I was diagnosed with a vocal cord dysfunction, now referred to as a laryngeal spasm, when I was 14 years old, after many years of battling what was thought to be exercised induced asthma. I was a competitive swimmer at the time; I remember that we had ran the bleachers for warm-up before swim practice one day, and when we got back to the pool, I could not catch my breath. I was taken to the hospital in an ambulance, and after 7 failed treatments of an asthma medication, a year of medical testing ensued before arriving at the diagnosis.
There is no “cure” for a laryngeal spasm. I stopped competing in swimming because there was nothing that I could do to relax my larynx in the pool, and it seemed to continue to get worse with every flare up. As a result, I naturally increased my running distance and goals. I ran my first marathon in 2011, and continued to pursue running challenges that have brought me to my current love affair with trail running and ultrarunning.
But, (isn’t there always a but?) after running the Old Pueblo 50 Mile Endurance Race this past March, and advancing further into the year of my accelerated nursing program, I was craving a change of pace, literally and figuratively. So, I signed up for a half-ironman triathlon on a whim!
Training for a triathlon is very different from training for an ultramarathon. Triathlon training has its own, very unique set of challenges. It is a well-choreographed dance between swimming, cycling, and running. It is not as simple as putting on your shoes and hitting the pavement or the trails.
One of my struggles thus far, as you might have guessed, has been the swimming element. I am a strong swimmer; I have the muscle memory from many years of swimming, but I am not a fast swimmer. I am not a fast swimmer anymore, at least. I do not breathe efficiently enough to get adequate oxygen to my muscles to maintain a hard, fast pace consistently, thanks to my stubborn larynx. I knew this before taking on the triathlon training, but a multitude of memories and frustrations have come flooding back during the process.
However, the thing that I have found most difficult about triathlon training, and perhaps triathlons in general, is not the training itself, but the competition. When you hit the trails, whether it be a 15+ mile training run or a 30+ mile race, it is just you against yourself out there. Even though there is technically a winner at the end of an ultramarathon, every runner is racing his or her own race, but yet is not afraid to offer a word of encouragement or lend a hand. The feeling I get from triathlons is that it is you against everyone else. There are less words of encouragement; there is more judgment. The tension radiates. You can feel the heat just in passing or being passed by a cyclist on the road, a complete stranger no less. Thus, feeling the ‘one step forward and three steps back’ in triathlon training brings about different emotions and struggles than does just a tough training run.
That being said, ultramarathon training is not easy. Likewise, I am approaching triathlon training with the ultrarunning mindset: it’s just me against me out there, and I am reminding myself to just breathe.
