Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Accident Prone!

Everyone has "their thing" that becomes a challenge or obstacle to overcome during training and racing. Obviously, we all have many, but a few biggies always seem to come up over and over again. Do you want to know what my #1 is??

NUTRITION

That's right, nutrition - and I'M A DIETITIAN! I give plenty of talks on sports nutrition, and what you need to do to fuel yourself before, during and after a race. On paper, I understand it, it works, and it even works for the majority of people out there to get it remotely close and put together a pretty darn good race based on the by-the-book nutrition strategies. Don't look at me. I have read, and read, and studied, and asked for advice, and tried different strategies, different foods, different drinks. I've done it all, I have yet to figure out this crazy body of mine.

My mother calls me "bitchy," my husband calls it "Kim's World, Party Time, Excellent," my co-workers just say "eat something, you're acting crazy." The fact of the matter is, when I don't have enough carbohydrates available running the engine within my blood stream, I am a mess. I am mean, I am nasty, I am short tempered, I am accident prone, I am just plain not nice to deal with.

Believe me, I like to think of myself as a nice person, a decent person most of the time. I open doors for people, I try to help older people in the grocery store parking lot with their groceries, I've even stopped to give people a jump start with my cables in the parking lot a time or two when necessary, but when I don't eat, WATCH OUT!

I think you get my drift. It will always be the hardest area for me during racing, the fourth discipline as they say, that I have to master. Training for my first Ironman this fall is going to be a series of trial and error, careful documentation, and approached similarly to my 6th grade science project in terms of hypotheses and outcomes. I have to take this on like another sport!!

Judging from the huge gash on my leg, this morning was another low blood sugar morning. For some strange reason, I didn't think I needed that Nutrigrain bar on the way to the pool (mistake #1), then I had a great swim workout with my 24oz of Gatorade only to feel a bit whoosy at the end and try to jump out in my normal fashion (mistake #2). At some point while catapulting myself onto the deck (which I have done a hundred times) by using my arms and just getting at least one food firmly planted on the deck, I must have slipped, or miscalculated, or both, to end up hitting and then scraping my shin all the way down the wall very very hard. It hurt. It hurt bad. I managed to get my butt up on the deck long enough to hold my leg while rocking back & forth asking for my Mom. It was too bad she wasn't there, I could have used some sympathy (which I did not receive from the lifeguards who were probably thinking "idiot!") After some antibiotic anointment, two band aids and some ice, I was feeling better but man did that thing form a huge lump of black & blue at the speed of light! I limped to the showers where I convinced myself that it was no big deal and would certainly not affect my training :)

Just think - it will look even more colorful and pretty tomorrow!

As long as I can swim, bike and run for my big day tomorrow of workouts, I'm a happy girl. Talk about a silly thing to do.

I think next time I'll just use the ladder with the other aerobic swim class participants (I obviously can't be trusted) and not go this route. It does make me look a little tough though (if you could see what was under the band aids!). Ok toughie, just use the ladder.

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