Learning I don’t always need to be super-Nadia

Oh, those mood swings. Up and down, up and down. I wish there was a “straightforward” way around them.

Back in my Ironman-training days—now long gone, I promise you—I started seeing the race as such a scary monster that I needed to do something about it. So I booked another event for myself three months after the Ironman. It would be something I could look forward to and it would mean that no matter what happened in the race itself, whether I finished it or not, all that training would not have gone to waste. For the last two months before the race, I could tell myself that I was training to keep fit for everything that was to come. I wasn’t “just” training for a race.

Post-Ironman, however, my body was really in need of a break. My MIND was in need of a break. I hadn’t realized while I was training just how much pressure I was putting on myself to do every single training session exactly the way my triathlon coach had prescribed, AND to keep up with work without anyone thinking that I was falling behind because I was doing a crazy race. I made sure never to mention my Ironman training to the people I worked with (well, hardly ever). It was not going to be used as an excuse for falling behind. So I just never fell behind.

The Mystery of the Tightening Sports Bra

Old picture. But I think it’s important to add pictures to blog posts. So this will have to do.

Last week, while on my 2.5-hour bike ride, I noticed that my sports bra felt tighter than usual. This was a problem because, as I began a very long and steep uphill climb, it felt like my thoracic movements were limited (i.e. I couldn’t expand my lungs as far as they needed to go to get in the amount of air I needed to breathe up that fucking hill!).

It was extremely irritating. Since I didn’t have much else to think about on that ride (all the actually important things never seem as important while I’m cycling), I went into a state of deep contemplation as to what might be the reason behind the fact that the bra felt tighter.

Initially, I thought that I might have just clipped it up to the tighter hooks. My right shoulder is still healing from a dislocated shoulder, followed by a frozen shoulder, followed by a shoulder operation. For weeks, it was completely impossible for me to hook up a sports bra on my own. Do you realize that most sports bras are the kind with criss-cross shoulder and back straps?? Why is that?? When my shoulder froze and I realized wearing my criss-crossed-back sports bras had become impossible, I went shopping for a sports bra without the criss-cross back so I could first hook it up from the front then twist it around like any normal bra. They didn’t exist! I went online. Nothing! I had two normal-strapped sports bras that I bought three years ago and I had to switch between them for ever so long. Anyway, my shoulder finally sort of works now, so I’ve gone back to wearing the other bras as well. But it’s still a minor struggle hooking them up in the back. So, I thought maybe I just hooked it up wrong this time.

For some odd reason, I almost immediately dismissed this completely logical possibility.

The more logical scenario, I decided, was that all the training I had been doing over the past two months to regain my fitness after being out of commission for so long because of my shoulder led to an over-expansion of my lungs.

Super Nadia’s Official Version of Today’s Bike Ride (vs reality)

Nadia’s overdramatized “official” version of her 50km bike ride today:

Black clouds loomed overhead and the weather forecast said to expect rain. Yet Super Nadia valiantly threw caution to the wind, got into her cycling gear, and headed off with a huge smile on her face. “Rain?” she said to herself. “RAIN, THEY SAY?? WHAT IS RAIN?? IT’S LITTLE DROPS OF WATER, THAT’S WHAT IT IS! SUPER NADIA DOES NOT FEAR A LITTLE BIT OF RAIN.” (Super Nadia tends to talk to herself in capitals quite often).

Super Nadia set off, pumping her legs at supersonic speed – one of her many super powers. Crosswinds threatened to tumble her off her bike. Headwinds did everything they could to push her back to where she came from. Super Nadia wondered, “Why does it never seem like there are any tailwinds?” Regardless, she held a steady, supersonic pace and fought through the winds.