coffee helped me shake the gloom for a short time but it only lasted about an hour and by the time the gun went off i was already looking for an out. This is a terrible feeling. When i look back on it, i see that in one night my hopes and aspirations for the race just slipped though my fingers. At the time I just carried on regardless, but in retrospect, I feel like i was robbed.

I felt tired for the whole swim but my time was good enough. The first part of the bike was a bit of a comedy show... combine the fatigue of not sleeping, the adrenaline of racing, a girl with sub-par bike skills with a technical course and someone is gonna get hurt!! I was very aware how slow my reflexes were and had close calls with multiple potholes, cones and even another competitor when i didnt see a dead turn coming up and almost plowed into the back of him.

So back to my "good" disappointment. I know that in similar circumstances other competitors would have finished the race. I can think of multiple examples, heck, I managed it 2 years ago in the same race!! Every decision has consequences and one of the major ones in this case is that i didnt get the satisfaction of finishing. In 2009, I finished the race and was pleased, but i didnt have the result i wanted. This time i feel disappointed, but i get to start training again tomorrow. I dont have to recover from a full Ironman physically, but i have to recover mentally. I don't think there was any right or wrong decision in either of these cases. Just 2 choices, neither of them good, each with a different set of consequences. So there are 2 aspects to what happened on Sunday, the part that was out of my control and that leaves me feeling robbed and the part that was in my control, the decision not to finish the race. Both are disappointing.

This may sounds weird, but i will own the disappointment and i will take it with me to fuel future training and racing. I feel like i earned the right to be disappointed. I almost kind of like it. I like it because it reminds me of who i am, of the fact that i am taking great risks for rewards that are few and far between. I am disappointed because somewhere inside me i truly believed that 6 months after giving birth, I would be able to compete in an Ironman race on a professional level. If i didnt believe it in the first place, I would be neither surprised nor disappointed when it did not work out. The disappointment becomes a reminder of who i am and that i am definitely, on the right path. So i will own it, take it with me on my way, let it fuel me and use it as a reminder of who i am and what i am trying to accomplish.

Thank you to all my supporters, to ProCityCycle and Zoot, to my friends and family, my athletes and the tri community in Victoria. Big thanks to Amy, Chris, Marilyn, Giancarlo and Shawn for all the laughs this past week. And also huge congrats to Amy, Chris and Giancarlo on jobs well done. Roll on!!