Ad Astra Per Aspera-Through Hardship To The Stars

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Ad Astra Per Aspera-Through Hardship To The Stars

Ad Astra Per Aspera, the Latin phrase meaning “through hardship to the stars,” has been my motto for the past couple of years, as I have faced much adversity in my endeavor of competing as a professional in the sport of triathlon. Of course I anticipated challenges, but certainly not the challenges I have faced. And while the stars were not the stars that I had dreamed of, as I had dreamed of athletic achievements and being a fixture on the podium at professional races,  those stars have turned out to be even better than I could have imagined.

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A Look Back on 2016 and What's Next in 2017

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A Look Back on 2016 and What's Next in 2017

2016 was another trying year. I was still in the cervical collar when I rang in the New Year.  It was a bittersweet moment, as I was happy to leave 2015 behind, but I also felt deflated as I was starting the new year of with an injury. I could not wait to be healthy, and thought that once I was free of that damn C-collar I would be good to go. What a delusion that was! It took me almost a year to feel like my old self again, and this was certainly not for a lack of effort to claw my way back to health and fitness. Much to my dismay, the road to recovery was long and lasted for the duration of my final full triathlon season before I return to medicine. Needless to say, this pursuit did not go as I had hoped it would, and after a great deal of struggle and despair I now feel at peace with what was and what will be.  Sometimes life does not feel fair, but I found it feels much better to embrace the struggle instead of fight it, and to not harbor resentment towards the unfortunate circumstances life throws at me.

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Timberman 70.3-Perhaps There is Pride in Just Finishing

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Timberman 70.3-Perhaps There is Pride in Just Finishing

I really wish I could be writing something positive, upbeat, and exciting about Timberman, but unfortunately the day did turn out to be what I was hoping for. Perhaps my expectations set me up for failure, maybe I did too much hoping and not enough physical and mental preparation. Honestly my anxiety levels in the weeks leading up to the race were through the roof, and I really did not think that I would do well based on my training, which had been a great struggle. Each workout was a battle, draining me physically, mentally, and emotionally. My motivation tanked, but I still got my butt out of bed to go to the pool in the predawn hours, and I dragged myself out the door for rides and runs. I tested my mental fortitude and did long rides in the pouring rain, and long runs in 100 degree heat.

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Life is Just a Series of Challenges-An Update

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Life is Just a Series of Challenges-An Update

Just when I thought things were looking up at the time of my last update, I encountered some more setbacks. A week into March I was plagued with headaches during and after workouts, as well as deep fatigue where sleeping 10 hours a night was not even enough to combat my drowsiness. My training progress came to a halt, and even slid backwards, and I felt as though my body was rebelling against me.  A lab work-up was mostly normal aside from a mildly elevated Cortisol and fairly elevated serum Ferritin, indicating my body was still recovering from the trauma, as Cortisol is a stress hormone and Ferritin is acute phase reactant or marker of inflammation (in addition to a marker for iron stores).  While relieved that there was nothing to treat, I was also frustrated that there was nothing to treat. I almost wanted something to be wrong, because then at least there would have been a reason for why I was hard core struggling, and there would be something concrete to fix.

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Putting the Past Behind Me-Peace out 2015!

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Putting the Past Behind Me-Peace out 2015!

Happy New Year! And I am putting a BIG emphasis on happy. There are probably very few people in the world that are as joyful as I was to say goodbye to 2015, not that I want to turn it into a competition, as that is not exactly one I really want to win. 2015 was a year where loses outnumbered the gains, and by no small margin. Of course I celebrated my achievement of a lifelong dream when I graduated from medical school in May, and I valued my first (abbreviated) season as a professional triathlete, but even these great moments could not really fill the void of all that was lost, let go, and left behind.

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Lake George Triathlon-Back on Top

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Lake George Triathlon-Back on Top

When I began to re-plan my season at the end of July, the Lake George Triathlon Festival was the first race on the Modified Schedule tab of my excel spreadsheet of 2015 races. The timing was right, just over 10 weeks after I started my progression back to biking and running; the location was also ideal, located just 30 minutes from the lake house where I go for my summer train-cations. The added bonus would be that my grandparents would be able to be spectators-their first ever triathlon experience-and I thought it would be really neat for them to see what my races, they so often hear of, are all about first hand.

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No Stranger to Comebacks

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No Stranger to Comebacks

I am no stranger to comebacks, as I have been coming from behind since day one. I was born nearly two months early and needed the help of a ventilator to breathe, and was hooked-up to all sorts of lines and tubes during my 5 week stay in the Neonatal ICU. I do not remember a time where I was lagging in reaching my developmental milestones, and some of my earliest grade school memories are of me beating almost all of the boys in the mile run during gym class in the first grade. I think I made quite a comeback from being the 3lb newborn to being a standout high school runner, a Division I athlete, and now a professional triathlete.

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Life Transitions

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Life Transitions

I wish I could be writing a race report or a training update or a story with a happy ending, instead of a tale of heartbreak and sorrow. In contrast to 2014, a year that exceeded expectations, 2015 has been a year of disappointment as I watched my dreams seemingly fade away. It can often be said that ‘things get worse before they get better,’ and unfortunately this aphorism has come true and I find myself stuck in a transition; and not the scenario of my recurring nightmare of literally being stuck in T1 or T2.

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Looking Back and Moving Forward

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Looking Back and Moving Forward

This weekend is a rather significant weekend in the history of the second coming of my athletic career. After college I swore off training and racing; feeling disappointed by the short-comings of my collegiate athletic campaign and burnt out after battling through injuries my junior and senior year, I deemed exercise as a way to stay in shape and fill up my free time after work versus a means to getting into peak physical form for competition. All that changed when I started medical school in the fall of 2011. I would struggle going from class to the library without a time to decompress and recharge in between. So I did what I had done my whole life and I ran after school.

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Burying My Fears

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I am going to be honest, I am terrified. I am terrified to be making the jump to the next level having done so little training. I am nervous to be starting my season  months from now when everyone else has several races under their belts and completed loads more training than I have. I am scared that I won't get my fitness back. I panic every morning before I get out of bed not knowing what the first few steps are going to feel like and if the stiffness and soreness in my knee is going to linger and I will practically be crippled after a day of rounding in the hospital. I go to bed each night with the worry that the little training I did was too much and I will be set back 3 weeks in my recovery.

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