What a crap year taught me about racing

Brandi Swicegood

There I was, just driving down a Texas Hill Country highway I’d been on a hundred times before. Dierks Bentley belting out “Living” on the rental car speakers, oceans of bluebonnets streaming by on the roadside, and I start crying. 

The week before I had been full of nerves and anxiety in the lead up to my first triathlon start line in nearly a year. Would my body remember how to race? Had I lost too much fitness in a year of battling injuries and illness to even be competitive anymore? Could I still competently handle a mountain bike?

As an athlete, 2022 was — to be blunt — a crap year for me. Early in the year, I started having pain in my right hamstring. Initially, it only hurt when running. Then it started hurting on the bike, too. I did all the usual things — massage, acupuncture, dry needling, guasha, Epsom salt baths, resting — and found only short-term relief. 

I kept trying to train through it. The constant pain was mentally and physically draining, and after a few months the joy I had always derived from the hours I spent swimming, biking and running each week was sucked dry. I felt weak. My confidence in my body was shattered. 

With the guidance of my coach, we decided to go all-in on finding the root of the problem and solving it. An MRI in June showed I had some tendinopathy in the high hamstring attachment. The doctor suggested a platelet-rich plasma injection to aid the healing. That required two weeks of full rest. Then, along with three-times weekly physical therapy, I could slowly build training.

In the middle of that process, my husband and I both contracted COVID. It hit me hardest, leaving me bed-ridden for nearly a week. 

After recovering from that, it was back to the hammy rehab, closely following the doctors prescription for a gradual return to exercise. I spent seemingly endless hours in the pool, swimming with a buoy between my legs to keep aerobic fitness but not strain the hammy. Eventually, I could start cycling easy, then adding back in bits of run/walk.

By now, it was late-July. Because I am ever an optimist, I was still entertaining ideas that I would somehow be healthy enough to compete again at the Xterra World Championship race in Italy in the fall. After a tearful conversation with my coach, we decided it was time to put race plans aside and just focus on healing my body. It was absolutely the right call, but man, that hurt. 

By late August, I was able to cycle, run and swim. Still, each time we would try to ramp up training intensity, the hammy would start screaming again. I was sad and angry and so frustrated. But I wasn’t ready to give up.

I began seeing a well-known Austin chiropractor who had worked with Lance Armstrong, Olympic runner Leo Manzano and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, among many others whose autographed photos lined his office walls. He started me on shockwave therapy, and I was in his office for a barrage of treatments two to three times per week. I began to feel some improvements, a ray of hope that maybe this pain would resolve.

Then suddenly one day after a long bike ride, I used the restroom and felt burning pain all the way into my low back. The doctor said it was a kidney infection. Another bout of rest was prescribed, along with antibiotics and lots of fluids.

When that cleared up, the chiropractor suggested an MRI for my lower back. The treatments were helping, but the hamstring pain still wasn’t gone, and we weren’t happy with the progress. 

The MRI showed bulging discs in my low back. The inflammation was affecting my nerves, which were sending pain signals to my hamstring. The chiropractor suggested cortisone shots in my lumbar spine to reduce the swelling and hasten the healing.

The first one went amazingly well.

By now, it was November and the perfect time to try a neighborhood Turkey Trot 5k. It was not my fastest by a long shot, but it was the first time I had run hard without pain in too many months.

We started to ramp up training volume and intensity, knowing a second shot would come in a month or so. There was still some pain, but it was much reduced.

Oh, and I should mention that during this time, we decided to move from our longtime home in Austin to Fort Collins. So, in addition to trying to get healthy, we were preparing our house for sale, packing to move and looking for a home here in Colorado. 

Our house sold in November, shortly after that 5k. And I immediately got pneumonia. We had scheduled a flight to come here for a house shopping weekend. We had only 30 days to find a house here and move, so as soon as the antibiotics kicked in, we rescheduled the flight and came up here with our 6-year-old in tow. Over the course of three-and-a-half days, we looked at 40 homes. Good thing I had years of endurance training, because that was seriously exhausting. Happily, we found a home we love. 

We came home, finished packing up, and I got my second cortisone shot. Between the pneumonia and the moving and then developing a secondary sinus infection, my training was spotty at best. Coach and I decided with all the stress on my body and immune system outside of training, it would be wise to dial back the training and just focus on getting settled into our new home until the new year.

I knew it was the right call. I knew I was getting sick because the stress was killing my immune system. It still sucked to say out loud that yet again I’d have to take a break from training.

We celebrated Christmas in our new home, surrounded by boxes, but thrilled to begin settling into our new life and sharing our first White Christmas as a family.

With the basics in place — the kitchen, bedding, clothes, and the home gym — in January I started easing back into training. I joined the Raintree Athletic Club and started swimming with the Masters group. I went on a few group runs with local training clubs. My husband and I took our gravel bikes out and tested out all of our new cold-weather gear. I saw an instagram post about the Follies and applied to join. Everything was rolling along smoothly. 

I kept waiting for the pain to come back. To keep it at bay, I doubled-down on foam rolling and muscle activation before hard workouts. I dedicated myself to managing my immune system better through gut health and improved sleep habits. 

By February, I was doing hard workouts weekly, and starting to feel some fitness returning. With some trepidation, I asked coach about trying a small local off-road triathlon in Texas in March. I had raced it twice before, and it seemed like a good venue for dipping my toes back in the water.

So, here I was after a year of setbacks and life-altering changes. A year that, in hindsight, would have likely undone a lot of folks. I had fought back. I was healthy again. I was staring down a start line again. 

As I watched teammates, friends and fellow competitors race last year, I had told myself I would never, ever take a start line for granted again. I vowed that I would be grateful for the opportunity to challenge myself, to feel alive in a way only racing makes me feel. 

Driving down that highway, all those feelings of gratitude came raining down from my cheeks. The pre-race nerves and anxiety melted away, and I was just happy to be in a better place physically, mentally and emotionally than I had been a year before.

I lined up the next day with a heart full of joy, and I raced happier than ever before. The finish line came fast, and I was the first female to cross it that day. 

Bluebonnet Off-Road Triathlon - Tim Dunnahoo Photography

It was a tough year, but I’m glad I had it. I learned a lot, and I was reminded of what a privilege it is to live this healthy, active life and be surrounded by people who love and lift me. Perhaps most importantly, it was a much-needed wake-up call for me to embrace myself as more than an athlete. I’m a mom, a wife, a journalist, a daughter, a friend and more. In the toughest struggles of last year, those were the things that kept my spirits afloat. My value isn’t defined by training hours, finish times, podiums or medals. And the people in my life who love and support me most don’t give a damn about those things. They just care that I’m happy. 

This week, I’m headed to race Xterra Puerto Rico, a full-distance off-road triathlon. I’m a little trepidatious. I’m asking a lot of my body after just three months of training again. But I’m just so grateful for the opportunity and happy to have the chance to do what I love.