The second piece of news was that one of TN’s coaches, Bridget, is three months pregnant. That was more surprising to me, although not mind-blowingly so since her mom had been putting some not-so-subtle pressure on her to start popping out grandkids already and Bridget had mentioned that she wanted to start a family soon. I started having my Usual Suspects moment where I thought back to all of the workouts Bridget hadn’t participated in lately and how I hadn’t seen much of her in general before my brain went “Ohhhhhhhh, right, because of the whole ‘fetus’ thing.”

I was happy for her and her husband, but then it dawned on me. Despite being terrible at math (I’m a disgrace to my Asian heritage, I know), I was able to calculate that if she’s three months pregnant now, she’s likely due at the end of July or the beginning of August. I started my Ironman training program in September, having gotten more of a head start than when I trained for my first Ironman (which was about an eight-month regimen back in 2010). By the time Bridget squeezes out Bridget Jr., I’ll still be a few weeks away from racing Ironman Canada; thus, in the amount of time it will take me to train for and complete an Ironman this year, I could have conceived, gestated, and given birth to a baby and have been taking care of it for a couple months. Mind. Blown.

So basically, my baby is Ironman Canada. There isn’t that much of a difference between being pregnant and training for an Ironman, if you think about it:

• You’re often sore and bloated
• Your feet hurt
• You’re hungry all the time
• You’re tired all the time
• Nausea (puke and rally!)
• You get mood swings and can be crabby
• Random, copious amounts of sweat
• You’re spending tons of money on gear and supplies
• You have mental breakdowns where you think you’re not ready and that you can’t do it, but you can
• By the end of it you just want it to be done with it already
• When the big day arrives, it feels like it goes by in an instant even if it did take you all day
• You finish with a sense of accomplishment and a brand new “baby” (in my case, a medal and an upside-down printed hat, but whatever)…and a sore hoo-ha.

I’m a few years away from making the “should we start a family” decision, but for now Ironman training is giving me a taste of what it’s like to endure nine months (or, this time around, 11 months) of feeling uncomfortable, miserable, randomly sticky, and going through weird body changes. As for Coach Bridget, knowing how tough she is and what an outstanding athlete she is, this whole pregnancy thing should be a piece of cake for her. Just don’t eat too many ketchup chips, Coach B, or your baby may turn into a ginger. (And congratulations!)

My swim, much like 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,' is disappointing and runs way too long.

Take today’s workout for example. Teresa persuaded me to do the “postal swim,” which is an hour-long time trial. The rule is simple: see how far you can swim in 60 minutes. She pestered me via email and asked if I was going to sign up, and I sighed and responded with, “I don’t really want to do it, but I will if you think it’ll be good for me.” By the time I stopped dragging my feet and committed to doing the workout, there were only a couple slots left. Teresa cheerfully jammed me into the first of three waves. Wave #1 started at 7 am. On a Sunday. FML.

As if getting up at the ass crack of dawn on a Sunday morning for a bullshit swim workout wasn’t bad enough, I scanned the list of folks who were swimming in Wave #1 and realized that I was woefully outpaced among my fellow teammates. All of the fast assholes on my team were swimming at 7 am. I needed to be in Wave #3, which started at 9:30…or Teresa needed to make a separate “slowest of the slow” wave that started at noon and consisted of me and a no armed, one legged drifter named Hobo Joe.

Also making the swim worse was the fact that I was out of town this past week for work, so my weekend workouts were especially heavy duty to make up for my travel time. I spent the weekdays in Denver before flying home and forcing myself to do a swim workout on Friday. My swim wasn’t great, which gave me a glimmer of hope that, by the Law of Transitive Beccas, my Sunday swim would be better. On Saturday I had a “Welcome back to Ironman training you lazy bastard” workout that consisted of 3×1 hour bike intervals with a 15 minute brick run after each set. By the end of my 3:45 workout, I was exhausted, my legs were aching, and I was dreading the early morning swim that would end my weekend.

This morning I woke up at a soul-crushingly early 5:30 am and puttered around as nervous as I would be if it were an actual race. I was irrationally anxious and agonized over what to eat for breakfast. I even sucked down a cup of coffee, something I only do on race mornings. Jason and I hopped into the car (he didn’t want to do the postal swim either, but I nagged him into Band of Brothers-ing it with me) and drove over to Mercer Island. It was stupid and dark outside–as in “dark enough that I should still be in bed instead of driving to a turdtastic swim workout.” The island has no streetlights and the pool center was dark too, resulting in a supremely paranoid left turn into the parking lot since I was worried about missing the driveway and careening down an embankment (which, admittedly, still would have been better than swimming nonstop for an hour).

We entered the facility and made our way down to the pool. It was actually a 25 meter pool, so it was a smidge longer than the typical 25-yarder I was used to. I hopped in and busted out a half-ass 100 meter warm up, then we all began the time trial. My lane partner named Jeanne immediately began kicking my ass, lapping me like I was treading water and busting out flip turns like a boss. I sighed and puttered along, keeping a steady pace.

It was a bit tedious and difficult to concentrate on perfect form (which I don’t have, anyway) for an entire hour, so I let my mind wander towards the following:

• The nasty band-aid that was floating beneath me for about 20 minutes (eventually it made its way over to the lane next to me and kept Derek and Karissa company).
• How much phlegm I accumulated the longer I swim. At around the 30 minute mark I had a string of drool hanging from my mouth for about 100 meters before it finally broke off and presumably floated over to hang out with the band-aid in the Corner of Gross.
• Getting half-drowned every 10 minutes whenever Derek and I would briefly end up side by side (I say “briefly” because that bastard is an astoundingly fast swimmer) and his massive, manly wake would push into me and make me gurgle and partially choke on chlorine, band-aid juice, and errant loogies.

By the time the clock finally ticked down to its last seconds, I was halfway done with a length and finished at the deck end of the pool at around 1:00:25. I looked up and saw that the crowd had grown from about five teammates who were counting everyone’s laps to around 30 people who were waiting for their wave to start. The sudden audience made me feel a bit sheepish in a “Oh hey guys, how long have you been standing there? I was just taking ‘er easy for that last 10 minutes…oh, you’ve been here for 20? I meant 20. I did a 20 minute cooldown. I’m not normally this slow…” sort of way.

I hopped out of the pool, and Addy, my lap counter, looked up from his seat to give me my distance.

Addy: “2325.”

Me: “What?! I was between 25 and 50 when time ran out!”

Addy, helpfully: “Well, I wrote down ‘2325+.’”

Me, sulking: “Well I’m going to round up to 2350.”

Addy, rolling his eyes: “Whatever.”

Me, embarrassed: “…I need all the distance I can get.”

Teresa told me to shoot for 2400-2600 and Jason the Overbearing Boyfriend said I could do 2800. I did neither of those. In fact, if you calculate my pace for a half and full Ironman distance, I swam slower today than last year’s Rev 3 swim time and my Ironman Canada swim time. How nice to see that my swim times are getting progressively worse the longer I do this sport. I guess you could blame my sluggishness on the fact that my legs were dead from the previous day’s workout, but Jason had a 5 hour interval workout and he busted out a great swim time, so I can’t even really make that excuse. I guess I just suck, plain and simple.

I’m starting to get desperate here–at this point I’m actually entertaining the notion of joining a master’s swim class or two. Sure, I’ll get humiliated a couple nights a week, but at least I’ll have someone who can keep an eye on my swim form and yell at me whenever I do something wrong (which would be every 15 seconds). I’ve been better about hitting my swim workouts lately but I’m still not seeing consistent gains. How much do I need to be swimming each week to improve? And will this improvement be anything substantial, or will I basically negate any gains I make this August at IMC if I end up needing to take a three minute bathroom break in T2? Do I truly have the potential to get substantially better at swimming, or will I always be weak at it no matter how hard I work? I’m not whining here, just genuinely clueless about what it takes to improve my swimming. Maybe I need to harvest Michael Phelps’ tears or something…

It’s my fault, really. I accept these invitations knowing full well I’m in over my head and that these speedy chicks are going to mop the floor with this Mediocre Athlete. But I go anyway because I’m a glutton for punishment and because I think of myself as fairly easygoing (probably ingrained from “youngest child syndrome” and having grown up with two older brothers barking at me to get in the back seat without asking my opinion on the intricacies of vehicular seating charts). So, with some trepidation, I accepted Ms. Cathleen Knutson’s invitation to partake in her annual “Holidazzle” pre-Christmas holiday run through Queen Anne.

The plan was simple enough: dress up in your goofiest Christmas attire and meet at Cathleen’s apartment before running to a bar for some drinks, then running some more throughout Richy Richville before returning to Cathleen’s for food, booze, and merriment. I tried not to think about how I was going to be the slowest chick there (Cathleen, aka Female Rambo, was fresh off her second straight Ironman Kona appearance and regularly kicks my ass in age group placings [meaning she wins our age group while I'm finishing in the middle of the pack on a good day], and a bunch of other females were also Kona veterans or could outswim, bike, and run me any day of the week). Since I was sorely lacking in the “Christmas merriment” clothing, I settled on a glitzy run headband I received as a Secret Santa gift, a red scarf, and my beloved shark mittens, then waved goodbye to Jas and hopped in my car.

Unfortunately, the dreaded Denny traffic ensured that I was super late in getting to Cathleen’s, so by the time I got to her apartment, the girls had already left. I knew that they would end up at the Paragon Bar & Grill towards the early part of the evening, so I looked up the address on my phone. Then I realized I didn’t want to run who knows how many miles with my phone and that I had the bare minimum definition of a pants pocket (thanks for the Lululemon run capris, Teresa!). After some head scratching, I found a clean Subway napkin in my glove box, scrawled the address onto it, shoved my car keys into the tiniest pocket ever, and took off for the bar.

Cathleen assured the girls that this would be a “leisurely” run, but she didn’t account for the fact that some of us would show up late and spazz-sprint through Queen Anne to try and meet up with the main group. I ran up several hills, then would get turned around and double back to where I started. Eventually I came across the sketchiest and rapiest staircase in Seattle and reluctantly made my way up them, sporting my most convincing “You best not mess with me, muggers and/or serial killers!” sneer while simultaneously trying to look where I was going in the nonexistent light to avoid tripping and breaking my neck.

It was exactly like the set of stairs from 'The Exorcist,' except less "warmly lit."

I made it to the top unscathed and continued on, struggling to read my scraggly handwriting on an increasingly crumpled and sweat-absorbed napkin. After a while I got desperate and went into full-24 mode, panicking that the girls had already made it to Paragon and were gone and that I’d now have to make my way back to an apartment I barely had time to familiarize myself with before sprinting through the city. I flagged down an older gentleman.

Me: “Excuse me!”

He looked at me, noting my peculiar run attire (a bright red scarf and shark-shaped wool mittens don’t exactly scream “Trust me, I’m a decent athlete”).

Me: “…uh, do you know how to get to Queen Anne Avenue from here? I’m meeting some girls for a run bar crawl thing…for Christmas.” It was my bad attempt at subtly explaining that I was aware of how dumb I looked and blaming my lapse in judgment and decent fashion sense on the holiday spirit.

He pointed me in the right direction and I proceeded to haul ass to the bar. When I got there, panting, I peered inside and saw precisely zero decked out females knocking back a cold one. To me that meant that I was either early or late. I hedged my bets and went inside.

The waitress asked if I was there for a bar crawl and I excitedly shouted “Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!” (or I just said “yes”) and she pointed to a group of guys who were also dressed in holiday gear and were sitting at the bar. Confused, I told her, “I’m waiting for a group of girls, not guys.” One of the men waved me over and said, “You with Cathleen’s group?” and I happily joined them. Apparently they were some friends of Cathleen’s who were doing a male version of the bar run crawl and were planning on meeting Cathleen and Co. at Paragon (so I was early! Thank jeebus).

I relaxed, mopped my brow with the directions sponsored by Subway, and waited for the girls to arrive. One of the guys asked if I was going to order a drink and I agonized over what to get since I didn’t want something too heavy or gross sloshing around in my stomach since I didn’t know how far we were going to run. As I mentally proceeded to check off various spirits and libations, the impatient bartender kept looking at me expectantly until I panicked, went full moron, and ordered a winter beer. Good job, Rebecca, you don’t want to order something heavy so just get a pint of fucking seasonal ale instead. Dumb-ass.

The gaggle of girls arrived and the few I knew were happy to see me. They stuck around for a shot of vodka and punch before taking off, so I only had time to drink a third of my beer before running away with them. (Thankfully, it was a small enough amount that I didn’t feel gross the rest of the night.)

My teammates (and Carly) with shots and stupid me with a huge beer

Naturally, the “leisurely pace” was probably about 8:00/mile, which ain’t exactly zone 1 for me. Nonetheless, I followed the brightly decorated ladies through Queen Anne, gawking at the huge houses and feeling lame that I was the least festively dressed. I ended up sticking close to Coach Bridget because she had lights wrapped around her and served as my Rudolph for most of the run. (She even caught me when I tripped and nearly ate pavement; I rewarded her by panic-grabbing her boob on my way down. Sorry to Bridget’s husband for accidentally getting to second base with her.)

Speaking of Bridget, she’s always good for a dorky soundbyte or two. This night’s gem:

Bridget, running alongside someone: “So…are you married…to somebody?”

I think you can just ask someone if she’s married; you don’t have to qualify it with a “with somebody.” It’s not like you’d get a response like “Yeah, I’m married but it’s to a toaster.”

We eventually made our way to Kerry Park, where we stopped to admire the beautiful view of the cityscape. A man offered to snap photos of us and we rewarded him with a medley of holiday tunes. The crowd of passerbys was amused by the sight of over 20 women dressed like weirdos belting out half-forgotten Christmas song lyrics.

We looked dorky but it was still fun

After our little detour, we made our way back to Cathleen’s apartment, singing as we ran through the decorated Seattle streets and shouting a chipper “Merry Christmas!” to anyone we passed. All in all, we probably ran about 5 1/2 miles. Once we got to Cathleen’s place, we  kicked off our shoes and proceeded to stuff our faces with homemade chili, booze, cheese and crackers, salads, and the most ridiculous spread of holiday cookies and treats I’d ever seen.

And by "kicked off our shoes," I mean "lined them up neatly."

I got to mingle with some speedy athletes and meet some new triathletes, which was fun. One of the cool chicks I met was Carly, who was fresh off racing Ironman Cozumel. We did the standard “sizing each other up by comparing disciplines” pissing contest and I very obviously lost.

Carly: “I’m a terrible runner. Cycling’s my strength.”

Me: “Yeah, I’d have to say cycling’s my best too. I’m not a bad runner but I need to get better running off the bike. Swimming’s the absolute worst for me, though. I’m a terrible swimmer.”

Carly: “Oh, I’m a bad swimmer too!”

Me: “Oh really?”

Carly: “Yeah, I’m so slow.”

Me: “I hear ya. It’s frustrating. What was your swim split at Cozumel?” Maybe we could swim together this coming season–we slowpokes need to unite and stand tall against the fast assholes in the greater Seattle area, amirite?

Carly: “Oh, a 1:06.”

Me:

How did you make the swim cutoff with that offensively slow time?!

I responded with an appropriate “Fuck you” and stormed off to get more cookies. “Stupid fast girls,” I mumbled to myself amidst bites of homemade Rice Krispies treats. Despite feeling like a slow fish in a pond full of speedboats, I had a fun time and was glad Cathleen invited me. Maybe in 2012 I’ll step up my game, get a stupider-looking outfit, and try to remember what all 12 Days of Christmas are. Until next December, holidazzle ladies!

I’ve done hot yoga a couple times. It’s not bad, but since I’m naturally a sweaty person, I’m literally the only one in the room whose shins are sweating because I’m perspiring so much. I end up in my shame corner soaking wet while these yoga goddesses in booty shorts, sports bras, and 12-packs are contorting their bodies into pretzels without even a strand of hair getting frizzy. It’s lame. This time around I bought a Living Social (or Groupon, or whatever the daily deal site was) special for a hot yoga place in Capitol Hill and my friend Lauren and I met up to try it out.

We showed up and filled out the “I won’t sue the facility if I sweat myself to death” forms, then dropped our stuff off in the locker room before stepping into the hot yoga room. The first thing I noticed (and smelled) was that the space was carpeted. Uh what? This is a 90-minute yoga session in which the room is heated to over 90 degrees and someone thought it’d be smart to carpet the floors? It stank like musty feet and stale armpit sweat. I was not thrilled.

Lauren and I set up shop in the back of the room. I spread out my brand new yoga mat that I bought off Amazon.com because apparently forest green is an unpopular mat color (pink, on the other hand, would have cost me a monthly car payment). The sinewy instructor entered and started the group off with a ridiculously long series of breaths and shouts. Everyone began to moan as if they were zombies, and I instinctively looked for the nearest ax or blunt object in case I needed to peg someone in the head and make my sweaty escape.

After the B.S. breathing, we began contorting and stretching and yoga-ing. The instructor kept firing off instructions one after another without pausing, making me wonder if she doubles as an auctioneer on the weekends. She’d bark at me and Lauren every so often whenever we didn’t contort to her liking, and she kept calling Lauren “Laura,” which got more and more awkward the longer we were in class.

Pretty soon I was drenched with sweat. I couldn’t see because whenever I’d bend over, all of the perspiration on my face would dump into my eyes. My towel was all spongy so it offered little reprieve. I sighed and kept telling myself that somehow this would help me survive the hot and humid runs in Costa Rica and Hawaii. At one point I looked down and saw that I was so saturated with sweaty nastiness that the scab on my knee (which I got from scraping it on the bottom of the pool during the previous week’s swim class, another reason why swim class is dumb) had hydrated itself and fallen off. It was now perched on my yoga mat in a soggy little ball.

My reaction:

Das nasty!

I was literally sous vide-ing myself to the point where parts of me were falling off. It was like shredding a slow cooked piece of pork. Four moves later I looked down and the scab was gone, probably absorbed into the Carpet of Horrors to join the kaleidoscope of DNA that will one day birth a mutant CHUDbaby who knows how to do the Feathered Peacock pose.

Finally the class ended and we escaped from the oven to the cool Seattle air. I weighed myself when I got home and saw that I was 2 1/2 lbs lighter, all of which had gotten absorbed into the nasty floor along with my knee scab. I felt like some sort of disgusting Johnny Appleseed.

I haven’t been back since I sweat my scab off, but I’ll probably drag myself to some more classes to see if it’ll help with the tropical race climate I’ll be subjected to in March and June. I haven’t accumulated any new scrapes or cuts, so this is my narrow window of opportunity to return without leaving a piece of me behind…

Unsurprisingly, this mediocre athlete don’t do flip turns. I very obviously lack the coordination and skill to pull off a graceful somersault in the water and push off the wall in one fluid motion. Once I went to a flip turn clinic that Teresa was teaching at the Seattle Athletic Club, and not only did I burn out my sinuses from the military-grade chlorine that flooded my nasal passages every time I contorted my body underwater (Teresa’s shouts to “Tuck your chin!” did not help, as apparently I am incapable of scrunching my head in that manner), I would more often than not attempt to flip at the end of the lane and end up in the one next to me, having somehow maneuvered myself underneath the lane divider and crookedly emerging in some other swimmer’s personal space. “Just practice doing flip turns during your warm ups and cool downs!”, Teresa would tell me. Uh yeah, if I can’t even stay in my lane during a mostly empty swim clinic, I can’t imagine a pool full of lap swimmers would appreciate my flailing appendages slapping into them while I repeatedly apologize and insist to their bruised faces that practice makes perfect.

So yeah, flip turns aren’t for me. It’s not a big deal–I’m slow and crappy enough as it is, so adding a flip turn into the mix isn’t going to be the deciding factor in me suddenly becoming as fast as Dara Torres. When I get to the wall I just turn around and push off, so it’s not like I’m taking a five minute break at each end. I’ve accepted the fact that flip turns and I will never have a future together in a pool with a yard and a white picket fence and 2.5 kiddie pools, and that’s okay.

Or so I thought. Here T was trying to force flip turns on me once again. She’d have us swim for a bit and then do something dumb like somersault in the middle of the pool. Fortunately, she exempted those of us who “got dizzy” when trying flip turns, so I feigned vertigo and opted just to swim a couple laps instead. The next step was to have people swim to the end of a lane and attempt a flip turn, but I opted to splash around in the middle of the pool and daydream about the day when the swim portion of a triathlon would be replaced with something more practical like light stretching or cookie eating.

After the flip turn nonsense, as the workout came to an end I thought I was in the clear. And then T did something especially dastardly: she combined my two most loathed swim activities, flip turns and relays. Teresa is a fan of concluding the swim classes with some relay bullshit, which I hate because it makes me irrationally stressed. She breaks us into groups and gives us some dumb stuff to do, like everyone has to do 50 yards of drills or some swim stroke I never practice and totally suck at. This part of the workout is always terrible because it’s at the end, so I’m already exhausted and can barely swim any more, and because I’m slow as shit so I always feel like I’m letting my team down (the last two times I did a swim relay with a group, my team came in last).

So now we were tasked with swimming 50 yards starting from the middle of the pool, with one end being a flip turn and the other end being a push off. My group consisted of Fast Guy, Fast Guy, Fast Guy, and me. I refused to be the anchor because I didn’t want to totally ruin whatever lead we had going in, so they stuck me in the third position. When it was my turn to go, I swam to the wall and skipped the whole “flip turn” part, figuring my faux-dizziness excuse would exempt me. I finished my leg and my last teammate took off to finish. When he was done we realized we were in first place. Hooray! Wahoo! We’re #1!

And then Teresa disqualified us because I didn’t do a flip turn. What?! But…vertigo! Dizziness! Or maybe just an unwillingness to do them because they hurt my sinuses and I suck at them and they’re stupid! Whatever. Flip turns are overrated–it’s not like skipping the turn gave me a 30 second lead or anything. Sorry I let you down, guys. I was the turd in the punchbowl.

We did another relay to end the workout, then called it a day. And so Saturday was Teresa’s yearly attempt to get me to work on flip turns. Teresa, in case you’re thinking about trying to teach them to me again, here’s some advice from resident Mean Girl Regina George:

"Flip turns" and "fetch": both failed experiments.

Meanwhile, since I was finally healed of my running ailments and was once again able to run relatively well, I wanted to do the half marathon. I hadn’t run a standalone half marathon since Eugene in May 2010, and since I had only been running strong for 2 1/2 months, I didn’t really have many expectations going into the Seattle half. It’s a tough, hilly course that isn’t typically PR-friendly, so although I was hoping to run 1:45 or better (my previous best was a 1:46:46), I figured I’d be satisfied with a sub-1:50.

Jason, meanwhile, was hoping to finally have a “good” marathon (his words), as he usually ends up cramping towards the end and has to compromise speed for the last few miles due to his size. This time he’d be racing 40 lbs lighter and with a ton of mileage under his belt, plus he figured the cooler temperatures would mean he’d be less likely to cramp, so he was excited and nervous for Sunday to roll around.

On Saturday we did our customary “Ugh, I’m feeling so tired ahhhh why does my foot hurt oh god I’m getting sick aren’t I man this race is not going to go well” freak outs and lazed around the house hydrating and acting like hypochondriacs. We also agonized over what to wear for the race. Naturally, since the weather had been relatively mild for the past few years, weather forecasts called for supremely shitty weather on race day because we were unlucky enough to sign up for the race this year (no joke, I was watching the news and the meteorologist actually said Sunday was going to be “sucky”). It was projected to be warmer than usual temperature-wise, but it looked like we’d have to battle rain and wind, so Jason and I were scratching our heads and putting way too much effort into what to wear:

• Underarmour shirt and a long-sleeved shirt with tights and gloves!
• Wait, no, just an underarmour shirt and a t-shirt with a pair of shorts
• Well hold on a second, what about a long-sleeved shirt and shorts
• No, tights and a t-shirt!
• Or I could do tights, pants, underarmour, long-sleeved, gloves, a hat, a parka, a hazmat suit, ski pants…

This went on for about an hour before I ultimately muttered “Fuck it, I’ll just figure it out tomorrow when I’m half-awake” and we went to bed.

The next morning we woke up at 5:45 and ate breakfast (I got my “race day” coffee, something I haven’t ingested since July’s Rev 3 triathlon). I went with the uber-dweeb getup of tights, run shorts, an underarmour shirt, and a TN Multisports t-shirt and also packed a cheap pair of gloves to wear. I grabbed my fuel and some dry clothes to put on after I was done because the genius organizers decided to start the half marathoners at 7:30 and the marathoners at 8:15, so I’d have to wait around for 2+ hours after my race for Jason to be done and didn’t want to freeze my now-smaller ass off while waiting.

We left the house at about 6:45, and I made it about twelve blocks from our place before uttering “Fuck me, I forgot my watch.”

Jason: “What?”

Me: “I forgot my watch!” I had just bought a Garmin Forerunner 305 from one of my teammates and had planned to race with it, but naturally I left it at home because I’m a dumb-ass.

Jason: “So you have the heart rate strap on but not your watch?”

Me: “Yeah.”

Jason:

Sorry, Jas

Me: “I have to turn around and get it.”

Jas: “You’re going to be late to the race!”

Me: “No way, I can make it!”

Jason: “You don’t really need your watch for the race, do you?”

I just glared at him. Okay, maybe I was getting a bit too dependent on heart rate zones and whatnot, but seeing as how Teresa actually gave me a target heart rate to run at for the entire race, I figured I was being a good athlete and following coach’s orders rather than acting like a spazzy control freak. Also, I was being a spazzy control freak. But screw you, I wanted my watch.

Jason, sighing: “Okay, you better make it quick.”

And so I busted a U-wee and sped back to our place. Jason hopped out and grabbed the watch for me while I sat behind the wheel like a getaway driver. After that little misstep, we proceeded to get as close to the race as possible. Once we got stuck in traffic on Denny, I pulled into a pay lot and figured that five bucks for all-day parking would be fine considering I only had 20 minutes before the half marathon started, so I couldn’t exactly be picky with parking options.

Unfortunately, Problem #2 took the opportunity to rear its inconsiderate little head: the pay stall credit card kiosk wasn’t working. I only had a dollar on me and didn’t have time to run somewhere and get cash, so I scrawled the most ghetto apology note imaginable and placed it on my dashboard, prayed to the Parking Gods that I wouldn’t get a ticket, and took off for the race start.

When we got close enough to the start line, Jason gave me a hug and a kiss like a parent seeing his child off to her first day of school. I not-remotely-gracefully hopped the barricade between the spectators and the runners so I wouldn’t have to go all the way around and fight my way towards the front. As luck would have it, the first person I ran into was Kirsten, one of my teammates. I was happy to see a familiar face and chatted with her as the minutes ticked down.

When the gun went off I woefully realized Problem #3: I had to go #1. It was probably a “Nervous Race Day Pee for the 352nd Time” pee, but still, the bladder felt full and I was uncomfortable. Of course, I didn’t want to stop at the first portapotty a sad five minutes into the race, so I gritted my teeth and kept telling myself that the full bladder sensation would fuel me to run faster. “You’ll get to pee when you finish!”, I kept mentally barking at myself.

The weather was awfully muggy, so I ditched my cheapo gloves after the first mile and rolled up my sleeves, lamenting my choice of attire. I gradually built myself up to my target heart rate zone and was surprised to find that, unlike my training runs where it felt like I had to work pretty hard to maintain zone 4, on race day I was able to hit it relatively easily and maintained it well. I took my splits every mile and gawked at how fast each one was. Should I slow down? This wasn’t sustainable, right? But I was feeling fine. Good, in fact. So should I just keep running in this zone and see where it takes me?

I ultimately decided to stay in the zone Teresa originally assigned me and hoped for the best. By mile 5 my full bladder sensation subsided into a dull whimper, and once I hit the Leschi part of the course I felt confident because I had run this stretch of the race so many times while training so it felt familiar and comfortable. I saw a bunch of my teammates spectating and cheering for me and our other teammates who were racing, which made me grin like a dope and wave like a giddy child. (Best team ever. Seriously. End of discussion.)

The hills came and went and I maneuvered through them comfortably. They didn’t feel too bad–chalk it up to living in Capitol Hill and running on hilly terrain multiple times a week. My climbing pace wasn’t fast but it was steady, leaving me some energy to descend faster than the folks around me. I puttered up the heart rate-spiking Galer hill and onto Madison, where I spotted Teresa ahead of me. Her energy levels were starting to dip due to an adverse reaction from one of her treatment shots, so I was able to catch up to her and smack her on her skinny butt. She glanced up and beamed when she saw it was me, exclaiming, “Great job!” What an awesome coach–she’s not feeling well but still cares enough about her athletes to muster up a smile and some encouraging words for us. My heart soared and I pushed on, going from feeling great to feeling super-duper great.

I powered through the Arboretum, up Interlaken, and down through Eastlake. The weather had started to turn and it was raining and getting windy now. I uncursed myself for my choice of race attire and soldiered on, gawking at my mile splits.

The look on my face when I'd check my splits

How was I running this fast? I don’t run this fast! I’m the mediocre runner! I’m the cheese at track! I’ve been injured all season! I’ve only been running for a couple months! What is going on here?!

At mile 11 I came up to a female who noticed me and kept doing the dickheaded “edge you out so you can’t run alongside me or pass me” move. It was annoying, and so was her squeaky shoe. I ran right behind her for a mile before dropping her on a descent, when she couldn’t keep up with my powerful Asian stubs. Take that, chick who arbitrarily started a rivalry with me even though I don’t know her at all and don’t care if she beats me because I’m just trying to run my best race without worrying about what anyone else is doing!

The weather was getting pretty damn ugly by this point, but I was close to the finish so I buried my head, kept wiping the rain off my face, and powered through as best I can. I ran into Mark at one corner and he said, “A quarter mile to go, attack that descent!” I got super excited. Only a quarter mile left? I could finish in 1:40! Holy crap! So I ran and ran and ran and ran…but when I hit the “26 mile” sign, I mentally cursed Mark for being off with his distance estimate. I still had .2 miles to go! Quarter mile, my ass! Oh well, so I wasn’t going to finish in 1:40, but I was still going to post a hefty PR.

I rounded the last bend and began to enter the stadium. Jason’s dad spotted me and started shouting excitedly. I grinned and waved and approached the finish…and then I heard super fast, heavy footsteps behind me and saw Random Rival, who rallied to try and edge me out one last time. It’s called a chip time, lady–we ended up finishing at the exact same time on the clock, but her chip time was half a minute better so she would have beat me even if she didn’t sprint like a doosh at the end. I didn’t care though because I had just PR’d on a hard course on an ugly day, after a season of injury, hardships, and doubt.

Final time: 1:41:15. I couldn’t believe it. Sure, I was slimmer, healthier, and had been running stronger as of late, but I had long written off my 2011 season as being a craptacular disappointment, so to end the year with such a marked improvement felt a bit foreign and strange. I shook off the initial shock and embraced my hard-earned finish time. It felt good to be back in action.

I snapped some unattractive photos with my teammates who were pouring in (I never noticed how bulbous my forehead looked until I posed with people who were all wearing hats while my fat melon remained exposed and shiny in all its Charlie Brown-shaped glory), then made my way to a portapotty to reward my bladder for its patience with a much-earned evacuation. I then wrapped myself up in a space blanket like a giant sweaty burrito and shivered my way back to the car so I could change into dry clothes.

My string of good luck continued when I realized I hadn’t received a parking ticket, so after the most awkward wardrobe change ever (picture a sweaty athlete struggling to conservatively change her pants in the backseat of a Subaru as the car shakes and fills with steam–to anyone walking past the pay lot on the corner of Denny and Aurora, no, that was not a couple getting it on, it was just a fidgeting female who was struggling to yank on dry socks while simultaneously shaking off a foot cramp), I ran to a nearby Walgreens, got some cash, and paid for my parking spot. Success! This must be what the Ocean’s 11 crew felt like.

After chugging a chocolate milk, I made my way back to the race to wait for Jason to finish. I caught up with Mark and Teresa and hung out inside a warm cafe until we forced ourselves to go back outside. The weather had gotten ridiculous by this point–when it wasn’t pouring, winds were gusting so hard that umbrellas were getting turned inside out and the spectators were becoming frozen blocks.

Eventually we saw Jason powering down the street approaching the finish. I was super excited to see him–he looked strong, albeit wet and cold. Teresa and I started cheering like maniacs and he lit up when he saw us. He asked how my race went and Teresa chirped, “She did great!,” then was all “Awwww, how sweet, he asked how you did before he was even done with his race!” Yeah, that’s right, my boyfriend is a stud who’s all caring and cool and whatnot. You know you’re jelly.

He finished in 3:20:16, a whopping 16 minutes faster than his previous best. Yaay, finally Jason gets his “good” marathon!

Me (and my bitchin' shark mittens) with a 3:20 runnin' Jas and his proud papa

We waited for his sister to finish before getting the eff out of the cold and back to the warm confines of the still-steamy-from-Becca’s-wardrobe-change Subaru. The rest of our day consisted of hot showers, a fireplace, homemade pumpkin pie courtesy of Alley and our “Pie of the Month” agreement, and gooey, calorie-licious pizza. We’re both nursing sore legs today but are very happy with our finish times.

My next goal is to do a sub-1:40 (which I might have done if I were on a flatter course), but I’m not sure when my next half marathon will be since I’ll be fully committed to Ironman training now that the race is over. I wanted to do a marathon this winter but Coach T would rather I focus on my Ironman training, so my elusive sub-4 will have to wait a while longer. If she can coach me to a PR marathon for Ironman Canada, I’ll find some way to forgive her… ;) Until then, I’m content to enjoy my half marathon PR for another day before the training picks up again and I’m whimpering for mercy. There’s always another race around the corner, right folks?

Behold, my 2012 race season (aka, the last year I get to race in the glorious 25-29 age group before being thrown to the fast and strong 30+ assholes):

November 26th: Seattle Half Marathon

This will be my first half marathon since the Eugene half in spring 2010, where I PR’d on a relatively flat and fast course. I’ve never done the Seattle half or full marathon despite having lived here for over 10 years. There’s something about the course being difficult and the fact that it’s during a typically shitty time of the year weather-wise that hasn’t struck me as being terribly appealing. However, a ton of teammates are racing the half and a lean and fast Jas is hoping to run a 3:30 or better in the full, so I decided to woman up and race it too. It’s hard to say what I’ll bust out on Sunday–I’ve been running well lately, which is a refreshing change from how slow and painful my runs were for the first half of 2011. I’d like to do 1:45 or better, which would be a PR for me (on a tough course, no less), but as long as I have a solid, strong race, I’ll be pretty happy.

March 18, 2012: Rev 3 Costa Rica

It’s happening, folks! Jason and I are going to kick off the tri season waaaaaaay too early for my tastes by doing our first half Ironman of the year in freaking March. I bet my first outdoor ride and open water swim will be the week we get there, right before the race. The trip will actually end up being relatively inexpensive since I used miles to book our plane tickets and we’ll be sharing a house rental with two other couples. The pricey part will be hauling our crap and the race registration. One thing I’m not thrilled about is that people complained the swim was way long last year (the top swim time was 10 minutes slower than typical, which means my slow-ass swim time will end up being like a half hour worse than usual if they don’t correct the course for this year’s race) and some swimmers got stung by fucking jellyfish during the race. WHAT. I wasn’t aware of this before booking my trip. Oh God. If I get stung by a jellyfish (and you know I will because I’m the Mediocre Athlete with the worst luck ever), that’s pretty much a race ruiner right there. Oh well, at least I’ll get to hang out in Costa Rica with my friends and boyfriend.

May 2012: Mt. Rainier Duathlon

Teresa will probably make me do this again. The only conundrum is whether I should try and defend my title one last time in the short course before I have to age up next year or if I should graduate myself to the long course since it’ll be better training for Canada. On one hand, the long course will be a better workout. On the other hand, GHETTO TROPHYYYYYYYYYY. Decisions, decisions.

June 2, 2012: Honu 70.3

My second tropical destination race of the year. I fully expect the winds to be atrocious and the heat/humidity to be brutal. A lot of teammates will be racing so it should be a fun destination race. We’re rooming with Mark and Teresa again–by the end of the season we will have stayed with them for four different races. (At this point I’m wondering if we should just buy a house together and pull a “Big Love” minus the whole polygamy thing.) I haven’t been to Hawaii since I was five years old and Jason hasn’t been since he was in high school and went with his family. Fun fact: we were both sick during our only vacation to Hawaii–I had strep throat and Jason had mono. Here’s hoping this coming trip will be better for both of us.

July 8, 2012: Rev 3 in Portland

I wasn’t thrilled with the course and it looks like the race will be in the same spot as last year, but they’ve changed the bike course so it’s now one challenging loop instead of two crotch-busting but flat loops. The swim and run will probably be the same. I’m not super excited about this race, but seeing as how my other option in July was Lake Stevens, I’d rather go back to Portland. I know of at least one teammate who is racing it and Jason will be there for support (but not to race since he’ll be fresh off Ironman Coeur d’Alene), plus we have friends in Portland we can hang out with that weekend, so it should still be a fun time.

July 22, 2012: Seafair

I haven’t decided on this one yet, but I kind of want to do the sprint triathlon one last time before I age up to 30-34 next year. Since I’ll be training so much this season, it’ll be fun to see how well I’ll place in my age group. Maybe next year I’ll give the olympic distance a try, but I wouldn’t mind doing the sprint distance one more time before hitting the big 3-0.

August 26, 2012: Ironman Canada

My big ‘ol “A” race. I’d like to break 12 hours this time around and plan to put in some serious training time in order to try and hit that goal. I think I can improve across the board, but I can make especially big gains in the swim portion if I get off my ass and commit to my workouts. We’ll see how the season goes–I’m pretty excited and looking forward to seeing how fit and strong I can get for this race.

My goals for the half are to try and keep them under 6 hours if possible, which could be a bit challenging because I’m doing two races in humid tropical environments, but hopefully I can stay strong for the 70.3s and get some confidence going into Ironman Canada.

I wanted to do a marathon in January or February so that I can finally break 4 hours (a goal I should have hit the last time I did a standalone marathon but the race went horribly awry), but Teresa wants me to focus on Ironman training and said that I can plan for my sub-4 goal for Canada, at which point I laughed heartily and assumed she was joking. Sub-4 off the bike would be pretty insane for me, but hey, if she can coach me to it then I owe her a huge gift basket full of Lululemon crap and chocolates.

Welp, that about does it so far for my 2012 race season. I’ll have some organized rides and whatnot sprinkled in there (I think Teresa wants me to try and sign up for RAMROD if I can get in), plus I’m not sure what I’ll do after Canada (maybe I can convince T to let me do a marathon, although the last time that happened after an Ironman, I got tendinitis so I’m not sure how gung-ho she’ll be), but it’s going to be a pretty packed season through the end of August. If I survive, I’ll hopefully emerge with some PRs, some finisher medals, some good stories, and minimal sun damage and taint chafing.

Jason, meanwhile, has lost a whopping 37 lbs and hopes to lose an additional 13 for the upcoming season. This is the skinniest we’ve seen each other since we started dating over seven (yeah yeah “why aren’t you guys married already lol tee hee”) years ago. He doesn’t notice the weight loss on him as much as everyone else does–his face is so much slimmer and we had to go through his entire wardrobe and weed out clothes that are now too gigantic for him to wear. I also made the mistake of buying some new jeans that are now already too loose for me outside of the post-dryer 15 minute window of snug awesomeness. It’s a good problem to have, I suppose, but not when you just plunked down money on new clothes and already don’t fit them. (BTW, I don’t have pictures of our transformation but will write a post once we’re at our goal weights and do a Maury-type “before and after,” minus the part where we bust through a paper screen image of our old fat selves).

Since Jas and I are dropping weight faster than my self-imposed deadline of June 4th, maybe it’s time to take it up a notch. Coach Mark and I discovered that we can get to Costa Rica using airline miles, so we’re possibly maybe potentially planning on traveling to Costa Rica to race the Rev 3 70.3 March 18th. Unfortunately, that means instead of having 200 days to ab up, I would now only have 117. Shit just got real.

Costa Rica would be a lot of fun, but seeing as how I’d be going with Teresa “My Abs Have Abs” Nelson and Mark “No Body Fat” Webb as well as Darin “I Literally Have a Barrel for a Chest” Smith and his gorgeous wife, I’m gonna have to be able to hold my own when it comes to the “hard body in a swimsuit” part of the vacation (which would be the majority of the trip). The pressure’s on, folks.

While I have no food allergies, I’m allergic to a ton of pollens and mildews and grasses and some pet dander (cat being the worst). I get two shots, one for cat dander and one that’s a cocktail of trees, grasses, dust mites and mildew. Right now I’m in “maintenance” mode for the cat shot, meaning I only get that shot once a month. I’m still building up the other shot though so I receive that once a week.

Yesterday I went to the medical center to receive my weekly injection. The nurse was someone I hadn’t seen before and I was less than impressed with her needlework. After a more-uncomfortable-than-usual shot, I texted Jas:

Stupid new nurse pulled the needle out at an angle. Blood ensued. Come on, junkies take more care than this.

Whenever I get a shot I have to wait around for 30 minutes afterwards to make sure I don’t have a systemic reaction from the allergens that were injected, so I wiped the blood from my arm and waited until my time was up, not knowing that the botched shot would serve as ominous foreshadowing to how the rest of my day would go.

As I was driving home, I started to feel a pain in the middle of my chest. Not like a heart attack-type pain, but like a really bad bout of acid reflux or like there was a wad of something stuck in my esophagus. By the time I got home the pain would sharply flare up every few minutes and course from the middle of my chest up to my throat. I told Jas about my discomfort and he gave me a “WTF call the doctor” look. The ensuing conversation went as follows:

Receptionist (in a bored, flat voice): “Medical Specialties.”

Me: “Hi, I just came in for an allergy shot and I think I’m having an adverse reaction.”

Receptionist (slightly less bored now): “Uh, okay, what’s your name?”

Me: “Rebecca Kelley. K-E-L-L-E-Y.”

Receptionist: “One moment.”

Abrupt silence.

Then:

Voice: “REBECCA IT’S JEAN CALL 911!”

Jean is one of the head nurses who typically administers my shots. She is very sweet and exceptionally cautious, as I came to find out from our phone call.

Me: “Whuh–”

Jean: “CALL 911 AND TELL THEM YOU’RE HAVING A SYSTEMIC REACTION! …then call us and schedule a follow up appointment, mkay?”

Me: “Uh, my boyfriend is right here, can’t he just drive me to the–”

Jean: “NO, IT COULD ESCALATE SO YOU NEED TO CALL 911!”

Me: “Well where should I go, should I go back to the UW Medical Center?”

Jean: “Whereever’sclosestI’mhangingupnowcall911bye.”

I hung up the phone and looked at Jason to relay the conversation, but considering that Jean was shouting at me in a panicked Jack Bauer state, he had heard everything and the look on his face went from “WTF” to “Jesus Christ WTF was that?!!!”

Me: “Screw it, I’m not calling an ambulance to take me half a mile. Jason, can you drive me to Swedish?”

We headed to the hospital. The pain in my chest continued intermittently and I was feeling a bit feverish. I wasn’t having problems breathing or swallowing but the pain kept getting more intense. When we got to the ER, I checked in and answered a barrage of questions from a nurse who kept trying to trick me into admitting I was some sort of misfit:

Nurse: “Do you smoke?”

Me: “No.”

Nurse: “Chewing tobacco?”

Me: “No.”

Nurse: “Alcohol?”

Me: “Uh, occasionally.”

Nurse: “Recreational drugs?”

Me: “No.”

Nurse: “Smoke?”

Me: “What? Still no.” As if she’d catch me in a lie and I’d be like, “Yes, I smoke ALL the cigarettes…oops, I mean no, I don’t smoke,” and she’d jump out of her chair and exclaim, “A-HA! I got you, you smoking fuck!”

After I got checked in and my blood pressure and temperature were taken, a nurse (who I shall refer to as “First Best Nurse”) took me to a room.

First Best Nurse: “So what happened?”

I explained that I had gotten an allergy shot and was having a reaction.

First Best Nurse: “What’s your level of pain on a scale of 0-10?”

I never know how to answer that because pain is so subjective. My 4 could be someone else’s 9 and some hardcore dude’s -7.

Me: “Uh, it’s not pants-crappingly bad, just kind of shitty.”

He laughed, then started to clean the crook of my right arm.

First Best Nurse: “They’re going to administer an IV to counteract your reaction. I’m going to put a line in and draw some blood…they’re probably not going to do anything with it but now’s the time to draw it.”

Awesome, I got to have five vials of blood drawn in the off chance that they’d need some of it for testing, cloning, demonic sacrifice, or to frame me for a crime. Yaay.

First Best Nurse hooked me up to a heart monitor and then was all “Peace out bitches, I’m out. Rico’s your nurse now” and left. (Okay, he didn’t exactly put it in those terms but he did leave.)

I sat there for a long while, the beeps of the heart monitor keeping me company. It kept annoyingly alerting that my heart rate was low (it hovered between 48-51), and after a while I wanted to punch through the screen and shout “I’m not dying I just work out a lot and have a low resting heart raaaaaate!” At one point the machine went super apeshit when my heart rate got down to 37. I expected nurses to rush in all Code Blue style with defibrillators in their hands but nobody appeared, which made me wonder what purpose the alerts even served if they didn’t actually alert anyone. The super loud alarm did scare me into producing a higher heart rate and the machine went from going crazy to returning to the annoying “Hey, your heart rate is low what’s up with that” beeps.

While I waited, Nurse Rico came in.

Nurse Rico: “So what happened?”

Me: “Uh…”

Seriously, was I going to have to give the backstory to every person who came into the room? What happened to patient charts and knowing about a situation beforehand?

I got him caught up on Chest Tightness 2011 and he took my blood pressure, entered some stuff into the computer and left. After more waiting a woman came in who I’ll refer to as Paperwork Patty.

Paperwork Patty: “Hi, I’m just here to enter some information so we can process some paperwork.”

Me: “Okay.”

Paperwork Patty: “So what happened?”

God damnit.

I summarized the ordeal again and she asked me for emergency contact information, religious preferences, and some other inane information.

Me: “Do you know when the doctor will be in? And what’s with this heart monitor making so much noise?”

Paperwork Patty: “Uh, I…don’t know. I’m not a nurse, I’ll get someone for you.”

By this time Jason was able to make his way back to my room and kept me company while we waited an eon for the doctor to arrive. She finally graced me with her presence and shall now be referred to as Dr. Shitty Bedside Manner.

Dr. Shitty Bedside Manner: “Hi there! So you’re having an adverse reaction to an allergy shot?”

Ugh, finally someone who knows why I was admitted.

Me: “Yeah.”

Dr. Shitty Bedside Manner: “Ooh, I can see that the right side of your face is swollen.”

Me: “It is?” I touched my face. “I…don’t think so.”

Dr. Shitty Bedside Manner: “Really?” She squinted at my face. I turned to Jas and he shrugged.

Me: “It doesn’t feel swollen…”

Dr. Shitty Bedside Manner: “Look at me.” She inspected my face and then frowned. “Well, some people have asymmetrical faces, maybe your right side is just naturally puffier.”

My reaction:

Seriously?

Here I was thinking that I’d lost weight and was looking kind of good lately and some shitty doctor takes it upon herself to tell me that half of my face is inherently fat. Awesome.

Dr. SBM: “Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do…”

Ah, finally, the remedy. I was gonna get a shot of adrenaline or something, right? We’d recreate that scene from Pulp Fiction and it’d be all hardcore and shit.

"I gotta stab her three times?"

Dr. SBM: “We’re going to give you a dose of Benadryl and then we’ll keep an eye on you for observation.”

Me: “Wait, what?” Benadryl? Benadryl?! Nurse Jean freaked the fuck out on the phone and told me to dial 911 so I could take a dose of Benadryl?

My disappointment was akin to this:

"Be sure...to drink...your...ovaltine?"

Me: “Is it different that the stuff you buy over the counter?” Throw me a bone, doc, and tell me that it’s at least some hospital-grade industrial strength Benadryl that’s used to wipe out allergies in rhinos or something.

Dr. SBM: “Nope, it’s the same stuff you can buy at the grocery store!”

Fuck my life.

And, to add insult to injury:

Dr. SBM: “We can even give you a children’s liquid dose in case you have trouble swallowing pills.”

Me:

“Uh no, the pills are fine.” Benadryl was bad enough, but going to the ER for a dose of Children’s Benadryl? I might as well just give up on life.

Dr. SBM: Okay then, I’ll order that up for you–hey, you’ve already got a line started.”

I looked down at the line taped to the inside of my arm.

Me: “Yeah, one of the nurses drew blood and said I would be getting an IV.” (I never got one.)

Dr. SBM: “Oh! Well then, we can administer the Benadryl directly. Don’t want to waste that line!” She left the room. At least I was getting a form of Benadryl that’s not available at pharmacies. It was the barely silver lining in this shitfest of a day.

Jason popped out to call his parents and give them an update on my medical situation and Nurse #3 stepped in to take vitals.

Nurse #3: “So what happened?”

FOR FUCK’S SAKE.

Me: “Allergic reaction.”

Nurse #3: “What are you allergic to?”

Me: “Uh, dust mites, trees, pollens, grass, mildew…nothing exciting, I’m afraid.”

Nurse #3: “…oh.” He seemed a bit confused, but whatever.

He typed some information into the computer and then started to wrap the blood pressure cuff around my left arm before he noticed the swollen and puffy area where my allergy shot had been administered earlier in the day.

Me: “That’s where I got the allergy shot.”

Nurse #3: “Ohhhhh, the reaction is from a shot!”

Me: “Wha–yes! What’d you think, I was belly sliding through a park or something?” That explained the funny look on his face–he thought I rushed myself to the ER after barrel rolling through the Arboretum and feeling itchy. At this point I was getting tired of nurses and wanted out of this damn place.

He left and returned with a shot of liquid Benadryl, which he then mainlined into my arm.

Nurse #3: “This will probably take effect in about five minutes or so.”

I felt the effects immediately. (Fat Rebecca would have needed the full five minutes.) Drowsiness kicked in and I started to feel a little cloudy and cottonmouthed. Jason hung out with me for an eternity while I was kept for observation, and I was getting tired and cranky and just wanted to go home. It was a waste of a trip and I was fearful of what the hospital bill would total and what little my “Greatest Country in the World Except For This Fucked Up Health Care System” insurance would cover.

A fourth nurse (a brusque, large woman) removed my line in a rough and terrifying manner, then scooped up all five vials of my blood and threw them away. I was a bit sad to see my blood go to waste. Jason joked that I should have snatched them from her, cracked them open and drank them all, exclaiming, “They’re all mine! MY BLOOOOODDDD!!” I opted not to and instead watched her chuck my precious liquids in the disposal bin.

Finally, after waiting around forever I was cleared to go. I spent about 2 1/2 to 3 hours at the hospital and emerged pumped full of Benadryl and feeling like the whole thing was a huge waste. If I had known some freaking Benadryl would have done the trick, I wouldn’t have spent the rest of my afternoon meeting every nurse who works at Swedish and having a doctor tell me my face is fat.

The rest of my evening was spent in a semi-drowsy, puffy armed state eating pizza and watching Breaking Bad. I’m currently taking bets on how much the hospital bill will be. Whatever the total, last night I took the most expensive dose of Benadryl ever.

Let’s revisit the schedule of pain:

Monday: dryland. I was already feeling kind of tired and Bridget sensed fatigue and pounced, making me do lunges, squats, burpees, and a bunch of other dumb crap because she’s sadistic and mean.

Swim: Pacing/conditioning workout. Teresa tried to drown me by incorporating sculling into my workout and very nearly succeeded because I am terrible at sculling and think it shouldn’t be a thing that exists.

Tuesday: track. Oh goody, a run test. I ran as hard as I could for 30 minutes, sucking in air like a Biggest Loser contestant on week one. On the plus side, I PR’d for a 5k and posted a good pace for the half hour test. On the minus side, the workout was hard and hurty and I got a wicked side stitch that hurt through the next day.

Wednesday: dryland. Admittedly this wasn’t on my schedule but I had already signed up so I went anyway. Teresa showed some mercy on me and gave me minimal leg workouts so she could lull me into a false sense of security before destroying my lower limbs with the rest of the week’s workouts.

Cycling class: Who gives a bike test the first day of cycling class? The TN coaches, that’s who. I emerged from this one exhausted, legs burning, and with new bike heart rate zones.

Thursday: Sweet fancy Moses, a day off. I celebrated by gorging on fish and chips, a fish taco, and cupcakes from Cupcake Royale. That’s how you take advantage of a rest day.

Friday: cycling. A 1:30 workout in various zones. Not too bad, but after that I had to run to…

Swim: A tempo trainer swim clinic. I only ended up swimming around 800 yards and it wasn’t too taxing. I learned a lot about using the little tempo trainer device and posted my four fastest 100s ever, including a personal best of 1:33. Whaaaaaaat?! I never swim that fast. (And yes, I know that time isn’t fast for 90% of the triathlon population but it is for me. Maybe this “devote more time to swimming” strategy is starting to pay off…)

After class I went out with a couple friends and had a few drinks that wouldn’t have affected Fat Rebecca but ended up giving Less Fat Rebecca a bit of a hangover. I didn’t get to bed until 2 am, which set me up for a grueling Saturday workout.

Saturday: 1:35 run with tempo efforts. I was supposed to go to the group run but seeing as how that started at 8:30 and I was operating on no sleep and too many sickly sweet cocktails, I didn’t start hauling ass until about noon. The run wasn’t too bad but since it was colder than usual, I was atypically sore afterwards.

I stuck my tight calves in some compression socks and headed off to a dinner party thrown by a fellow teammate. I debated sneaking off and taking a nap because I was exhausted but figured I wouldn’t get a return invite if Amanda caught me snoozing in her bed and drooling on her pillow, so I fought the good fight against consciousness and (barely) won.

Sunday (aka D-Day): The triple whammy of workouts coming off a day where I was already getting pretty sore.

Cycling: 1:35 cycling class where I had to do :10 all-out effort bursts every three minutes for an hour straight.

Running: Teresa gave me a 30 minute brick run after the crappy cycling workout in 34 degree temperatures because she loves to see me suffer.

Swimming: An hour-long swim class where I didn’t really swim so much as avoided drowning. By this point my legs were so dead that when I tried to do a “swim with the pull buoy at your feet” drill my legs kept cramping and I had to do a spazzy crawl/kick combo back to the wall so I could whimper and hate life. Then we ended the workout with stupid team relays, because what better way to finish off a grueling week than to sprint in the pool so you won’t let down your group?

After workout #3 I was totally drained (there’s a reason why triathlons begin with the swim rather than end with it) and felt drunk from lack of calories and general exhaustion. When Jason got home from his long run, he found me half-passed out on the couch looking as if I were on my deathbed. (I tried to get him to carry me around like I was Uncle Jack from Arrested Development [see post thumbnail] but he wasn’t on board. Cries of “Swoop me, Jason!” went ignored.) My legs felt physically exhausted for the rest of the day and I had zero energy on Monday (which, thankfully, was a rest day).

It’s barely November–if this is what my workouts will be like for the next nine months, I’ll either croak midway through the season or I’ll have one hell of a race PR. Or both. (It’ll probably be both.) Is this how elites train all the time? If so, I’m way out of my league. When do they have time to eat cupcakes and play video games? Elite triathletes are getting a raw deal if you ask me.