Making the tough (but right) calls...

Sigh. I REALLY didn’t want to be writing this about my first race of the season, especially given it was my first race back on the professional long course triathlon circuit, but here we go. Sadly, about half way into the swim at Oceanside 70.3 I took a big kick to the head coming around the farthest turn buoy. I immediately had ringing in my ears and a bit of light coming in and out with my vision. Brain injuries, concussion, TBIs are an area that I do not mess with given that dystonia is, essentially, a brain injury. In the moment as I saw everyone swimming away from me I was sort of in disbelief. I couldn’t believe what was happening and I was trying to wrap my head around what just happened. I called one of the life guards on his surfboard over and hung on to the side while we talked it out. After a few minutes of back and forth they called the medical boat over and pulled me in. As they took me back to transition the tears started to roll. I was so disappointed. In the medical tent they did a thorough evaluation and said there were no signs of concussion, which was a huge relief. However, after that relief came the frustrating realization that just after 15 minutes of racing my day was over.

I was quickly distracted by the fact that there were numbers of age group athletes entering the medical tent with hypothermia as the swim was cold with water temps in the mid 50s. The doctors and aides were overwhelmed so I did what I could to help, bringing them mylar blankets, warm water and trying to help warm up there extremities. I had a nice chat with a middle-aged athlete who was extremely upset and was able to provide her some perspective which, in hindsight, was very helpful for me as well.

The rest of the trip to California was hard for me. We had planned a big day for Emi at Sea World and I was hoping it would be on a better occasion but I was quite sad the whole day and it was tough to focus on her time there and bringing her joy, but as all moms do, I got through it.

I took a couple of days off of training and when I did get back into it, sadly, my dystonia had flared up. However, it was nice in a way to have the confirmation that I made the right decision. It took a couple of weeks but eventually I got back to some solid training and feeling like my self again as an athlete, mom and manager.

I’m hoping my bad luck is out of the way for the year and feeling excited for what is ahead. I have a few special announcements for after St. George 70.3 so stay tuned for that!

Thanks for following.

xoxo

Jen