Trimester One- Summer 2017

Trimester One- Summer 2017

Five pee stops in yip just under 40mins, seriously!!! I guess at least I am deep in the forest, no one is around and I am not stuck out in the streets desperately trying to find a loo, but seriously even the dog is giving a look of utter disbelief and with her constant Pee-mail antics that’s saying something!

I am a Pilates Instructor. I have good Pelvic floor muscles. I seriously felt like I emptied out a full bladder just 5mins ago, how could my bladder feel ridiculously full again!

So this is what its like little one, I guess you have to grow and find some room somewhere but do you think you could just try not to sit so tightly above my bladder some days.  Could you just shift back to where you were yesterday and stay there? That worked pretty well for me…

Okay deep breaths enjoy the view. I remind myself to just take a moment and be thankful I am running at all, for the beautiful place in which I am able to run in, and for my ever patient, four legged training buddy who doesn’t seem to care whether it’s a shuffle day or a racing day. She is up for anything as long as it involves adventure.

Frustrations, fears, panic, anxiety, and pure amazement of the miracle that is happening inside me are amongst the hugely contrasting and complex emotions and feelings that seem to have made up the experience of been pregnant for me so far.

We say it was a surprise that we got pregnant and that is true, we didn’t expect it to happen so easily or so quickly. But to be honest I suspected something was different in my body right from a few days after conception and although I desperately tried to just ignore the signs and feelings and just carry on with training, thinking “no not yet I just need a few more months…a few more races”…each week the signs just kept adding up.

It started with a massive bout of intense completely random stomach cramping as I sat on the couch recovering from a long run session. Then the growing discomfort in my breasts, followed by the random nausea that didn’t follow the patterns of my normal food intolerances, and then the main indicator - the unexplained light headedness and dizziness at the top of the “BIG HILL” in the Hanuas in the midst of my 2&1/2 hr. run. I guess when you’re an athlete you are constantly checking in with your body and monitoring how it is feeling/responding and dealing with things, so its hard not to notice these changes.

 So when my period never showed up and neither did any of the normal premenstrual symptoms I was pretty darn sure even though I had never experienced it before that I was going to get a positive result on the pregnancy test.

I waited 3 days and when there were still no signs of it arriving I got the test from the store and told my Husband Marc matter of factly that I was taking the test and that he needed to be ready for it to be positive.

At that point I am not sure if I was more afraid of been pregnant or of not been pregnant and worrying if I ever could be. But I switched off to the feelings and just did the test. At first it didn’t seem like the second line was going to show and I handed the stick to Marc and said “sorry for the stress it looks like I was wrong.” As I washed my hands though I heard Marc’s voice saying “Ummmmm, wait a minute you may want to re check that … its showed up… the second line that is…”

So much has gone on since the day we found out and so much has changed… Literally…

I have put on 4 KG’s in 4 and ½ months something which I would never let happen mid summer in amongst some of our biggest training and racing blocks, and my once toned stomach has as they say “popped” out.  I had kind of breezed through the first month and a half training hard oblivious or more honestly ignoring what was going on inside of me, but then it hit, subtly at first and then full whammy - the morning sickness and the tiredness.

For the next 2 and ½ months I felt like I had toxic waste sitting bubbly away in my stomach, I just felt so ill and disgusting and so tired. Sure there were good patches but they were just a nice surprise, the norm became dealing with the constant urge to throw up and never been able too.

The hardest thing I found about the first trimester months was the huge conflicts and anxieties that you are dealing with and the fact that you can’t really tell or talk to anyone about it.  All the things I could rely on as an athlete in terms of healthy eating and training and who I am as a person and how much I value honesty and yet you are living with this massive secret to which you have only told a very small select group of need to know people. So when people ask how are you? How’s everything going? How’s training? What’s your next race? You have to carefully side step questions so as to make sure your answer is not a flat out lie. So instead of saying “I feel so disgusting, I want to throw up and I am so tired I just want to be curled up in bed because I am pregnant”. You have to smile and say doing good thanks, still planning my races for the year and yes training is going okay thanks.

You also have this conflict within you of the fact that no matter how much exercise you are able to do and how healthy you eat you are going to put weight on and that needs to be accepted as a healthy and necessary process, but while your not telling anyone and it’s the middle of our summer racing season and your training buddies are all super lean and fit and getting more so the closer there races get, you worry about people thinking you are just not training hard or getting old and lazy. The training world can be an awesome place but it can also be a place of harsh judgments and as a female athlete I am more then awear of this.

The other struggle was that you feel so sick and gross but you are been told by the health professionals that that is a great sign of everything been very healthy and progressing well… Feeling so sick but been told that your healthy just didn’t match up in my brain.

Weird cravings also caused massive conflicts… for example I am a clean eater and a lover of fresh veges and then suddenly one day I woke up and I couldn’t even stand the sight of lettuce or anything green. All I wanted and all I craved were chips, olives, meat and salt. So I had the huge controversy of wanting to be healthy and eat healthy but as much as I tried I just couldn’t even look at the green stuff without feeling violently ill.

Its summer and the weather for the most part is awesome and it’s the time of the year I am normally clocking up as big a cycling miles as I can. Spending hours each day outside soaking up the sun and trucking up the miles and the training hours. But not this summer, this summer I have very little or no interest in riding my bike. All I want to do is run and swim, which is funny. Running I can understand it has always been my first love and I have the best 4 legged training buddy ever, but swimming… swimming was always the thing I struggled the most to get done and here I am choosing to swim over cycling…. Go figure I guess for me that is as weird as feeling so adversely towards green vegetables.

Take into account all this conflict and there is also the reality that although I have been super lucky to have been able to continue to run, swim and do my Pilates sessions and stay very active despite feeling so sick in the first few months, that the training hours that I have been doing are hugely reduced from what I am used to and there is a huge transition from racing as a professional athlete to been pregnant and exercising to stay fit and healthy.

I thankfully was able to work with my coach right through till 14 weeks and for me that made such a massive difference as my coach has become one of best friends despite the fact he lives in Boulder, and to have had to loose that support as well as deal with everything else just would have been too much at once.

Dealing with all this internal conflict and feeling so sick also indelibly brought about quite a bit of anxiety and for me this anxiety as it got closer and closer to the time that we would need to start telling people that I was pregnant built up to a level that I found that I needed to get some support to deal with it. I am not sure if it was the loss of control of my body and the internal changes and conflicts or if it was the fact that once we started telling people it was all becoming very real.

You always hear people talk about that glow that people get when they are pregnant and how awesome and exciting it is, and how bonded you feel to this wee thing growing inside of you and how special it is. Well I kept waiting amongst all the morning sickness and tiredness for this glow to appear and this overwhelming feeling of bondedness and it just wasn’t there… it just wasn’t coming… the only thing I felt that resembled any kind of impending motherhood was that I felt furiously protective of this baby inside of me and who it will become and terrified of anyone hurting it…even though I also felt at times that I felt so disgusting and so anxious about the whole thing that I just wanted to get it out, right there, right then.

I keep reminding myself that I am hugely thankful and that I definitely am. After been an athlete for so many years I know what a huge gift it is to be pregnant. I keep reminding myself about the amazing process of how the baby is growing, day-by-day and week-by-week. But I am also a thinker and a problem solver and used to been able to control if not the immediate world around me at least my body, and so I have to accept that this is a very different time for me and try not to judge myself for not naturally fitting into the role of been pregnant.

Thankfully at 19 weeks now I am feeling so much healthier and more energetic and able to deal with the emotions and fears of the last few months, with a more relaxed and accepting view of where things are at. But wow it really has been and will continue to be quite a process of adaptation… emotionally and physically.

I realize that this is a somewhat raw and I guess different side of pregnancy and it has taken quite a bit of courage to choose to be so open about what I have experienced. As so many athletes are pregnant this year and having babies and from the social media posts it sounds like they absolutely love it and are so excited about it which is awesome. But I also believe that there maybe one or two that like me have waited for that excitement and glow to kick in and it hasn’t yet and who may have really struggled with the changes. I want them to know that they are not alone in those feelings and struggles and that even though it seems hard not to, to try not to judge themselves for finding it challenging.

The core of where I am at is that I am hugely thankful. It is just that we are all different and as I am finding out even something as beautiful and miraculous as been pregnant can also be a very challenging and confronting time.

Out on a long trail run at about 8 weeks Pregnant with Hollie

Ironman Cairns 70.3 2015… with a bit of Background and Insight

BACKROUND AND INSIGHT

I always love returning to a race setting that I am familiar with, regardless of how successful those previous races have or haven’t been. Especially when I am traveling by myself. Its always cool to visit the new towns but the familiarity amongst the nerves can be a huge advantage when sorting pre race day logistics out. Cairns been a split transition needs a bit or sorting out the day before, with bike transfers, bus trips and sorting rides out post race briefings all of which I personally find quite stressful. But this race despite the familiar course was also a big first for me. This was my first international race with me starring in not just the Pro Athlete roll but also in the role of Coach.

Since the end of last year I have been coaching myself. This came about due to necessity rather than choice as my current circumstances at the time dictated. I absolutely loved my previous coach Michael Lovato. I had huge respect for him and viewed him not only as a trusted coach but also as a really valued friend. I had learnt so much about myself, Triathlon, training and life under his guidance and most importantly he believed in me and had my back. I was hanging onto his support as I re entered back into NZ nursing both a shoulder and foot injury. The last thing I wanted was to stop working with him, but after a year of putting all my resources into stepping up to the full Ironman distance and coming out the other end with a DNS, a DNF and what felt like a bag load of injuries, I had pretty much exhausted all my resources and as life sometimes has impeccable timing it was then that my trusty old car decided to throw a tantrum and it failed its warrant.

Bottom line is I needed my car and I had to use the money I had put aside for my coaching to fix the car.  At the time it was the harsh reality I didn’t have a choice.  I joked with myself and thought of great headlines like “Car fails W.O.F – Athletes Career finished” and at the time to be honest I  felt like letting it all go and giving in. But the thing was that I wasn’t ready to finish on that note. Deep down if I was honest with myself, below the surface doubts that I felt swamped in, I knew I had more to give and I wasn’t going to give in. So feeling a mix of failure and embarrassment about where I was at I decided to just quietly put my head down and do the what was needed to first fix my body and then find my way back into racing form. I was going to have to coach myself and at the time I didn’t have time to over think or doubt that choice I just had to get out of the hole I was in.

Over there Summer months I surprised myself a bit and was able to successfully achieve my first goals as “Coach” by getting myself first injury free while also getting a couple successful race results on the NZ racing calendar.

The build up to Cairns however was a bit more challenging and the straight forwardness of the summer months seemed to elude themselves and my build up seemed to be a mismatch of periods of illness or other frustrating interruptions, so although I knew I was still in really good shape and was still very fit and strong been the perfectionist I am I was worried about the up and downs of my training weeks. In the summer I had appeared to be a very easily coached athlete, however in this training block the coaching side of things was now proving to be quite challenging.

 I was excited, motivated and driven for the race and yet I was also at times feeling very isolated and doubting my ability to coach myself.  I missed having a sounding board and most of all I missed been able to debrief and celebrate the little successes or milestones along the way with someone who was 100% on board with the plan and to which it meant as much to as it did to me.

I had to work really hard to bring myself through this patch and to find a successful balance between the passion of me as the athlete and the rational thinking of me the Coach. Been able to allow myself to feel the ups and downs of the emotions that come with training hard towards a goal that you are passionate about but also having to be the voice of wisdom, reality and sane reasoning. If I as the athlete doubted the session that I was doing, I as the coach had to explain to myself the reasoning behind the session. This I have learnt is more challenging than may sound and I had a slight indication of how hard I may have been to coach over the years!!!!

Through the last few months though I have been forced to learn a huge amount about myself and despite the challenges I can honestly say that I was in a good space mentally and physically to race the Cairns 70.3.  Had I nailed the balance of coach athlete 100% -absolutely not… but was I making progress -absolutely yes!

THE RACE

I love The Cairns Course. It was the first ever international race that I podium on in the PRO ranks (the inaugural year of the Challenge race) and I was super keen to be back and able to give it another shot. I was Healthy, I was injury free and I was ready to race!

The day before is always busy with a split transition and sorting race logistics and prep out, so it was great to meet up with fellow Kiwis Anna Ross and Erin Furness, Max Woodhead and Jamie Hunt in T1 and then other kiwis, Michelle Bremner and Cam Brown at the race Briefing.

By the end of the Saturday I was to be honest feeling pretty shattered, and pretty tight in my sacrum but as I tucked in bed at 7pm ready for the 3am wake up call I was excited to get things under way.

It was dark and wet come race morning and I was first to the Pro bus pick up which never happens! So I was stoaked to get the day off  to a good start. It was a super quiet almost solemn drive to Palm beach. The anticipation in the bus was thick but under control. We had to queue to get into T1, as it wasn’t open when we arrived and despite the rain and darkness there was the normal pre race mix of excitement and nerves in the air.

The whole warm up and T1 set up was done in darkness and thankfully about 10-15mins before we started the sun raised enough for us to see the buoys and daylight arrived!!

Palm beach is a beautiful bay and to my delight the water was warm and calm and the rain had cleared J The race start was as normal a bit crazy but we thinned out quickly and I swam most of the race with one other girl. I didn’t feel great in the water and at the last buoy she and I had some confusion on where to turn in and I wasted a bit of time having to turn back a bit. For some reason I just struggled to get going in the swim, and was really glad to be touching sand and running up the beach into T1.

The swim wasn’t super fast but was okay and I came out behind but with some good company. I had planned a progressive race building my effort in 3 x 30km blocks, I started off conservatively as planned, and even though I was supposed to be holding slightly back effort wise and my watts showed that I was in the more conservative race range. I didn’t feel great and I had an ache in my right side of my pelvis. I tried to settle and ignore it, but I felt weak on the hills and I was finding things a lot harder than they should have been. I persevered through the first 30km block but as I tried to nudge up the effort and watts for the second 30km block, the reality of my concerns started to become clear.

The more power /effort I tried to put in the more ache I had in my back and it was spreading like a burning pain down my thigh. I kept trying to sit up a bit and stretch and ease the pain, but as I hit the wind and hills on the return leg the pain and weakness just got worse. I gave my self a good talking too and I tried all avenues to fix things. But in the end I backed right off and had to sit up a lot and had to just aim to make it back to T2.  It was demoralising to have so many people power past you while your trying to make yourself stay down in aero despite the pain, fully aware that your left leg feels fine and almost fresh but your right leg is on fire.

I eventually made it into T2 and racked my bike I was pretty stiff and sore but been able to get off the bike and upright had eased the pain so I decided to try to run, and to my delight I was able too and as I had had to ease up so much on the bike my legs felt okay to start with so I decided to continue.

As it worked out a few other pros also must have had some issues as they were  still around me in the run and it was a real inspiration to still be in the race even though things had just gone so badly on the bike. There was a real camaraderie between us, which helped me push through the tough bits in the run and finish the race. I finished up 11^th Pro in a time that I am not happy with and I was gutted to not have been able to see where I was truly at and get a more accurate indication of how my training had gone, but the reality is that the day didn’t go well, I had to deal with some major obstacles on the bike and although I felt like giving it all in I still carried on and made the most of the day and the experience.

I am so thankful I was able to complete the race

So I am in the process now of the Coach/Athlete race debrief, and about to have the coach/ athlete coffee planning session with myself. Where I will again figure out how to manage the two delicate sides of the coach athlete relationship... Passion and rationality.

A huge congrats to all the kiwis who did have some great races!! And a big thank you to Heather and Nick for been the most amazing hosts and opening up there home for me to stay with them. To my Sponsors and there amazing continued support, of course Mum and Dad Lawrence my family and Marc, but also to Debbie Lawrence, Tom Patrick, Marnie Oberrer, Matt Merrick, and Michael Lovato, for been there to support me through the injuries and the challenging times at the end of last year, helping me believe in myself, get through the other side and continue my dream.

Pre Waiting while I have a pre race swim in the Lagoon Pool on a wet stormy Friday evening

Pre and I Crocodile spotting along the Barron River on a sunnier moment in Cairns

The view of the run course from where I was staying

Friday Morning breakfast view- not bad ahy!!

Auckland Half Ironman 2015

Auckland Half Ironman 2015 – Race Review

Matt Tuck's voice echoed over the loud speaker as we gathered in for the final race day briefing of the Auckland Half Ironman " This is definitely the worst swim conditions we have ever had in the 12 year history of this race...." Awesome just bloody awesome... I muttered to myself and questioned seriously as to whether I had a history making worst weather conditions cloud following me to every race... Seriously though putting my pessimistic inner monologue aside this time I wasn't feeling intimidated. I had done a big swim block in the last 5 weeks and had seen some pretty significant break throughs in the pool and was determined to bring that new found swimming confidence with me to the race. I was excited to do this swim regardless of the chop... Although let's be honest I was not born a natural 'fish' so a clear, calm, flat, pool like ocean would have been much more inviting! 

So far my morning and race prep had gone really well and to plan. Marc was away doing the Tour of Northland so I had enlisted the help of good friend Malcolm Tweed to be my support person for the day and I was looking forward to not having to do an 'at home' race by myself.

The swim start was fast as usual and I got off into a great position... Well actually I couldn't see the buoy at all and there was no colour differentiation between the male and female caps so I just followed whatever feet I could and just kept swimming. There were no big buoys today only Kayakers attached to anchors. Visibility was bad and maybe I have failing eyesight and it was just me, but they were pretty hard to see in the conditions. Getting to the first buoy was fine as it was just a follow the feet kind of affair, but as we all turned the groups spread out, I felt like I was just swimming blind as I had no idea where the buoy was and just could not get a sighting of it no matter how hard I tried, so I just followed whoever I could, but I obviously picked the group that swam a bit off course and we seemed to have to do a bit of a detour to get to the kayak once we eventually sighted it.

Heading back to shore the group thinned into a line but the feet I was on dropped off a bit and it was too late to get around and back on the next feet so from then even though I ran as fast as I could to make up that ground at the lap 1 turn around once we hit the rough water again I couldn't bridge the gap and then had to swim solo for the most of the second lap. And to be honest I don't think I did that very successfully, as at one point I thought I had finally seen the kayak and I started swimming hard towards it only to realise that it was also moving and was just a random kayak not the anchored kayak I had to swim around.

 At that point in desperation, thinking I was last as couldn't see anyone else around me I stopped and just tried to figure out where the '^#~<>,!?,' the buoy was only to realise I wasn't alone someone was on my feet and they swam into the back of me. They were like 'what the hell you stopping for?' Anyways we finally sighted then swam more directly to the correct kayak and then headed back to shore.

I have not had many more race days that I have been more relieved to touch land and exit a swim, (okay so maybe the day I swam sick with an infected gal bladder was worse!) that is until I got up and started to run out of the water only to trip and fall flat on my face into the water again...right in front of everyone...."Awesome just bloody awesome"... That pessimistic monologue was back and still had a bike and run to go...

I gave myself a short sharp kick in the backside and telling off and got back into race mode, leaving the thoughts of the swim in transition and headed out onto the bike.

I had still managed to exit the swim in 5th but was a about 4-5mins behind the lead girls and they were mostly together. There weren't to many guys around me either for that matter and so for the most part it was a pretty solo ride. The positive was it allowed me to just put my head down, settle into the day's work, ride my own race and not burn to many matches in the first 30kms out to Kawakawa Bay, which can be very tempting to do and then cause you to potentially struggle from Snake Hill onwards which is where the real hard work of this course begins. I felt strong on the hills (thankfully as in this race there are many!) and in the wind and I rode consistently - maybe a tiny bit to conservatively but I still gave it a solid race effort, and came into T2 confident that I could still run well.

I was aware though that I hadn't made up much ground in the ride on the other two girls and that even though I had ridden myself from 5th to 3rd that I still was about 4 or 5mins down on first and second who were still on each other's heels.

 My running had definitely improved in the last training block since the New Plymouth Half and I had an idea of what my legs could handle pace wise but I wasn't sure it was enough to make up that time difference. I had planned to again focus on my swim/bike today and look after myself in the run, but obviously as quite often happens in Triathlon the 'A' plan hadn't gone to plan and I was going to have to dig deep in my reserve or back up plans to pull this win back.

I still didn't have a lot of confidence in my run, and after the first km when I felt okay I very quickly felt like crap. My back hurt, my hips were stiff and I was feeling the lack of my yet to be gained strength in the hills. But I gave myself another quick kick in the butt and firm talking too, refocused and just put my head down and concentrated on my form and on making the best of what I could do in this moment.

Somewhere on the last part of lap one people started to tell me that I was gaining on second place but I didn't believe them, going off how I felt it couldn't be true and I couldn't even see her.... But then somewhere on lap two my hips suddenly freed up and my running legs returned! Gees, finally something was going right today! As I neared the end of lap two I stumbled upon and passed second place, and then kept chasing. I came around to the turn around and got a split from someone that said first place was about 40-50 sec ahead and that I was closing that gap quickly.

Malcolm had been giving me splits at the end of each lap and this time he didn't he just told me to keep focused on my form and hold it together and I would catch her. I yelled at him for a time split but in reality it didn't matter the tables had turned for the better. It's been a very long time since I have felt like I had the upper hand in the run leg of a race and the realisation of that came with a refreshed confidence and self-belief.

Somewhere on the course spectators’ s comments of encouragement had changed from "your doing well" to "your looking good! You’re going to catch her!" and suddenly there it was, the forever coveted lead bicycle and the lead female. As soon as I saw her I stuffed in some cliff blocks and put my head down and closed the last of the gap, and then the bike was mine :)

Even if I had let myself fully believe I may catch first I didn't think I would catch her with almost a whole lap to go, and now I had the lead there was no way I wanted to loose it, but.... my legs still haven’t done the full mileage in training yet and today running at this pace was still a big ask... My right calf was flicking signs of a full blown cramp and I knew if it went and I had to hobble home I would loose the lead, so the rest of the lap was about maintaining a pace that was fast enough to make and keep a lead and keep the cramp at bay. I had been chugging down cramp spray the whole run and with 3 km to go i wanted to pick up the pace but each time I did the twinges of cramp warned me not to push my luck... I was on my last few drops in the bottle of cramp spray... I desperately wanted a split to know if I had to risk the cramp and pick up the pace to not risk loosing my lead but I didn't get one. The last one had said she was a minute behind and I had to just trust that that hadn't shortened.

I wouldn't allow myself to look back or get too excited in the last few km's. I needed to make sure that I sealed the deal and crossed the finish line first before I allowed any celebration so I just kept pushing. I eventually relented and allowed myself a few quick look backs as I entered the final patch of grass leading to the finish and when I was sure I couldn't see her a huge grin opened up on my face, first with the realisation that I was going to do it and then the reality that I had done it as I crossed the line....

I was so relieved to get the win. I had backed myself quietly before the race that I could win on this course but I had used my confidence in my swim and bike to feel this way, so when they had both really not gone that great, it took a lot to allow myself to re-establish that confidence in my running ability that has been on the back foot for a long time with injury. So yes it was exciting to win, but it was also a huge relief to see that my running legs are well on there way to returning to full capability and that although it was not an overall fast race time, that after all the setbacks and disappointments of last year that it is possible to pick myself up, overcome them, and continue to move forward into been the athlete that I really want to and can be.

It was far from a perfect day, and once the excitement of winning had settled I felt a hint of frustration at how I had not swam and rode to a level that expressed the hard work and improvements I had gained in training, but putting that aside I have to look to the positives that on a day that wasn't going to plan I managed to hold it together mentally and stay focussed and in the race, right to the end, and regardless of how the day panned out still managed to achieve the desired outcome/result and with that I am very happy :)

In Hindsight It's almost as though my swim, bike, run had a conference without me pre race and decided that the buck was shifting back to the run, that if the legs felt they were ready to prove to me that they were back then the swim and bike would back off to allow the opportunity for the run to shine again... And that they did :)

Photo Credit: Scottie T Photography.

The run course out along the very beautiful Kawakawa Bay Coastline

Out on the run

The Finish!!

Team Celebration