Decisions & Disappointment Go Hand in Hand this Week

So tomorrow would have been my only half iron distance of the year. There is hope yet, that it still may be, but I am waiting to see what Coach P has to say.

So here is how is started. Last Saturday, I had a long brick to lead up to the race, I did a nice 50 mile Zone1/Zone2 bike and quick 30 min run and I felt great. Then on Sunday I had a 1 hour Zone 1 run then later in they day 1 hour on the bike and then another 1 hour Zone 1 T run. Well the first run my HR was totally jacked up because it was so hot in the gym. I managed 9:29 min/miles and although sweaty I felt ok. I came home, rested, ate and got on the bike. My hour on the bike felt great, then it was off for my 2nd hour of running. It had cooled off at the gym which was nice, and 58 minutes of that run felt fantastic (9:22 pace), but then my right leg started to feel funny. So I stopped 2 minutes short and went to stretch and roll out my leg.

I walked home the 6 blocks and when I got home it was a whole different story. I couldn't bend my right leg or really stand on it. It was IT band pain but also felt like I had pinched something. I sat on the couch and iced my leg all night. When I got up in the middle of the night to pee, the same thing happened and I had to hop to the bathroom. I went back to bed and hoped it would be different in the morning. Low and behold it was not. When Nick got up he got me some ice and I spent a few hours in bed icing my knee before I got up.

I decided I would skip my runs for the rest of the week and do a little biking if I could in order to keep limber so I could foam roll my legs and ice. Last night I went to my massage therapist for a full hour of lower back and leg work. The F-bomb was dropped quite a few times along with some major sweating but I thought by the time I left I had turned a corner. Well, not so much. I woke up this morning, not in the usual after a hell-massage pain, but specifically with IT band pain. DAMN IT!!

So now I am faced with the decision of do I race or not. The only thing I know is that if I attempt to take this on, I know me, and there is no way in hell I would take a DNF, so if I set out to race it, I will race it regardless of how much pain I am in. Stubborn is ingrained in me, what can I say? So my options now are:

1. Race the full race and get over it
2. Switch to the Aqua bike division (that means no half for me this year)
3. Don't race at all

I am waiting to see what Coach P has to say but I would like to stay as far away from option 3 as possible. And honestly even option 2 would still make me a little down, but I would at least still get to race. I am prepared to race and I want to. But we will see, he knows best right?

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And I think the racing gods are trying to tell me something, I just got a call from my bike shop letting me know that both my gear cables where shredded and the housings were cracked. Maybe I should just stay home this weekend?

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The IT Band has won, I will not be racing this weekend. Instead I will be buying new sneakers and spending the weekend biking and running in Zone R. While I am disappointed because I was ready, I know this is the best decision for me. I need to get this IT band thing under control so I can finish out the 2012 season healthy. Now I am going to go cry into my cheerios.