Listen

"And there are voices that want to be heard.
So much to mention but you can't find the words.
The scent of magic, the beauty that's been
when love was wilder than the wind.

Listen to your heart when he's calling for you.
Listen to your heart there's nothing else you can do.
I don't know where you're going and I don't know why,
but listen to your heart before you tell him goodbye."

--Roxette, "Listen to Your Heart."

If I took the appropriate amount of time to explain the next few sentences, it would derail the purpose of this blog post, so forgive me for just dropping this out there. When I was going through my divorce in 2008, my Reiki Master Lisa insisted that I had the power and the courage to make the right decisions for myself and to heal my own emotional pain... if only I could clear the clutter out of my mind and listen to my own inner voice. (She also insisted that I am myself an intuitive healer, but as I said, that's a whole other blog right there.)

Over the course of several months, I tried to listen. To find the direction of my own life from within. I read somewhere that the only compass we have for our lives is our emotions, so I tried to understand what I was feeling and why. I broke free of a relationship that confined me, and I began crafting my life with myself as the chief decision-maker. Happiness ensued.

As an athlete, I've tried to learn how to listen to my body in much the same way. Athletes come up with a whole lot of gadgets to try to get information about what our bodies can do. A stopwatch to see how much time it took to do something. A mapping website to see how far we went. A computer on the bike to tell us how fast we're going. And lately, more fancy gadgets can tell us our heart rates, power exertion, even our location on the planet. We use all of this "bio feedback" to help us make decisions: go faster? go farther? slow down?

We balance this information with what our brains, lungs, legs, arms, and other parts are saying. Does this hurt? Can I keep doing this? There's this urban myth that the most elite athletes are no more gifted or talented than others, they have just trained themselves to recognize and ignore the pain that won't kill or injure them. Yikes.

How do you know when pain is too much?

This past Saturday, I raced the Kinetic Half Iron distance triathlon in Lake Anna, Virginia. There were a ton of people from my triathlon club racing as well, and I was happy to be among them and to start my season. I was thrilled, too, to have a calm, strong swim (42:06), even if I couldn't see so perfectly and got a little off course once or twice (or three or four times). I was pumped to see some of my team mates at the start (Janie, Melissa, Adriana, Ellen) and in the water, too (who am I swimming next to? Oh, hi Hillary!).

I had a wicked fun time on the bike course, too, passing lots of Team Z and dudes from FeXY who were drafting (cheaters). It was entertaining when a 20-year-old boy tried to pass me... and then I smoked him on the biggest climb. I got annoyed when two guys tried to force me to draft. First they were drafting off of me, and then they *so kindly* tried to give me a pull by passing me, slowing down, and forcing me into their draft zone. Of course, by by USAT rules, I had a full 18 seconds to get out the draft or face a 2-minute penalty... not that there were ANY OFFICIALS ON THE COURSE (hence all the blatant cheating).

I refused to draft/cheat, so I had to continuously accelerate and pass them. I ended up pulling these two dullards for at least 6 or 7 miles. Indeed, I got a boost knowing that two guys (albeit 40 and 49 years old) were drafting off of ME... And the 40-year-old had an 808 on the front, a disc on the back AND an aerohelmet!

But, when I was alone on Post Oak Road, grinding it out in the head winds and false flats... a conversation started happening among my gadgets and myself.

Mile marker: 45.
Watch: 3:07.
Heart rate monitor: 148.
Brain: "Wow. Only 11 miles to go. And that heart rate is WAY TOO LOW. If I work a little harder I bet I can bring it in to T2 under 3:40. That leaves me 2 hours and 20 minutes for a sub-six and 2 hours and 4 minutes for a PR. Wow. Legs, go faster."
Legs: "Yes ma'am, but let's chat in a few about what's happening on the right."
Stomach: "How about a snack? And some water?"

As I cruised in to transition with about 3:38 on my watch, I saw AJ and Ellen on the run course. Ellen spotted me and cheered me in (this is why you ALWAYS wear your club race kit!!!). The end of the bike course was a downhill, so I was coming in fast, and the volunteers were flagging me to slow down and dismount at the line. I clipped out and started the clop-clop-clop run to my transition area in my bike shoes.

Knee: "WTF."
Brain: "Get into your running shoes. It will be fine."
Heart: "WTF."

In T2, I racked my bike, got out of my helmet, shoes and glasses, and slapped on my visor and running shoes. I took 5 steps out of T2, and I felt a sudden, searing pain below my knee and up my right IT band.

Knee: "I SAID, 'WTF.'"
Brain: "Walk it off."
Heart: "Oh dear god I hope I can walk it off."

For the next 4.5 miles, I walked and sobbed, trying every few minutes or so to run a few steps, experiencing the stabbing pain in my knee again, and stopping in defeat. My heart sank. My brain calculated that I could walk to a 6-hour finish. My knee screamed for me to stop.

I had never quit a race before. My lungs felt fine, my energy level was up, and I wanted to go, go go. I could not. As people passed me and said things like "You can do it, girl!" and "Don't quit now!" I wanted to scream at them. I didn't want anyone to think that I wasn't capable of doing it, or that I wasn't fit enough or strong enough.

I said, "Heart says yes, knee says no," and they understood.

Then I saw all my team mates. Janie, Travis, AJ, Courtney, Ryan, Ellen, Adriana, Dirk... one by one they saw me and tried to lift my spirits while convincing me to get off the course for my own sake. Adriana put her arm around me for a minute and told me it wasn't worth it. I could see the sympathy in everyone's faces. Dirk even stopped his race to give me a hug.

Forty-eight hours later, I've spent a lot of time inside my head and heart, worrying about my knee, fretting about my season, crying, icing, and trying to figure out WTF happened. Thankfully I have an incredibly supportive boyfriend who will see me through this and won't let me do any more damage to myself. At this very second, all I want to do is go work out (in part so I don't lose fitness, in part for the calorie burn and in part for the stress relief), and I know I must not. Cannot.

I will swim and rest for a few days, and spend some more time just trying to listen.

Incredible thanks to all who supported me.

I totally would have had a top ten finish in my AG....
Bugger.