Not done yet

Ever since 2015 when I had surgery on my hip, I have felt that I am in a continuous state of "coming back." At first it was from surgery, then it was from stress fractures and then later from 2 pregnancies/deliveries in 3 years. Many know (and I'm not ashamed to admit it), that our little Corbin was a surprise. A couple weeks after IM Lake Placid 2018, I mentioned to Brian that I had been getting dizzy, similar to my early pregnancy with Annabel. I was also getting up in the middle of the night to eat despite a really low training load. Soon after, we found out that we were going to have another little one (and I had unknowingly done IMLP pregnant!). Annabel and Corbin ended up being 19 months apart. For months, I struggled to come to terms with being pregnant again so soon. Our original plan had been for me to come back with strong 2018 and 2019 seasons and then think about a second kid. We had figured about 3 years between the two of them. Despite low training volume in 2018, I was feeling really strong and excited to see what I could do. I thought I was finally done with coming back and I could gain some momentum. When I found out I was pregnant again, I worried that my athletic career was over, and it wasn't on my terms. I held out hope that I would be able to recover quickly again and race in the summer of 2019 and ideally re-up my pro license. Then I broke my ankle badly 2 weeks before Corbin made his arrival. I had done tough comebacks before, but recovering from pregnancy, delivery and a broken ankle with a newborn and toddler seemed insurmountable. My hopes of being able to race well enough in 2019 to re-up my pro license slipped away. It may have been possible, but I knew it would come at a cost not just to me, but also from my family. I made peace with my pro career ending. Although I made peace with it, I also reflected on the difficulty of balancing family and athletics while prioritizing my health and well-being. USAT elite licenses are valid for 3 years before needing to requalify. In those 3 years, I had had 2 children and broken my ankle. While I had maternity leave from my job as a high school teacher, there was no maternity leave in triathlon. If I wanted to compete, I had to get back fast, risking my health and my commitment to being present for my new and then growing family. I decided to send the following email to USAT:

I'm not sure if you are the right contact for this email, but hope that you will forward it on if not. I am writing to you about a dilemma that I (and other women in the sport) are facing: the choice between family and sport. Before kids, I thought I could do it all. Now, I have realized that, yes I can, but it often comes at a great cost. I have been racing as an elite long course triathlete since January of 2013. I am the kind of elite triathlete that brings home paychecks but has not reached the top steps of the podium. This was not a career move for me, but rather a way to get the best out of myself.  I have loved the challenge of racing in the elite field and being a part of an incredibly strong field of women. Testing myself against the best in the world has taught me a lot about myself. In August of 2017 we had our daughter Annabel. I had it all planned out, I had eligibility until 2019 so I would get back over the winter and race hard in 2018 and 2019 before thinking about adding to our family. I came back strong in 2018 and raced to an 8th place at Ironman Lake Placid. I had planned to race a couple more times that year to requalify. A week after the race, I found out that I was pregnant (and was during the race). While we were excited about our new addition, all of a sudden my future as an athlete was in question. To add to that, I broke my ankle badly slipping on ice shortly before my son was born in March 2019. This further complicated and delayed my recovery. I could try to train and race in December for a last minute attempt at requalifying, but knew with my weakened core and ankle, that I would be risking injury. Once I was allowed to slowly return to running in July, I was essentially building back my fitness from scratch.

I send this story to you because I called USAT asking if it was possible to receive a one year extension because of my pregnancies. I was told that I would not be granted an extension, and that none had ever been given out for pregnancy (I had heard a rumor that they were offered). I was disappointed, but made peace with my situation. I regret not being able to gain some momentum to really see where I could go in the professional field. More than that though, it got me thinking about the female professional field as a whole. Our prime years for athletics unfortunately coincide with our prime years for making a family. This often results in pressure to choose between the two, and is likely a contributing factor to a smaller female field than male field. If women do try to do both, they are often forced to either come back too quickly or delay having a family until the timing is "right." In coming back from pregnancy, it is now advised to delay running for at least 12 weeks ,and even after that, the core can be significantly weak and cause injuries. Breastfeeding limits the number of hours of training in order to maintain good milk supply, and the hormones produced while nursing can stretch ligaments and cause a higher risk for injury. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends breastfeeding for a year. If all of that is considered, the pregnancy plus the time recovering from birth plus trying to breastfeed, the timeline can get upwards of 2 years before a strong return to sport without risking injury. That isn't to say it can't be done sooner, but it may come at a cost, and that cost can look very different depending on the person. Anecdotally, I've seen other pro women either battle injuries in the first year returning after baby, or leave the sport entirely.

I write about this not necessarily for myself. I have made peace with not requalifying this year, and may do a race as an amateur next year to requalify. I write because I have a daughter, and friends with daughters, and female athlete friends that are trying to be competitive while also having a family. I coach female high school athletes in cross country running and cycling and hope that they are able to achieve the highest level in sport if they choose to go after it. I see and have experienced how hard it is to get back to competitive racing with young children while maintaining my health. I want the sport of triathlon to grow in its representation of women. I believe that an extension policy will allow women to not feel pressure to choose between family and sport. This could keep many of those elite women racing and help to grow the female side of the sport.

Thank you for your time and attention to this lengthy email. 

Best wishes,

Rachel Jastrebsky

I honestly did not expect to receive a reply. Just a couple days later, the chief marketing officer for USAT replied to my email and let me know that he was sending it to both the CEO (Rocky Harris) and the General Manager for High Performance (John Farra). I was floored that these individuals were so quickly and intently considering what I had written. A short while later, John Farra and I spoke on the phone. He let me know how seriously USAT was considering what I had discussed and asked for my opinion on what an extension policy should look like. I had been hoping for a 12 month extension policy, he was thinking 18 months. He let me know that my case should have gone into special consideration but that the guidelines for that consideration need to be more clear. He also surprised me by letting me know that my 2018 IM Lake Placid performance had been enough to requalify my elite license, giving me an extension until the end of 2021. He assured me that USAT was not in the interest of limiting the sport for women and would be discussing a pregnancy extension policy that would be included in the updated 2020 Elite Qualification Criteria. Here is the section that now discusses that policy:

I am so grateful for USAT responding to this and for working to grow female participation in triathlon. If we provide more opportunities for growth in the female field at the elite level, that growth will trickle down into the amateur fields as well. Women are doing amazing things in the sport right now. There has been a boom of elite mothers racing at the absolute top level and showing younger women that they really can have it all. My goal in this communication with USAT was to show women that they can absolutely do it all, but now they don't have to rush into a comeback if their body and mind isn't ready for it. I had posted this after I made peace with not coming back:

Now, I feel as though I have been given an unexpected gift. Now that I have extended until the end of 2021, I can leave the elite field on my terms. The Covid19 pandemic obviously complicates that for the racing season this year, but as soon as racing resumes, I plan to line up at least a few more times. For now, I am shifting into more 70.3 racing. I love Ironman, and honestly feel like I am better at that distance. The hours in training though, especially the long long bike rides, really took a toll on me and the family in 2018. I think that shifting to a 70.3 focus will allow me to get out on the weekends more with the family and do some non-triathlon activities (mountain biking, rock climbing, etc.) that I really enjoy. I am also excited at the challenge to tackle some new (and sometimes scary) goals that come with trying to get my speed up. I still love the sport and I still love that the competition helps me to get the best out of myself. Exciting things are ahead, and I look forward to embracing the opportunity to hang out with the big girls a little bit longer.

Hood ornaments

I find more and more that so many of us have a fear of failure, and therefore a fear of putting ourselves out there. Sport can break your heart. When it comes to putting yourself out there in the face of potential failure, you can only have your heart broken if your heart is in it. I debated writing this because I consider this story fairly ordinary. We all have parts of our lives when we have struggled. Then I thought, maybe that’s the point. How these relatively ordinary tests can either break us down or build us up. This passage from one of my favorite books (Again to Carthage) kept surfacing.

“What I mean is that someone sees a race, and they think that’s what you do. They sort of know you had to train, but they weren’t watching then, so they don’t understand how incredibly much of it there is. But to us, it’s almost the whole thing. Racing is just this little tiny ritual we go through after everything else has been done. It’s a hood ornament.”

I am someone that ties a big piece of my identity to being a competitive athlete. That piece of my identity has been threatened many times. The successes have been the dangling carrot or hood ornament that have kept me going. But it has been moments of weakness and struggle, the twists, turns and bumps, that helped me to become less fearful.

Running in high school

I was an average high school athlete. Even within my family, I was not the gifted one. My older sister beat me in every high school race, and my younger brother was the one to run for a D1 college. What I lacked in natural talent, I made up for in pure stubbornness. I loved to run, and not competing for my college didn’t stop me. I started signing up for local 5Ks and 10Ks and then the summer before my sophomore year I decided to start training for my first marathon. I called my best friend Adam, who had co-captained the XC team with me in high school. He was excited for my plans and we talked about me trying to come to Wyoming for some altitude running. He died two weeks later. He was the second friend of mine from high school to pass at a young age. I was angry for a long time, it wasn’t fair that I had lost these young friends so soon. Running became an escape for me. The harder and longer I ran, the more I could focus on the pain in my lungs and legs instead of in my heart and mind. I have heard before that endurance athletes are either running away from something or running towards something. I was trying to run away from that anger and pain, and it would take me a long time to find a way to run towards something instead.

Adam and I at high school XC New Englands

 My first marathon, for Adam

A few years later I was racing triathlons. I competed in an Ironman race in Florida with my then boyfriend Brian and several of our friends. I surprised myself that day by qualifying for the age group world championships and an elite license. Essentially having an elite license means that I can race in a category with other elite women for prize purses. For a long time, I defined my success as an elite triathlete as my ability to earn a paycheck.

I had the choice between remaining as an age group athlete or taking my elite license. I would have likely received more praise and even sponsorships for being a top age group triathlete than being a middle to back of the pack pro triathlete. I took my elite license because I wanted to truly test myself. The only way that I would know what kind of athlete I could be, was to go up against the best. I wasn’t going to get there by being a big fish in a small pond. I needed to dive headfirst into the sea. I was still running away though, this time from the fear that I wasn’t good enough.` When asked why I decided to take my elite license, I responded simply that I had nothing to lose. In reality, I felt like I had a lot to use. I had a lot of fear, and much of that fear was centered around how I would be perceived by other people. To some, I was inspiring. I was afraid I would let them down. Some wanted me to fail. I was afraid that I would prove them right. My family and friends supported me no matter what. I was afraid that they would make sacrifices for me for nothing. I was afraid that I would disappoint sponsors, and that they may even stop supporting me. I was afraid that I would waste my coach’s time and effort, only falling short. Most of all, I was afraid that I would prove to myself that I wasn’t good enough, that I didn’t deserve to race in the elite field.

I would love to tell you all that I came onto the elite field blazing and crushed the competition, proving everyone and myself wrong that I couldn’t do it. I was far from rookie of the year. In fact, there were several races where I was the last professional to finish. Those questions in my mind about whether I deserved to be there were constantly surfacing. Why couldn’t I break through? Why was it taking so long to find success? Did I make the right choice? After one race where I was the last pro, I called Brian and tearfully confessed to him that I felt like I had made a mistake and didn’t belong in the professional field. He responded simply “well someone has to be last.” He was right, all the female athletes I had looked up to had bad days. Several of them were even at my side with encouraging words after the race. The difference is whether the bad days defeat you or drive you.

One particularly ugly race in which I had a mechanical issue on the bike and then a lackluster run, I thought about throwing in the towel. Then I remembered that I would be seeing friends and their kids on the way home. What would I tell the kids if they asked about the race? That it got hard and I wasn’t going to place so I gave up? Even if I didn’t have a great result, I had the opportunity to model resilience for others. You all have that same opportunity every day here. Your peers, and even the faculty children, are always watching you. You can show them that off days drive you. Another race where I had heat sickness on the run and my feet were covered in blisters, I contemplated quitting. My coach’s words came back to me that once you walk out of a race because you’re not feeling it or not going to do well, it gets easier and easier to do it again.

Signs from friends kids that still hang in my training room

In the med tent 

I still had this nagging fear and voice in my head telling me that I wasn’t good enough. It was one thing to feel as though I was confirming others doubts about my abilities, it was another thing entirely to confirm my own doubts. If I invested so much of myself in this sport, and wasn’t successful, than who was I? I finally asked my coach one day, “give it to me straight, why can’t I break through?” She replied simply “you get in your own way.” Realization washed over me, I was allowing myself to be defeated and it could all be tracked back to not trusting myself. If I wasn’t hitting the numbers I was supposed to in a race, I imploded. Before I had any fancy gadgets to measure my effort, I had had to totally trust myself. I began taping over my watch during workouts. I stopped wearing my heart rate monitor during races. I learned to trust myself again, and I finally broke through in a personal record performance and a 4th place finish at Ironman Florida in 2014. I had figured it out, I was back in the game.

Coach Tara and I

To keep my newfound momentum going, my coach and I concocted a plan to catapult into the next season. I prepared for and raced a spring half marathon to work on my run speed and was able to clench a personal record at the distance. Things were on track. A couple weeks after the race, I was on an easy run when I felt a little pop in my hip. Over the next few weeks, the mild discomfort became major discomfort. My MRI came back clear, but my intuition was telling me that something was definitely wrong. My doctors and coach figured that it might just be something I had to push through. Maybe I was making this pain a bigger deal than it actually was. Maybe I needed to just suck it up. I kept running until I got to a point where 30 seconds was almost unbearable. I pushed my doctor to order another MRI, this time with contrast. The radiologist himself called me a few days later saying “do not run, you have a large labral tear and a stress fracture in your femur.” A few weeks later, I was having surgery. That kicked off 4 months of PT and additional months of building back to the shape I had been in. My first run in 5 months was 4 x 30 seconds on the treadmill. The entire 2015 season was over for me. I had conquered some major mental hurdles but now I was being sidelined by physical ones.

When I was a kid, I thought I was invincible. After all, when I wouldn’t share my gobstoppers and my brother kicked me, it was his leg that broke on my shin. A cycling collision with a car in 2008 proved that I could break, at least physically, leaving me with a major head injury and a badly broken jaw. My accident and then surgery on my hip were the two worst physical injuries I have had. They were not the hardest injuries for me to deal with mentally. It would be much more minor injuries that would almost defeat me.

My bike after the accident

Coming back from hip surgery, I was very optimistic about the 2016 season. I got an early start and traveled to Puerto Rico to race a half ironman. Again, I ditched the data and tried to trust myself, running my way into 5th place, and earning a paycheck. I was back, this was going to be my best season yet. Talk about a comeback. I started to prep for an Ironman in Texas in May. I was 3 weeks out from the race, feeling fantastic, when suddenly my other hip started to give me trouble. I stopped running and went to physical therapy. The day before I was supposed to leave, I tried a short run on the treadmill. It was a struggle to make it for 10 min. There was no way I would be able to run a marathon. Back into the MRI machine, another stress fracture in my hip. I was becoming frustrated, I had done the hip rehab, I had been careful in my training and recovery, now I was sidelined in my best shape, again. I had a glimmer of hope though. I could still swim and bike and could get back for Ironman Lake Placid in July.

Biking and swimming allowed me to maintain a lot of fitness, and a very short run build later I was lining up in Lake Placid, one of my favorite race venues. The water was cold and the swim is my weakest discipline, so I was pleasantly surprised to come out of the water with some fast women in the chase pack. Running along the beach and trying to unzip my swim skin, I tripped in the sand. I felt a little crunch and went down. A collective “Ohhhhhh” came from the crowd, but I popped back up to cheers. My knee was a little sore running to my bike but I was more worried about how I had just totally embarrassed myself. I had one of my best bike rides ever. At the turn around, I counted women ahead of me and I was in 6th. I couldn’t believe that I was riding right behind strong women that I had looked up to for years. I was having my best race ever. I finished the bike in 4th, feeling awesome and ready to run. Until I stepped off my bike and realized I couldn’t walk. For 30 min I refused to believe my race was over and tried to run several times. Eventually I admitted defeat and accepted a pair of crutches. Upon returning home, I learned that hyperextending my knee had caused a compression fracture in my tibia. This was a fairly minor fracture, I would be on crutches for just 6 weeks, and yet I fell into a dark hole. I had finally learned how to trust myself in the elite field, I had recovered from hip surgery, I had done my time being injured, why did this keep happening to me? I created quite a little pity party for myself. Fortunately, I’m married to Brian, and he does not participate in pity parties. He refuses to allow me to give in to defeat. Surround yourself with those kinds of people. The type that will celebrate your successes but who will also challenge you and hold you accountable. It’s easy to want to be around people that are always telling us we’re awesome, but they aren’t who help us grow. You have to want to go to a workout hoping you aren’t the strongest one there. Then you try to hang with the person that is. I wrote in my training log one day after a masters swim practice “got my butt kicked by Phil.” The next week my coach wrote in my log, “go to masters again and swim in Phil’s lane.” Phil greeted me with a smile and then promptly told me that he was going to try and lap me on the next interval. He, along with several others, not only became some of my best training partners but also my closest friends.

Masters swim with Brandon and Phil

I had come through some physical and mental hurdles, but my biggest obstacle was still ahead. When I became a mom, my biggest worry was that these two pieces of my identity, that of being a mom and that of being a competitive athlete, could not coexist. My “comeback” from Annabel was my hardest one yet. Pregnancy and labor had changed my body. I was sleep deprived and feeding a small, needy human. And I had a lot of guilt about taking time away from my family to train and race. Once I started back up with my coach, I was convinced she was trying to kill me. I wasn’t hitting close to the numbers I hit before Annabel, and again the doubts crept in. I kept writing in my training log that I was struggling through the workouts, and coach kept giving me tough numbers to hit. I would think to myself, does coach not see these comments? Does she not realize I’m coming back from having a baby?! Doesn’t she see that I can’t do this? Really, it was that she often knows me better than I know myself. She knew that eventually I would start hitting the numbers and be a stronger athlete and person for struggling rather than being comfortable. The ability to be uncomfortable and truly relish in suffering is what makes the difference between a good athlete and a great athlete. What helped me through that time was that I wasn’t just trying to prove something to myself anymore, I owed it to this tiny human to show her that anything is possible with a little grit.

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Rather than causing me to lose that athlete piece of my identity, Annabel helped me to find purpose and joy in it again. Through all the injuries, losses, setbacks, pregnancy, I learned that I could fight my way back over and over again. Once I knew I could fight, I wasn’t afraid that these obstacles would defeat me. The fear was replaced by gratitude. Gratitude to be able to compete, to test myself, to be able to show Annabel and myself that anything is possible. In my first professional race back I had no sponsors and the conditions weren’t great. And yet, I smiled the whole day. My purpose was tied to more than just the result or the paycheck. The race was a hood ornament, not the journey. There wasn’t any room left for fear, and I finally crossed a finish line truly happy.

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” 2 Timothy 4:7

Whatever you do, athletics, academics, arts, find a way to run towards something rather than away from something. Get out of a small pond and challenge yourself. Get out of your own way, trust yourself. Find joy in the struggle. Replace fear of failure with gratitude to be able to compete.

No mulligans

My family and I were playing our traditional game of mini golf the night before Ironman Lake Placid. At one of the holes I whacked my ball and it came rolling right back to the start mat. I glanced at Brian wondering if he would allow me a mulligan, a do-over. He laughed and proclaimed that there are no mulligans. I had a choice, I could declare that the rules were unfair, or I could play the ball where it lay.

I took approximately 101,000 steps running in the 5 weeks between being allowed to run again post stress reaction and lining up at IM Lake Placid. 101,000 steps undone by a single mis-placed step. Once I realized that it all came down to that single step, it seemed so unlikely that I felt for sure this must be a mistake and I would be awarded a do-over, a mulligan. Once again, there are no mulligans in mini golf, and there are no mulligans in life. I had another choice, do I wallow in the unfairness of it all? Or do I play the ball where it lay?

I do not have a career in mini golf

Mini golf champ - Dad

Let me back up a little. My build up to IM Lake Placid was not exactly ideal. I was only just allowed to begin running (after 6 wks no running for a hip stress reaction) on June 15, giving me 5 weeks to race day. I pool ran during the 6 wks and then after June 15 I mostly did only aerobic runs but had a week of some intensity. Despite all of that, I was feeling good going into race week, and feeling extremely grateful to be back on an Ironman starting line.  This was going to be the first Ironman my parents and sister (and her fiance) would see me race. Brian and several friends were also there, making this my biggest cheer section ever. Brian even drove the 11 hrs by himself having just gotten back from crewing a friend at the Badwater ultra marathon (she crushed it by the way, finishing 2nd female in 28:40). I love having family and friends at races and was excited to share the experience with them. I was extremely grateful for the Recchia family taking some of us into their home and being wonderful hosts. The day before the race, I was excitedly showing my parents part of the town and went down to the lake to show them the swim course. My dad is very observant and mentioned that the soft sand might be tricky to navigate coming out of the water tired and disoriented after the swim. I brushed off his concerns, I mean how many times have I run out of the water on all sorts of surfaces? I did joke that if anyone was going to fall and make a fool out of themselves, it would probably be me.

Race morning dawned and I was excited to get going. The gun went off and I didn't have an awesome start but not bad either. My attention lapsed for a second and the front group was gone, but I was happily swimming well on someone's feet in the chase pack. Coming around the dock finishing the first lap, I heard the horn signalling the age group start. I was a little surprised they didn't wait for us to be clear and mentally noted that I would have to work hard to stay with the girl who's feet I was on. I managed to stay with her 400m into the second lap until the chaos separated us. Swimming inside the buoys as we were allowed wasn't a huge help and at some point during the swim, my Garmin was knocked off the quick release. If anyone wants to go diving in mirror lake, you may find a Garmin 920XT somewhere near the cable. I glanced at my wrist finishing the swim and my heart sank to see no watch. I've gone off of feel before though so I didn't worry too much about having no data.

Here's where it got interesting. Running up the beach, I was reaching to get my swim skin half off. I must have planted my foot wrong in the sand, because my knee suddenly hyper extended and I fell. I had felt a small crunch and then some pain but thought oh I just tweaked something. A collective oh! came from the crowd. I stood up and seemed ok and the crowd started cheering. I jogged into T1 and while the knee didn't feel great, it wasn't awful (possibly due to a lot of adrenaline) and I figured it was going to spin itself out and be fine. I motioned to Brian I had lost my watch and he yelled to just race my race.

Signalling to Brian that I had lost my watch

Starting the bike I felt great. I wasn't sure of my position but had come out near some other women. I reminded myself to be conservative on the climb out of town, but also remembered what coach Tara said about using the bike as a strength. I had a lot of fun on the descent, tucking down even further to get every last bit of speed. The road by the river is fun for me because it's a good chance to get some momentum. I had passed someone on the descent and noticed I was gradually catching someone further ahead. At the turn around I saw that I was in 5th! The girl ahead of me was Amber and Beth was just behind. The three of us climbed back to town and I was surprised to find the climb not nearly as bad as I had remembered. I was so excited to be riding near Beth and Amber because they are strong athletes and I have looked up to them and many of the other women (I think I totally fan girled on Heather Jackson handing out medals at the kids race). Plus they're both super nice and Amber and I exchanged several thumbs ups at turn arounds. Coming into town it was Beth, then Amber, then me about 10-20 sec back. I was whipping around Mirror Lake and saw a blur of commotion ahead of me. Someone yelled someones down and just in time I was able to hit the brakes and avoid the cyclist and crowd accruing. I went by and saw that it was Amber and my heart sank for her. There seemed to be many people helping her so I continued on. As I came by Brian I yelled that Amber went down in hopes that he might be able to tell someone that could notify her family. Turns out her sister was standing there and took off running. I continued onto the second loop. I found out later that she was mostly ok but still felt sad for the unfortunate circumstance since she is a fierce competitor.

The Zoot Sports speed suit rocks

I still felt strong on the second loop. In 2014 when I raced Lake Placid I remembered really hurting on the second loop. I was feeling well fueled by my Infinit custom mix and the little bit of wind played to my strengths riding in windy Chesapeake. I caught up to Beth at the turn around. For a little while I tried to just pace off of her. I had no data and thought I should hold back. Starting the climb back to town I realized I had a fair amount in the tank and decided to push it a bit more and made the pass. Riding into town, it hit me that I was in 4th and feeling really strong. I wasn't beat up like in 2014, I was feeling strong and ready to run.

I got off my bike, passed it to a volunteer, took a few steps and realized something was very wrong. I was in total denial and still attempted to run through T2. It was more of a slow limp with the tears already flowing. A photographer managed to capture what I'm sure is a lovely image of desperation. Limping into the change tent, one of the ART specialists immediately came over and was trying to work on my knee. I put shoes on hoping they would help. She worked on it, I attempted to walk/run, repeat times about 3. I couldn't really bear weight and it just seemed to be getting worse. They half carried me to the med tent and I still had not conceded that I wasn't racing. I was still making sure my visor and race belt were on. They looked at it and said they would try ice to see if it helped. After icing it for ~15 min I attempted to walk again (I mean serious denial at this point) and again couldn't bear weight. I had been prepared to walk the whole marathon but I couldn't take a step without buckling in pain (very dramatic I know). I finally conceded that I wasn't going anywhere and asked them if they could find Brian. He came in shortly later and gave me a much needed long hug. He also got my coach Tara on the phone. Tara has been coaching me since early 2012 and knows me better than many. Her words were comforting because she validated how I was feeling and let me know it was ok to feel that way. She told me it was ok to be pissed off because it was an unfair and cruel situation after the last year of battling back from surgery and then a stress reaction. She assured me that we would take it one day at a time. We also talked about how I could be really proud of how I had raced up to T2 and how it showed my fitness and improvement.

I wasn't sure what to do since I really couldn't walk and the medical tent had no crutches. One of the amazing volunteers drove to a nearby school to get me a pair of crutches, only asking that I pass them on to someone else that needed them. Now that I'm home with my crutches from last year I will be giving them to my PT who said he will donate them to someone who needs them. The med tent doctor, who was also awesome, recommended I get an x-ray when I got home and released me.

One positive thing that came from the situation was meeting a female age group athlete laid up next to me. Bees had gotten into her bike shoe and stung the heck out of her foot and she had to pull out of the race. We commiserated together about our unfortunate days. She then asked how to handle a DNF. I replied that this was my first DNF as well but I would tell her how I planned to handle it (borrowing from Tara). I told her to be angry, she had worked hard for that day and being upset just meant that she really cared (which is a good thing). I told her to be angry and upset, but not for too long. I said tomorrow start thinking about what you can do to get back and work towards the next one. Think about what went right on the day, think about where you can improve, just keep working towards the next goal. I hope I was at least a small comfort to her and that our commiserating could be a positive note in a tough situation.

I couldn't bear just sitting in the house dwelling on my knee, so I spent most of the rest of the day/night hobbling around town on my crutches spectating and cheering. I was happy to finally meet Jennie Hansen in person as we chatted quite a bit after both having hip surgery last year. I kept joking that I should have just crutched the marathon. In retrospect that would have been a horrible idea. I was happy to see a few friends complete their first IM. The pro women were extremely impressive and I loved watching them come in, huge congrats to Heather Jackson and all of the rest.

I followed Brian home the next day, an 11 hour drive. We had to drive separately because he had been crewing in California when I drove to Lake Placid. He wanted us to be close together on the drive home in case I had issues with my knee. My friend Michelle had knee surgery in 2012 and liked her doctor (Dr. Kevin Bonner at Jordan Young Institute). I called the office and was happy that they were able to squeeze me in the next afternoon. I was very impressed with him and his PA. They took X-rays and did an exam. Based on the X-ray and where/how my pain felt, he said it was likely a compression fracture on the anterior tibia from the femur and tibia coming together during hyper extension. An MRI later in the week confirmed his diagnosis. The MRI was on a Friday afternoon, and he actually called me Sunday morning (what a great doctor!) to let me know the findings. My coach and I had discussed that a straight forward fracture might actually be the best diagnosis. Surgery is not necessary and the fracture will likely heal with 6 weeks non-weight bearing. I had been worried about potential meniscus damage but it appears to be a fairly straight forward fracture. I will be meeting with him on Thursday to discuss a timeline for recovery but he did mention that after 4 weeks I should be able to get on the bike a bit. I am a little concerned about not being able to follow up with him after 6 weeks since he has been so great, but faculty at Holderness School have already mentioned a good doctor up there.

This brings me back to mulligans. I still feel as though breaking my knee running in the sand is so unlikely that it must all be a bad dream. However, friends do know that I am a giant clutz and Murphy's law probably applies. To be totally honest, I have had a much harder time accepting this injury than my surgery last year or stress reaction earlier this year. I try to remain positive, but I am also human. Last year I knew I would have this season and after racing hard for several years, a year off didn't seem like the worst thing. Earlier this year when I had to back out of IM Texas, I knew I would still have IM Lake Placid. We are moving to NH in a few weeks and I will be starting a new job which always creates a fair amount of uncertainty. I would like to still have a comeback race this season but am also trying to take one day at a time. I do know that ever since IM Florida 2014 I have felt that I am really getting the hang of racing in the pro field and am able to race more to my potential. That kind of momentum is something I want to keep going. Every time I get knocked down, I want to pick myself up again and keep fighting. This case is no exception, I plan to come back swinging as soon as I'm able.  I don't get a mulligan on IM Lake Placid, but hopefully this will just be a little speed bump on the way to something even better.