Mindset is everything

While I have no control over my circumstances or the cards dealt, I do have the power to focus on what I can control. So this past week I focused my energy on how I can continue and progress training for my 140.6 race in 29 weeks vs dwelling on what I cannot do with a broken elbow. And as it turns out, I can do a lot with one arm down! This past week alone, I covered 246+ miles cycling, running and walking! My highest mileage week to date!

After four days of no running, I hit the pavement this past Monday. It was an ackward five mile run at best as my balance with side out of commission throwing off my balance. By Sunday morning, I did a 9 mile run at a pace of 9:16 as I mastered my balance issues, logging a total of 32 running miles a week after my elbow break. I am also extremely grateful for the trendy cropped oversized sweatshirts I am wearing to stay warm while running since my normal clothes won't fit over my splint.

Cycling: Wahoo has been a lifesaver as I am training exclusively on my indoor training and logged 200+ miles this week! My long ride of the week was 56 miles followed up by a 7-mile cooldown on ROUVY. While I am stuck indoors riding, Thanks to ROUVY, I got to check out:

Monument Valley - Forest Gump Point in Arizona

Las Vegas at Night

The Gulf Coast of Florida

Lavenda Fields in Provence

He** of the North

Kyiv, Ride for Ukraine

Grand Canyon

Death Valley in California

And thanks to Zwift, I rode the London Flats and Park Perimeter in NYC!

I am hoping to return to outdoor cycling in June.

Weight training (logged two hours) I am continuing to do lower body weight training as well as on my right side. I can also do 5lb lateral raises with my broken elbow.

Mico and I walked 13.8 miles this week and I bought a 12lb weighted vest that I wear while walking Mico to maintain upper body strength.

Other highlights of the week:

Best compliment I received this week was from someone in the military who said running with my broken elbow was some bad a** s**t.

I can now get dressed in less than five minutes with a broken elbow.

I took exactly one prescription pain pill and four ibuprofen since breaking my elbow. I don't need anything more than that.

Thanks to my training, I tend to recover faster than an average person. For example, my hip took a beating when it fell, a week later, there's not even a bruise left on it. I suspect my higher than average blood volume is playing a vital role in aiding my speedy recovery.

This whole experience got me thinking how we got to a place collectively of health. As women age for example, they are moved away from running because running is "bad for your knees" and pushed into jazzerize and water aerobics. Over the past 40 years, we have slowly moved away from running, swimming to gym equipment that is nonweight bearing. Find me one silver snreakers program that encourages running and swimming laps or lessons. It is unheard of. And as women age, study after study shows how women's activity levels after age 40 drop, obeisty rates creep up as do antidepressant. We can reverse these trends by getting women more active. Why I love Women for TRI.

With 10+ million adults having Osteoporosis, running is one of the few exercises that actually builds bone density and we should be doing more of as we age, not less. I believe running as I do saved me from additional broken bones when I was directly hit by a car.

While I am not a yoga person and I hate stretching, I swim for miles. And through this experience, I learned first hand that swimming has built up so much strength, flexibility and mobility in my upper body that has served me well as I live on my own to continue to be independent with a broken elbow.

When I think of IRONMAN, I think of longetity, dignity, independence, strength and resilience. Nothing is more heartbreaking than seeing the spike in obesity and chronic health ailments that accompany inactive lifecycles. And your lifestyle and health will dictate how you come out of situations like cancer, car accidents, how you age and more. I will always prefer to be the oldest person in the gym vs, the youngest person in a nursing home. To be clear, you can be skinny and unhealthy as well if you are inactive. I am not advocating for size over strength. I stand for a balanced relationship with food and exercise for a healthy mind and body. Over eating is just as dangerous as eating disorders to stay thin. I can personally say, I do not count calories, nor do I have a calorie counter app but I do focus on cooking my own food and eating food that is grown or born. Dark chocolate is a vice I am not willing to give up. I eat it every single day. MY go to brands are HU, Unreal and Alter Eco. I focus on single ingredient foods.

Educating others on the power of diet and active lifestyles is what makes me so passionate about IRONMAN. I love that the IRONMAN Foundation supports our communities through grant funded programs. Some of my favorite IRONMAN initiatives include:

IRONGIRL: With childhood obesity on the rise along with disordered eating, IRONGIRL has the power to educate young women on the power of sport and change their relationship with food and exercise starting at young ages. Young women are more than 2x as likely to be diagnosed with disordered eating than their male counterparts. And may every single girl have enough strength to brush themselves off the road and continue life if g-d forbid they get struck by a car, cancer or worse. Being independent is a gift.

IRONKIDS: With gym class no longer a day to day occurrence and teachers having the ability to take away recess as punishment, IRONKIDS to me can serve as a platform of why sports matter. And candidly, we don't have enough role models who live healthy lifestyles with a healthy balanced relationship with food.

If I have to doggy paddle my way down that 2.4 mile swim in California, then so be it. I will be in California on October 23, 2022 completing my first 140.6 mile race as I race funds and awareness for the IRONMAN Foundation. All funds I raise go directly to the IRONMAN Foundation. Please visit my link here: https://ironmanfoundation.donordrive.com/participant/Ilana-kearns

thanks for reading.

Ilana