Hello! Sorry I disappeared for a little bit, I wish I could say I was doing something super exciting and fun, but that’s not really the case. On December 4, I ended my Instagram streak of posting every day for a year, success! So I decided to give myself a break from this for a while and I ended up retreating from social media altogether as a result. Being active on social media is not something that is natural for me, I don’t get excited to share my activities and blog about my life, so I have to keep up with it regularly or I completely fall off the wagon. I’m like this with training too, all or nothing, even a small distraction can lead to multiple missed workouts.

Speaking of missed workouts, I contracted some kind of plague over the holidays which took me out for a solid week. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been heading to the gym thinking “god, I just wish I was sick and had an excuse to go home right now”. Turns out when you actually get sick you become wracked with worry and guilt about missing workouts. Also, if you’re not vomiting or have a fever, like tangible things you can look at and say “yes, this number on the thermometer confirms that I should not go to the pool today”, it’s actually very hard to tell whether you’re sick enough to skip or just being a baby. So I spent a week convinced I was a huge whiner and just looking for excuses not to workout, but then I started to feel better and realized I was actually very ill. This is one of those hindsight instances I guess. I don’t know what lesson I learned here, but I definitely never want to be sick again.

This gets me to the next activity that has taken over my life which is race planning. I did something that is so outside of my normal personality, I started to wonder if I needed to be checked. I made an impulse buy. Let me back up, I’m racing Ironman South Africa in April, that’s great. One thing that I hate doing is showing up to an early Ironman without at least one race to shake off the cobwebs and remind myself of the panicked feeling when lining up next to some previous World Champion. It’s hard to expect a good performance when you haven’t tested the legs at all beforehand. So, I have been planning on racing a 70.3 before IMSA, and the two options I was checking out were Puerto Rico and Campeche. Long story short, PR 70.3 is not happening and after 3 days of trying to figure out how to get to Campeche without dying, I finally decided I needed another option. So I’ve been scouring the internet, and nothing was really fitting my timeframe, distance, competition, etc. So I started looking for races in February instead of March even though I’m really not in any shape to be racing anytime soon, went back to the Ironman website and saw that Dubai 70.3 was February 2nd. Checked flights from DC and turns out they are reasonably priced AND direct, signed up for the race, purchased a flight, emailed an acquaintance/instagram friend about places to stay, and boom that’s how you impulse buy an international race.

So I’m going to Dubai in less than 4 weeks. I keep waiting for the panic to set in, but I’m actually feeling pretty good about the decision. Yes, I’m not going to be tiptop for the race, but I don’t need to be in stellar shape to race hard and get the feel of competition back. I’m also super excited to see what Dubai is like and make some new friends. So we’ll see how this goes and maybe I’ll do stuff like this more often.

On a final note, I’ve been meaning to make some recommendations as my friends are killing it on the podcast front and seeing as you have made it this far in my rambling blog about my boring life, you’ll definitely like what they have to offer. Sara Gross, a pioneer in women’s triathlon,  has officially started her own media company Live Feisty and it’s already huge. She is producing two podcasts, Sara and Kelly O’Mara with “If we were riding” and Alyssa Godesky and Haley Chura with “IronWomen“, both are very informative, focusing a lot on women in sports, and seeing as these are all my friends and fellow professional triathletes, they’re also super smart and hilariously funny. You should also check out Kelly O’s weekly newsletter “If we were riding” because I read it sometimes and wonder if she’s stealing my thoughts. So yes, it’s that good, and she also provides reading recommendations related to all sports, so this is not just triathlon related. Finally, if you’re really into science and can stomach a lot of big words, Rhonda Patrick’s “Found My Fitness” is also super interesting and covers a wide range of topics related to health, so definitely check this out.

So now you know what has been filling all my time lately and I promise I’ll be back on the social media wagon in no time…right after I finish panic training for Dubai 70.3.