It's FINALLY race week! It's hard to believe that it's here. We signed up almost a year ago and this is the kick off to the full Ironman. Here are some of my thoughts as we are closing in on St George 70.3 2019!
- It's amazing how young I feel right now, arguably in the best shape of my life. I really feel like I'm 25. My body might think otherwise. Especially when it comes to sleep.
- I've been doing the early morning routine for YEARS and it's still a struggle. At this point, it will probably always be a struggle.
- I can juggle two things really well. I'm fairly decent at three things. Any more than that and I start dropping things. When was the last time the house was clean?
- The last month of training has been taxing; physically, mentally, emotionally. I have little patience with the kids. I get annoyed easily. I'm tired and hungry and bored and restless. I can't focus. I have no energy or desire to do the things I need to, like clean and cook dinner.
- I live for Sunday afternoons. And for some reason, people will go full days without speaking to me but then want to chat while I'm napping. This makes me grouchy!
- I had full intentions of being the perfect picture of health and nutrition when I started training for the 1/2 Ironman. That went out the window real quick. I'm probably the only person on Earth that can gain weight while training for 2+ hours a day, six days a week.
- I stopped getting on the scale about 12 weeks ago.
- I was unprepared for how hard this would be to do "alone". I have amazing friends who are willing to do whatever running workout I need. And I have someone that met me at the pool religiously every week for my long swims and that was a God-send. There were many times I would have canned the workout if not for her. But it's different when you're not all training for the same thing. It's hard to convey the mental toll of the training to people who are going to go home and shower and move on with their day. Our early morning runs were just the first of two, sometimes three, workouts. I'm not sure what I would change for the Full Ironman training. I enjoy the social time and I think it hasn't been detrimental to my fitness so I'm just going to make it work for the Full. The indoor biking about did me in though. Next bullet point...
- I was unprepared for how hard it would be to bike indoors for four months by myself. Holy. Freakin'. Moly. If you would have told me last year that I would have four decent outdoor bike sessions under my belt before attempting St George, I would have laughed. The weather has been ATROCIOUS this year. Every weekend was something. I totally took for granted those few years that Hillary had her bike set up in my basement and the 120" projector screen. I would have killed for someone to talk to and something to watch that was bigger than my phone screen on those long rides!
- This has been one of my most trying years in all of motherhood. Having that last kid in kindergarten has both been awesome and terrible. The kindergarten schedule is awful. She's bored with me. Poor Lila's memories will revolve around spending afternoons "napping". I'm not a fun mom any more. I'm tired and beat up. I'm done with the park. I don't want to go to the zoo or to the kid's museum because it's just me entertaining her now. Bless her little heart for being so patient with me.
People ask if I'm nervous. Yes! Scared? Yes! Excited? Yes! This is probably the biggest event I've done. We did a Half Iron Distance race 7 years ago, so I'm not *new* to the distance. But the swim was done in a river with a nice current. The bike was 4 flat laps around town. The run was flat, but doable. This race is not even in the same league. On the plus side, I feel much more trained for this race. I have come SO FAR in the swim, knocking off 10-12 seconds per hundred yards just in the last 4 months alone! My biking (and hill climbing!) has improved tenfold. No one is going to be offering me any endorsements but I feel like if the conditions are perfect, I could make a decent showing. At the very least, this will give me an idea of what to concentrate on for the Full.
Here are my total distances for the last 15 weeks of training:
Swimming: 64,699.77 yards (~36.75 miles!)
Biking: 53:16:19 (That's over 2 FULL DAYS spent on the bike in 15 weeks!)
Running: 269.36 miles
Here are my race day predictions:
Swim: 50:00
T-1: 5 minutes
Bike: 4:20:00
T-2: 5 minutes
Run: 2:20:00
Finish Time: 7:40:00
We're going to kick some butt and look back at this journey with a smile. T-5 days until the starting gun goes off!
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