The final push…

Hello again. I’m back for another installment of “what in the world has Erika been up to?”

Right. About that.

I actually have no idea. There are days when I wonder where the time went, and what I actually “accomplished” in the 15 hours I was awake. Much of the time I feel like a fish out of water, struggling to know what’s going on, floundering about, trying to breathe, and how to get back in safe environments.

via Google

I would be lying if I said it’s been easy. Dealing with my “new normal” has been eye opening. I try so hard not to stress myself out too much (which is always easier said than done for every human on the planet) and I usually fail miserably.

But I also am trying to keep perspective in mind as much as I can. Things could be *so* much worse. Honestly, nothing that is going on in my life is that bad. I have much to be thankful for and try to focus on those vs. the challenging things. It’s not easy. I tend to throw myself down a rabbit hole and try to take on the weight of the world, which I can not do, clearly!

I did go last week to meet with my cardiologist and he had zero concerns for me, which is always refreshing. My blood pressure while I was there was 100/67 which is awesome for me. I did tell him that the medication I’ve been taking has been working well but if I don’t take it, I do notice I don’t feel great. He wants me to test out not taking it for a couple of days and record my BP during that time.

I tried to do that last week for about 42 hours and it was the absolute WRONG time to do that test. I think I’ll wait until after Ironman, and after some of my work obligations calm down a bit before I take my armor away. I need it, and I’m ok with the fact that I need it right now. Maybe in the future I won’t but until then it is my new normal.

The other good news is that my training has been peaking just at the right time. Coach Matt keeps reassuring me that I’m hitting every workout just as he wants and my running is really coming along. I’m thrilled with how I’ve been handling the longer workouts and that my heart rate is behaving, even during 3 hour runs. I have pared back on swimming to only 1 day a week, as my times have been right where I need them to be with each 4,000 yard workout I do. No need to kill myself in the pool, as I know it won’t change my overall time by more than a minute or two over the course of the race. I’d rather focus on quality bikes and runs. I’m sure lots of my fellow competitors are doing many, many more swim workouts than me, but I’m super confident with that piece so no need to overthink it.

We are officially 30 days out from Ironman.

via Google

I have one more big weekend coming up – probably a 3+ hour run one day and a 100 mile bike ride another. If I can survive those unscathed, I’m ready to start slowly tapering down. We’ll reduce by about 30% and continue to go down from there until race week. Only two more weekends after this one and I am hopeful I can scale back quite a bit and start to rest my mind and muscles in preparation for the race.

We also are anxiously awaiting the start of school – finally, back to routines and schedules. Summer is really tough for me – working from home is great for flexibility but it’s really not ideal when your kids are there too, fighting and being buttheads to each other because they’re bored.

And we are hosting an exchange student from Spain for the school year – she just arrived last week! I know, everyone thinks it’s crazy but honestly I’m so excited for the opportunity and she is fitting in already. Her name is Paula, she’s 15 and comes from a family very similar to ours – her dad is an Ironman, her mom a swimmer! So she “gets it”. And hey, we have a built-in babysitter now! She loves to babysit and the girls already adore her.

So that’s the low-down for the end of August. We are ready for Spartan football to start up on Friday, our niece is a freshman at MSU now so we have even more reasons to be on campus!

Enjoy the last bit of summer – I’m so excited for fall to kick in. It’s my favorite time of year and I can’t wait for this heat to go away – I’m so over it!

Thanks for reading – if you’ve made it this far!

Until next time…