Monday, August 20, 2012

August 13-19: It's Almost Here





The big race day is in a little over five and a half days. Which means that yesterday – especially with the backdrop of live updates from IM Mont-Tremblant – was filled with thoughts of “a week from now, I will be jumping in the water/at mile 60 of the bike/running in the dark.”




It also means that every person I talk to asks me if I’m getting excited for the race.

Not really.

What? Months and months of training later, and the race that I signed up for nine months ago is finally here – and I’m not excited?

Nope. Not really. I’m not sure why, but I suspect there’s no one reason.  More like a combination of several piece of bad news that came in last week, loads of residual fatigue being shed during taper, and the sudden absence of the 4-8 hour weekend workouts that I’d come to love (really). Eventually, all of this will resolve itself, and I’ll be ready to race.

The race readiness probably won’t come too long before 7 am on Sunday, August 26, but that’s fine. I don't need it until then.

Monday: A 4500 meter swim in the morning, including many, many threshold 100s.

Tuesday: Rest day.

Wednesday: A 6.07 mile run commute in the morning, with 20 minutes at “ironman pace.” Does that mean I should have been limping/walking along at an 18:00/mile pace for race simulation purposes? Or was my 11-ish/mile pace more reasonable? Discuss.

Thursday: After waking up at 5 am for a bike workout and promptly hitting the ground when I tried to stand up, everything got a little mixed up. Took the day off work, tried to sleep, drank some coconut water, and eventually did a little over an hour of very easy spinning on the trainer when I felt better in the afternoon. Followed it up with a not-so-energetic 4000 yard swim before going back to bed for the evening.

Friday: Rest day, but back at work and mostly functional.

Saturday: The last weekend brick workout before IM Louisville included just over 33 miles of biking with Karen and Rachel, followed by a 20 minute run. Rounded out the day with a 2-mile open water swim practice in the evening.

Sunday: 6.1 mile “long” run to close out the last weekend before race day.

12 comments:

  1. You don't plan on doing an 8 hr brick next weekend? But seriously, you're going to do great. You won't hear me, but I'll be shouting at you through my computer screen. #rage

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    1. Um, I'm planning a 4:45 bike split and a 3:05 marathon, duh.

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  2. Oddly enough, I think its pretty common to feel numb or unexcited. I was the same way....then scared shitless. Then excited. Then nervous. Then....well, you get the point. But regardless of how you feel now, you're gonna feel elated 5 minutes post finish....I CANT WAIT TO SEE YOU DO IT!!

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  3. In general, whenever I've been approaching a life event that prompts everyone and their cat to ask me if I'm excited, I end up feeling kind of unexcited — just from the sheer fatigue of having to answer the question. ("I'm excited to not have to talk about whether I'm excited anymore, yeah.") That flat feeling has passed eventually, though, and I hope it does for you, too.

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    1. "The first rule of Ironman training is that you don't talk about Ironman training."

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  4. I was so tired last week as well and took two rest days. At this point I am more scared than excited.

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  5. It seems like a good way to conserve energy for the race. I try to tell as few people as possible (except for random strangers on-line) when I'm gearing up for a big event, and therefore I avoid the bombardment of "Are you excited?" questions.
    Can't wait to read about it though.

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  6. Hahah I love the comment about running at "race pace." I've never ran a 11 min/mile but during IM CdA that was my pace at times (or slower). Practicing limping or hobbling is also recommended.

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  7. I've never done race pace training - I'm either way too fast or slow, mostly the latter! LOL! All the best this weekend!

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