“Finish healing, then have fun on Hawaii”
That’s what my sig line says at the Endurance Nation forum, succinctly summarizing my goals for 2012.
Last year, my goals were: “Finish IM CDA, then race to win at IM AZ”. Mission accomplished, I’d say. But there was a cost to getting back in the saddle, and then racing at the highest level. The whole year, I never really was able to get my body re-built after my accident (9-18-10). First, I lost 15+ pounds in two weeks in the ICU. Then, laryngeal and pharyngeal trauma prevented me from eating at all for six weeks. Following that, I barely managed to re-gain most of my lost weight, only to plunge back down after my first of two oral surgeries to re-build my mandible and prepare it for dental implants to replace the 9 teeth I lost. It wasn’t until mid-August that I was able to eat all the things I wanted (nuts, granola, bread crust – hard crunchy things), and I still had to eat sandwiches with a knife and fork. Five weeks in Colorado helped me get some long-distance biking fitness, but at the cost of more weight.
The whole year, I kept struggling just to keep my weight in the 143-144 range, when 147-9 would be ideal for training, and 146 for racing. And with the frequent interruptions to recover from surgeries, and the weakened legs from lost muscle mass, I started to get niggling pains in my right foot, then ankle, then knee. This culminated in mid-October with a sudden severe crippling plantar fasciitis, and I stopped running for a week. I really should have taken 6-10 weeks off to fully heal, but with only 40 days until IM AZ, I was not ready to give up on my second goal.
So I raced, ran, and felt fine, but two weeks of running in early December brought the pains back again. I shut down all biking and running, just swam, lifted weights, and watched my weight creep up a pound a week.
After two months of serious downtime, I am now back at my pre-accident winter weight of 148 +/-, and lifting weights with the same or better strength as 2010. But my swimming, biking and running, as well as cardiac fitness is down at baseline levels.
So what’s my plan for getting back to prime form by October 13th?
First, I will be skiing for two weeks the start of February, with family and friends in Snowmass/Aspen. The snow will be good and I will be strong, so the year starts off on a high as I watch my son Cody carry on the mantle of top dog in the family. Here’s his text to me this morning, after 7” new snow on the mountain:
“Got first (skilled) tracks down Showcase. Hit the steeper part in perfect form under the watchful eyes of 30 filled chairs in a row. Got some whoops. Then to Reidar’s on the right for a fresh track, then the Edge woods and Cookies. Stopping for some cocoa before hiking Longshot.”
Yeah, that’s about right. Showcase is a steepish black diamond run under the slow double chair on High Alpine – a chair only good skiers can ride. It is mega bumpy, never groomed on the steep part, and the bumps get close and choppy. Reidar’s is an even steeper pitch, with better bumps, larger, rounder, but faster. The Edge is often groomed, but hitting the trees to the right is where the fun is. And Longshot is the secret top to bottom powder stash which Cody made his own last year. None of that is easy stuff, but in 6-10” of new snow, it can be just about perfect, and to do it well so the chairs applaud, well, that’s why we ski, isn’t it?
Then, after I try to follow in his tracks, I’ll come back home for ten days to start indoor bike training and run every other day, ramping up my mileage slowly. Whoosh, it’s off to the Big Island (the Island of Hawaii, hence “on” Hawaii) for six days. I’ll swim in A-Bay, ride up to Hawi and down towards Kona, and run through Waikoloa beach resort. Back home in early March, I’ll keep the efforts increasing in the triathlon disciplines, interspersing another oral surgery on the 13th.
I’ve got to get some tougher skin tissue in the area where the dental implants will be placed. I had the first of three skin grafts placed last week; the next two will come in March. A periodontist (the wife of my oral surgeon) strips some skin from my palate, then sews it across the top of the implanted bone where my teeth used to be. Unless this keratinized skin surrounds the tooth, simple things like eating and brushing teeth will erode the softer mucosal skin literally down to the bone.
So the last two weeks of March will be another round of liquid and soft diets, and some days of mouth mumbles. But at least I have my weight up now, and have figured out how to keep it there while training and recovering from these surgeries. By May, I hope to finally get some teeth back in my mouth.
So all this dental stuff and weight management is what I’m calling “Finish healing”. While it would be nice to have the chronic pains (in my left elbow, right hand and forearm) and parasthesias (on the palmar side of my index fingers it’s always tingly and numb) go away, I’m not using that as an end point. Those don’t really inhibit my swimming or work related activity too much, so my goal there is learning how to live with it. Although I have come to appreciate why some people might want to be on OxyContin round-the-clock.
In April, I’ve got ten days off around our birthdays, and maybe will take some sort of a road trip somewhere warm, followed again in early May by a trip to California to race Wildflower Half Iron with Cheryl (I’ll swim and bike, she’ll run). Mid July, off to Snowmass for the first training camp, and then start 12 weeks of Ironman training, going back to Snowmass in September.
October 1, I’m on the Big Island, the capstone of my year. My goal there is to have fun on race day. Fun means I feel strong, ride well, and don’t walk outside of the aid stations on the marathon. I’d like to see the sun set while I’m in the energy lab, then soak it all up the final 1/4 mile of Ali’i Drive under the lights, me beaming right back at them.