Last week was Ironman Des Moines race week and boy was it a whirlwind! It was a bit strange for me as usually we travel to Ironman races, so all of the planning and preparation is done well in advance to make sure I have everything I need for race day. Since this was a “hometown” race (being only 35 minutes away from the race venue), I opted to sleep in my own bed. This created a whole new experience leading up to the race. I’ll have a post specific to my IMDSM race, but for now, this is what race week looked like.
Wednesday morning my husband woke up with a fever, body aches, and a bad cough. He decided to stay home from work. Midday I received a text message from our 82 year old neighbor across the street (she is like family to us) that she tested positive for Covid. About 1 minute later, my husband texted me that he also tested positive for Covid. I had a complete meltdown and pity party (thankfully they texted me right before my counseling session). I am 4 days out from IMDSM…what am I going to do?! After about 15 minutes of feeling all the emotions, I went into problem solving mode with my counselor. After counseling, I called our neighbor and asked her if my husband could “move in with her” until after my race to keep me healthy. She was all on board and was glad I had asked (it was either that or I get a hotel room and move out temporarily). So my husband packed up everything he needed for the next 4 days and moved across the street. After work Wednesday, I came home to an empty house, tested negative for Covid, and continued to plan for my IM race (now having to shift my plans around for race weekend because I would be doing everything solo…taking care of our dogs, driving myself down to the race which was thankfully only 35 minutes away from home, getting all my gear post race, etc.). I ran some errands for them on Thursday and Friday, checked in to the IM race, did some race week workouts, made them meals and did literal door dashes (setting the food outside, ringing the doorbell and dashing back across the street), got all my gear together for IM, and tried to relax and reduce my anxiety as much as possible. Saturday morning I still tested negative for Covid, so I took all my gear down to transition and continued to relax and door dash. Having my husband live with our neighbor was the best worse case scenario and I am so grateful to the both of them for making it work!
Sunday was race day. My anxiety was a bit high going to the race as this was my first IM race without my husband (either racing it with me or being there to support me), but I kept reminding myself that I have done this before and know what to do. Lay this brick! I have so many things to be proud of through all of this, but I’ll save all of the race day stuff for another post.
As of Tuesday morning, my husband has moved back home + returned to work and I am still Covid negative. 🤩
Quote of the week:
“This was the best worse case scenario.”
~ME
Swim highlights: 7421 yards
Tuesday I did a pre-race swim to practice varying my pace like I might have to do on race day to get around other athletes.
- Warm up:
- 300 warm up
- 4 x 50 drills (choice)
- 4 x 100 descends (20 sec rest)
- Main Set:
- 100 easy
- 800 as 200 SURGE, 200 steady, 400 race pace by feel
- 30 sec rest
- 4 x 50 kick hard (20 sec rest)
- Cool Down:
- 100 easy
•
5 days until #IMDSM #LFG ⚡️
Bike highlights: 163 miles
I had a few indoor bike workouts to make sure the system was a go and my HR was where it needed to be before racing. I didn’t get any pics from before race day on the bike, so you’ll just have to wait for the race day pics in my race report.
Run highlights: 33.4 miles
After a few shake out runs, the body was ready to race!
\•
4 days until #IMDSM #LFG ⚡️
Strength Training: 15 minutes of core strength daily except race morning
Weekly Totals: 20 hours & 19 minutes
Attitude of Gratitude: What were your highlights from week 23 of 2022?!
PushMyLimits 
Oh my goodness! I would have been freaking out as well! Waiting eagerly for the race recap.
I was a bit of a mess. 😜 Working on the race recap now and will hopefully have it out tomorrow. 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻
You are NOT serious! Good for you for letting those emotions out so you could deal with them and then moving forward. I’m glad to hear everyone has recovered and you got to RACE. I can’t wait to read the recap.
That first line…yep pretty sure those thoughts were mine as well when it happened (amongst many others). Thanks! We got through and are on the other side of it all! I’ll hopefully have the race recap tomorrow. 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻
I’m glad it all worked out as well as it could! COVID finally caught me for the first time the last week of May, vaxxed and boosted and I had a rough time of it so I hope Tim is okay!
We are both vaxxed and boosted also. I had it in January and Tim didn’t. He had a rough time with it last week and now has a lingering cough. Everyday is a bit better.