What an incredibly amazing day! I still can't believe I did it. I feel so accomplished! I'll post pictures when I get them.
Woke up without an alarm this morning at about 5:15 so I got up and finished getting ready and headed out the door WAY to jittery to eat. I stayed at a hotel in Hurricane UT which is about a 20 min drive to where they told the athletes to park. For some reason I had it in my head that the shuttle out to the lake went until 6:30 so when I showed up at 6 and no one was there it was really hard not to panic. But, I made the drive back toward Hurricane to park about 2 miles away from the starting area. The shuttle bus I hopped on got to drive way closer than they usually do, so everyone was happy a late athlete was on board. I shouted "you're welcome!" as I hopped off and then I RAN to get checked in.
Let me tell you, I could not have cut it any closer than I did. Haha! Handed off my bags, got numbered up, threw my lovely purple swim cap on and RAN toward the start. Once I got there I realized I had forgotten my timing chip in my bag. Doh! Luckily they had a table right there at the water's edge with some extras. I'm sure it happens all the time if they're that prepared. By the time I hit the water my entire heat was already swimming away from the shore toward the start line which was about 50 yards out. I was about halfway there when the horn blew to start but I think it worked out better. I was able to avoid the huge crowd and my time didn't start until my chip crossed the line anyway. Also, I was so panicked about getting to the start line in time I didn't really have time for nerves. Bonus!
The swim went well, although it felt like I was doing terrible. Compared to the Caribbean that water was COLD! I wasn't used to wearing a wet suit either. Plus St. George is significantly higher than sea level - and I felt that the most during the swim. I felt like I never could get enough air and I never hit my stride and settled in, but I did it in just slightly longer than my usual time I was hitting during training. Woohoo! Coming out of that water was pretty cool. Tons of athletes all coming out at once, lots of volunteers helping us strip off our wetsuits. There was no way I'd have been able to get it off myself. Can I just say that all the volunteers were AWESOME too?! This one lady seriously helped me out in getting to the water in time. I couldn't have done it without her. I don't know how many volunteers they had, but it seemed like there were 5 for every athlete. They were great! So friendly and encouraging. It was nice. So, I'm out of the lake and I hobble barefoot over to where the bikes were racked. I read horror stories about people not being able to find their bike after the swim because they couldn't remember where they put it. I was glad that didn't happen to me. They had the area laid out really well and I had no trouble finding my stuff. Some of the pro's and wannabe pro's were really fast in & out of the transitions but I didn't even care. I took my time and made sure I was all squared away before I unracked my bike and walked over to the mounting zone. The same lady that helped me get checked in was there slathering copious amounts of sun screen on everyone so I got to see her and thank her and tell her that I made my heat on time and all that. I'm glad I got to thank her.
And then just like that I was off on the bike. I was SUPER nervous for the bike leg. I didn't really train for it, unless you call riding my bike to and from school plus 2 twenty mile rides that were more walks than rides. But, the biking went well. My roady is MUCH lighter than the bike I had out at school and the gears are better for hills too. About 5 miles in there was a pretty big climb. I was glad for it because it warmed me right up after that freezing lake water. The whole time on the bike I kept telling myself to "ride my own race". I really didn't want to blow too much energy on the biking only to die during the run. That strategy ended up working really well. I quickly found that I was in the middle of a group that all had a similar pace. During an Ironman you're not allowed to draft or anything like that, so the group I was with played leap frog pretty much the whole way. I told one guy that I felt like we should be good friends because we both passed each other like 20 times. :-) The bike course had lots of hills. None were overly steep, but there were a LOT of them and some of them were really long too. I was happy with how I did - and then at about mile 40 we hit Snow Canyon. WOWZER! That was quite a climb! I'm extremely proud of the fact that I didn't have to get off and walk. I don't think I could have gone much slower though :-) At about this point I really started worrying about having energy for the run, but I really wanted to make it to the top of the hill. Boy oh boy I was glad when I hit the top too. The downhill was super fun! I hit 43 mph at one point 0.o Never gone that fast on a bike before! From there on out it was mostly down hill right into the heart of town for the next transition. I tell ya, hopping off the bike after 56 miles really felt funny. It took my legs a minute to remember how to walk. This transition was much faster because less stuff was involved. Just a switch of shoes and ditching the helmet and biking gloves. I also had some ibuprofen in my bag which was a really great idea. :-) I started the run off jogging, but it wasn't long before I was walking. It was flat for the first 1/4 mile, but after that it took us back up hill and out of town the same way we had just come in on the bikes. Oh man that's when the mental games began. I could only jog for about 100 yards before I had to stop and walk. And my jogging pace was pitiful at best. Haha. It wasn't long before I noticed I guy about my age doing the same thing I was doing - which was trying not to die and cry at the same time! I've always thought running with a partner was way easier than running alone so I turned to him and said something about how our paces were similar - aka DEAD - and that we should stick together. Best idea ever! His name was Justin and before long we were chatting it up which helped both of us stop thinking about the pain we were in. They had aid stations every mile on the running course which was life saving. Anyone can run a 1/2 marathon if there are aid stations every mile. We'd run for a mile, hit the aid station, dowse ourselves with freezing cold water, drink a bunch of water and gatorade, eat an orange or banana, maybe stretch a bit and then set off on the next mile. All the while we were chatting and encouraging each other. It was great. The whole run was really interesting. I kept thinking over and over how it was more of a mental battle than a physical one. I think I physically could have gone faster than I did, but mentally I was about at my limit. I was also surprised at my breath pace, which was a lot slower than I thought it would be - both on the bike and the run. I was breathing way harder during the swim than I ever did on the bike or during the run. I didn't expect that. Anyway, it wasn't until about mile 5 that I really felt confident in my ability to finish. The 1/2 way point in the run had us way on the far side of a BIG uphill climb. We might have speed-walked the final mile up that hill, but we both felt good about it because when we were heading out we noticed that nearly everyone was walking up that hill. I'm super glad there was an aid station at the top :-) I think that was about mile 8 when we finished the final big uphill push. After the top of that brutal hill it was flat for a while and then at about mile 10 we started to drop back down into St George. The downhill really felt great on our legs because it makes your muscles work differently. Once we hit the city limits the sidewalks were filled with people cheering us on and one family that was handing out popsicles. HEAVENLY! About 2 miles out we realized that if we pushed we could finish the 1/2 marathon in less than 3 hours so we pushed hard to the end. I kind of got emotional during that last mile. It kind of hit me what a monumental thing I was about to finish. The finishing chute was jam packed with screaming people. Made me feel like a celebrity or something. Haha! Finishing strong felt SUPER great. I can't even describe how awesome I felt when I crossed that line! So amazing! Justin and I grabbed a photographer and got a picture together before we parted ways. I was surprised with how physically OK I felt after finishing. When I did my 1/2-marathon a few summers ago I felt like I was gonna die when I finished - haha! So I was kinda surprised I didn't feel that way today. I walked through the crowd for a bit and then found a shady spot beneath a tree to lie down for a bit. I may or may not have fallen asleep, because suddenly I heard the people sitting next to me ask themselves if I had stopped breathing. Haha! I guess I was really super relaxed. Sure felt good to just lie there for a bit though. They were serving pizza and soda and icecream sandwiches to all the athletes so I went and got some of that. I didn't realize how hungry I was until I started eating. HOLY smokes - I was suddenly famished! The soda didn't really do it for me. They had coke at almost every aid station. Every time one of the volunteers offered it to me I just thought, "ew-gross". Didn't appeal to me at all - but apparently it feels good on an upset stomach so that's why they offer it. Glad I didn't need it.
So post race and post meal I had to ask around before I found a ride back to the lake (20 mins) away to get my car. Got to my car and it wouldn't start..... because I left my lights on all day. RATS! In my frantic dash to the starting line I totally spaced turning them off. Rookie mistake. My ride's jumper cables didn't work so they took me to a store where I bought some and those didn't work either. I was worried it was a bigger problem, but Geico Roadside Assistance saved they day. The moral of the story is get a quality set of jumper cables. None of this cheap Chinese garbage crap. Apparently it really makes a difference. By the time I got my car started and back down to St George the party was over and I had to go behind the scenes to claim my bike and one of my gear bags. I was kinda sad I missed out on the awards ceremony and the atmosphere, but that's ok. I'll take advantage of that next time - and you better believe there WILL be a next time! I'm thinking one every summer. Call me crazy, but I'm hooked. Plus - everyone says that this course is the toughest one aside from Kona, HI. So if I can do St George then I should be good to go everywhere else. Who wants to do next years with me???
Sunday, May 4, 2014
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Goodbye to 2013 - and good riddance too!
Fitting that today it's been a full YEAR since I last posted.
I really didn't realize that until I was halfway done writing this post. I've been meaning to write it for a few weeks now. For some reason it just felt like today was the right day to do it. Or maybe I just didn't want to study. In any case, here goes.
Let me just say that 2013 was hands down the hardest year of my life. Pretty sure it will hold that title for years to come as well. I sure hope so anyway because it was ROUGH. I've toyed with the idea of blogging about what I have been through...what I'm still going through... but I don't feel like that's right yet. Maybe someday.
For now I'll say that I have passed through what I hope proves to be the darkest parts of a major crisis. A crisis of identity, of personality, of flaws, of faith, of....almost everything. It shook me to my very core and then took that core and blew it to smithereens and left me with all these confusing pieces that needed to be put back together. But first all of these pieces had to be discovered and gathered one by one. And they needed to be studied, understood, worked on, reshaped, fixed and then reassembled. But it wasn't like putting back together a puzzle that a 2 year old tore asunder. All the shapes of all the pieces had to be changed - and I couldn't tell how they were supposed to go back together. And it was hard and frustrating and scary and tense and INtense and dark and ugly and mortifying and horrifying and depressing - like REALLY I-can't-get-out-of-bed depressing - and uncomfortable and revealing - of a lot of things I really didn't like finding - and often full of more questions than answers and it was exasperating and expensive and emotional and exhausting and messy and slow and painful and challenging and almost unbearable at times, and it often left me reeling and made me feel totally stuck and deflated and dejected and broken and worthless and totally lost and confused and unstable and unsettled and and like a failure and like every step forward only came with two steps back and...and...and...
And it was lonely - SO lonely! Because for years I was too afraid to talk about my problems.
But it was also liberating and grounding and anchoring and healing and faith-building and rewarding and SO relieving and soothing and...and...and... and hopefully lots more things.... but quite frankly, the sting of it all is still pretty fresh. Hopefully down the road I will be able to look back at this time of my life and be grateful I passed through it. I think as time passes I'll be able to add a lot more to the list of good things that came out of the mess I went through. That I am still going through.
A few little gems that I am most grateful for thus far:
First, I'm grateful for my counselor. News flash folks: COUNSELING ISN'T JUST FOR CRAZY PEOPLE. Or is it that we're secretly ALL a little bit crazy underneath and therefore it IS for crazy people but that includes everyone? The point is, a good counselor is invaluable. I'm so glad I found mine. I have no idea how he has the emotional strength does what he does, but I'm glad he's so good at it. I was totally and completely stuck and had NO idea how to get unstuck. Without professional help I never would have gotten unstuck. And I could see a major breakdown coming if I had remained stuck for much longer. If you're feeling stuck seek out a counselor. It will likely be hard, but oh my goodness it is so worth it. I have been working with one who shares my faith. Can't imagine working with anyone else.
Second, I'm grateful the loneliness part is over. It took about 3 or 4 months of intense emotional work with my counselor to get over the fear I had of being rejected by EVERYONE if they only knew what I was hiding under the surface. Over the years I got REALLY good at hiding, and that contributed more than anything else to the thick fog of loneliness I was living in. The constant fear and the paranoia it produced was awful, and it was definitely the hardest thing to let go of. It's crazy how isolated I felt - for years - even though for most of my life I've been surrounded by good good people. I isolated myself out of fear. What a terrible thing. Opening up has been SCARY. It takes a HUGE amount of vulnerability. I like to think it's getting easier, but I'm not so sure. I'll tell you what though, it's been worth it. Breaking out of the loneliness has been the best thing for me! It has brought about deep and meaningful connections with everyone I've talked to so far - which is something I desperately needed after being so lonely for so long. I'm thankful that, so far, everyone has responded with concern, love and support. Even though it's scary at first I have really come to enjoy talking about my experiences. But, like I said above, I'm not ready to tell the masses just yet. I'm still REALLY careful about who I talk to and when I talk to them. I hope this doesn't cause hard feelings. God has had a hand in letting me know who to tell - and when to tell them. It's the funniest thing and it often doesn't make sense...until it does. And then it's just beautiful how orchestrated it all is. I definitely trust His judgement, after all He's pretty good at knowing how to do things the right way. If you want to talk then mention reading this post. If God says it's ok then we'll talk. If He says nope then we won't. Simple as that. And you're not allowed to be upset if God or I say nope. :-) The longer we've known each other and closer we are the more likely it is that I'll get the go ahead from God - and from myself. haha! I'm most comfortable talking with people who are related to me, but I've told a few close friends too. Put some serious thought into it before you ask. Pray about it. I will on my end too.
Third, I'm grateful for the ability I have to feel the Spirit. It's a beautiful, wonderful, priceless gift. It's something I have come to cherish more than anything else. It is and has been a beacon of light and comfort, warmth and love that has pierced through EVERY dark thing I have ever passed through. The Spirit has always been able to break through to me, even when I believed I literally was not worth God's love - or ANYONE's love for that matter. Even when I have been unworthy - when I have felt like I'd rather cease to exist than face God. Even when I have felt like God isn't there. Even when I've been really mad at God. Even when I've felt like God didn't want to touch me with a 10 foot pole. No matter what my relationship with God is like the sweet and comforting feelings of His Spirit have been there through it all. ALL of it. Including that huge list of horrible things listed above. The only reason I am standing where I am today is because of the gentle prodding and encouragement and LOVE I feel as the Spirit works on my heart and tells me to push on. I feel so lucky that I was blessed with a keen ability to feel it - and to WANT to feel it. It has made making some extremely difficult decisions really easy to make.
Fourth. It's amazing to me how God intertwines our lives. People have been placed in my path because I NEEDED them. I think lots of the LDS students out at school with me - and their spouses - wonder why their route to becoming a doctor brought them way out to the middle of the Caribbean. All of them seem to figure out their own reasons why God wanted them here, but I secretly think they're here because I needed them here. That's all. God made sure I had a great group of supporting friends and saints to help me through the darkest days of my life. And there were several key players who unknowingly played MONUMENTALLY pivotal roles in my life. You know who you are. You were some of the first people I started talking to because I was so grateful for the help you unknowingly gave me. It's a deeply and profoundly beautiful thing to me. To think that YEARS ago God started orchestrating who would be here, and when they would be here, and why they would be here. It blows my mind.
I have no idea how to gracefully close this post. Haha! Am I where I want to be? Not yet, but I'm headed in the right direction. And I'm sure glad I'm not where I was a year ago. I don't ever want to go back to that. There's more work to do, but I'm confident I'll get there. Is my relationship with God where I want it to be? Not yet. It's funny. At times I've been really frustrated with Him. I've felt ignored by Him. I've felt like He has left me to do a lot of the work on my own - kind of like He has taken more of a backseat role when I wanted Him to play more of a starring / leading role. I've felt alone and upset because I haven't felt the Atonement of Christ reshaping my soul as much as I have wanted to feel it. I've felt extremely let down after PLEADING with God to save me from falling when I was totally powerless, and then feeling nothing.
This made me feel... humiliated? Strung along? Duped? More than anything I was just really mad at Him for a quite a while. I felt like His promises were crap. Despite that, I could still feel the Spirit encouraging me to keep going, but that's not what I wanted. I wanted to feel the hands of the Savior working on my heart. Instead I distinctly felt like He was holding back.
It wasn't until I forced myself to take a step back and look at how far I've come that my relationship with God started getting better. It was a quiet moment of retrospection that let God and I resolve our differences - and by that I clearly mean that's what it took for me to resolve my differences with Him. He knew what He was doing the whole time. Duh. Once I was able to clear my vision, once I stopped being mad that God wasn't healing me how I wanted Him to heal me, guess what I was able to see.
That's what. And, yeah, a lot of it has been my own work. But a lot of it has been His work too. I think He's just trying to help me see that I'm a lot stronger than I think I am. He's gotten me this far and I'm confident that He can take me the rest of the way there, however far that proves to be. I sure as heck can't take myself there. That's kinda the point, isn't it? It's a beautiful thing.
Oops.
Let me just say that 2013 was hands down the hardest year of my life. Pretty sure it will hold that title for years to come as well. I sure hope so anyway because it was ROUGH. I've toyed with the idea of blogging about what I have been through...what I'm still going through... but I don't feel like that's right yet. Maybe someday.
For now I'll say that I have passed through what I hope proves to be the darkest parts of a major crisis. A crisis of identity, of personality, of flaws, of faith, of....almost everything. It shook me to my very core and then took that core and blew it to smithereens and left me with all these confusing pieces that needed to be put back together. But first all of these pieces had to be discovered and gathered one by one. And they needed to be studied, understood, worked on, reshaped, fixed and then reassembled. But it wasn't like putting back together a puzzle that a 2 year old tore asunder. All the shapes of all the pieces had to be changed - and I couldn't tell how they were supposed to go back together. And it was hard and frustrating and scary and tense and INtense and dark and ugly and mortifying and horrifying and depressing - like REALLY I-can't-get-out-of-bed depressing - and uncomfortable and revealing - of a lot of things I really didn't like finding - and often full of more questions than answers and it was exasperating and expensive and emotional and exhausting and messy and slow and painful and challenging and almost unbearable at times, and it often left me reeling and made me feel totally stuck and deflated and dejected and broken and worthless and totally lost and confused and unstable and unsettled and and like a failure and like every step forward only came with two steps back and...and...and...
And it was lonely - SO lonely! Because for years I was too afraid to talk about my problems.
But it was also liberating and grounding and anchoring and healing and faith-building and rewarding and SO relieving and soothing and...and...and... and hopefully lots more things.... but quite frankly, the sting of it all is still pretty fresh. Hopefully down the road I will be able to look back at this time of my life and be grateful I passed through it. I think as time passes I'll be able to add a lot more to the list of good things that came out of the mess I went through. That I am still going through.
A few little gems that I am most grateful for thus far:
First, I'm grateful for my counselor. News flash folks: COUNSELING ISN'T JUST FOR CRAZY PEOPLE. Or is it that we're secretly ALL a little bit crazy underneath and therefore it IS for crazy people but that includes everyone? The point is, a good counselor is invaluable. I'm so glad I found mine. I have no idea how he has the emotional strength does what he does, but I'm glad he's so good at it. I was totally and completely stuck and had NO idea how to get unstuck. Without professional help I never would have gotten unstuck. And I could see a major breakdown coming if I had remained stuck for much longer. If you're feeling stuck seek out a counselor. It will likely be hard, but oh my goodness it is so worth it. I have been working with one who shares my faith. Can't imagine working with anyone else.
Second, I'm grateful the loneliness part is over. It took about 3 or 4 months of intense emotional work with my counselor to get over the fear I had of being rejected by EVERYONE if they only knew what I was hiding under the surface. Over the years I got REALLY good at hiding, and that contributed more than anything else to the thick fog of loneliness I was living in. The constant fear and the paranoia it produced was awful, and it was definitely the hardest thing to let go of. It's crazy how isolated I felt - for years - even though for most of my life I've been surrounded by good good people. I isolated myself out of fear. What a terrible thing. Opening up has been SCARY. It takes a HUGE amount of vulnerability. I like to think it's getting easier, but I'm not so sure. I'll tell you what though, it's been worth it. Breaking out of the loneliness has been the best thing for me! It has brought about deep and meaningful connections with everyone I've talked to so far - which is something I desperately needed after being so lonely for so long. I'm thankful that, so far, everyone has responded with concern, love and support. Even though it's scary at first I have really come to enjoy talking about my experiences. But, like I said above, I'm not ready to tell the masses just yet. I'm still REALLY careful about who I talk to and when I talk to them. I hope this doesn't cause hard feelings. God has had a hand in letting me know who to tell - and when to tell them. It's the funniest thing and it often doesn't make sense...until it does. And then it's just beautiful how orchestrated it all is. I definitely trust His judgement, after all He's pretty good at knowing how to do things the right way. If you want to talk then mention reading this post. If God says it's ok then we'll talk. If He says nope then we won't. Simple as that. And you're not allowed to be upset if God or I say nope. :-) The longer we've known each other and closer we are the more likely it is that I'll get the go ahead from God - and from myself. haha! I'm most comfortable talking with people who are related to me, but I've told a few close friends too. Put some serious thought into it before you ask. Pray about it. I will on my end too.
Third, I'm grateful for the ability I have to feel the Spirit. It's a beautiful, wonderful, priceless gift. It's something I have come to cherish more than anything else. It is and has been a beacon of light and comfort, warmth and love that has pierced through EVERY dark thing I have ever passed through. The Spirit has always been able to break through to me, even when I believed I literally was not worth God's love - or ANYONE's love for that matter. Even when I have been unworthy - when I have felt like I'd rather cease to exist than face God. Even when I have felt like God isn't there. Even when I've been really mad at God. Even when I've felt like God didn't want to touch me with a 10 foot pole. No matter what my relationship with God is like the sweet and comforting feelings of His Spirit have been there through it all. ALL of it. Including that huge list of horrible things listed above. The only reason I am standing where I am today is because of the gentle prodding and encouragement and LOVE I feel as the Spirit works on my heart and tells me to push on. I feel so lucky that I was blessed with a keen ability to feel it - and to WANT to feel it. It has made making some extremely difficult decisions really easy to make.
Fourth. It's amazing to me how God intertwines our lives. People have been placed in my path because I NEEDED them. I think lots of the LDS students out at school with me - and their spouses - wonder why their route to becoming a doctor brought them way out to the middle of the Caribbean. All of them seem to figure out their own reasons why God wanted them here, but I secretly think they're here because I needed them here. That's all. God made sure I had a great group of supporting friends and saints to help me through the darkest days of my life. And there were several key players who unknowingly played MONUMENTALLY pivotal roles in my life. You know who you are. You were some of the first people I started talking to because I was so grateful for the help you unknowingly gave me. It's a deeply and profoundly beautiful thing to me. To think that YEARS ago God started orchestrating who would be here, and when they would be here, and why they would be here. It blows my mind.
...
NOTHING!
Nothing?
This made me feel... humiliated? Strung along? Duped? More than anything I was just really mad at Him for a quite a while. I felt like His promises were crap. Despite that, I could still feel the Spirit encouraging me to keep going, but that's not what I wanted. I wanted to feel the hands of the Savior working on my heart. Instead I distinctly felt like He was holding back.
It wasn't until I forced myself to take a step back and look at how far I've come that my relationship with God started getting better. It was a quiet moment of retrospection that let God and I resolve our differences - and by that I clearly mean that's what it took for me to resolve my differences with Him. He knew what He was doing the whole time. Duh. Once I was able to clear my vision, once I stopped being mad that God wasn't healing me how I wanted Him to heal me, guess what I was able to see.
MOUNTAINS
HAVE
BEEN
MOVED
That's what. And, yeah, a lot of it has been my own work. But a lot of it has been His work too. I think He's just trying to help me see that I'm a lot stronger than I think I am. He's gotten me this far and I'm confident that He can take me the rest of the way there, however far that proves to be. I sure as heck can't take myself there. That's kinda the point, isn't it? It's a beautiful thing.
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