tris & tribulations

The day before race day is always full of nerves, running around, and making last minute adjustments. Today was certainly no different.

I woke up and headed to the beach to get in a preview of tomorrow’s swim. It’s been since last september that i’ve been in open water (and in a wetsuit) so i thought it was probably to get a practice swim in before the actual race. I wasn’t the only one– the water was full of brightly colored caps floating around and moving towards the buoys set up. I sat down on one of the beach chairs and just watched the athletes and the water and enjoyed the scenery. i miss the beach so much and it was just so nice to be back home. i slipped into (well, more like shimmied/wrestled into) my wetsuit, grabbed my goggles and walked to the shore. The water looked sorta rough but i shrugged it off and went on in. It was definite choppy water until you hit the “break” then it cleared out and was much smoother. water temp was pretty warm and comfortable. i only needed to do 20:00 of low-intensity, so that’s just what i did. very relaxed, practiced my sighting and just let my body elongate with every stroke. i felt good in the water and excited for the race. hopefully the conditions will be like today (or better!)

i came out of the water, grabbed my things and hustled back to the car to drive the mile or so back home (lazy, yes.. but race day is tomorrow and gotta save my legs, right?) I ran upstairs and quickly changed into some bike gear, grabbed my water and went on my way. I biked to the bike start/transition area and rode the first part of the course. i wanted to use this to help with visualization and simulate the race as much as possible. again, lots of other triathletes had the same idea and it was great seeing other riders on the road. my workout was just to spin easy, including 4 sets of 30 secs at race pace effort w/ 90 seconds recovery for a total of 30:00. nice and easy. quite hot out but i felt pretty good and it didn’t seem to affect me too much… the saddle sores, on the other hand, pain-full… and this was just 30:00. i’m slightly terrified of how i’m gonna make it 56 miles tomorrow on this saddle. ouch. gotta persevere.

i rode back up my driveway, parked my bike in the garage, hopped back in the car and drove back to the race start. i wanted to use my 15:00 run to it’s fullest and be able to visualize the start/finish. Workout was: run easy including 4 x 30secs at race pace effort with 90secs recovery. well, this was a lot harder than i expected. i mean, just a measly 15:00, right? … wrong…

it was dreadfully HOT & HUMID. only 15:00 and i was ready to stop and walk. this heat is far harder to run in than i expected. i was watching my watch like a hawk “when is the 15:00 gonna be over?” i havent trained in heat yet this season and this is quite an adjustment. i’m just crossing my fingers that i feel better tomorrow and the heat doesn’t bother me.

i made it home, made a nice big breakfast (sans coffee.. i’ve made it an ENTIRE week w/o coffee. i never thought i could do it). i hung out w/ mom and did some work and just tried to relax as much as possible the rest of the morning. i’m getting really excited about tomorrow and i’m ever more thrilled to be racing alongside my dad. i cannot even begin to explain how proud of him i am. at 63 he is not only racing his FIRST triathlon, but racing a half ironman. quite impressive. he’s been putting a lot of time and dedication into his training and taking it really seriously, i couldn’t be happier… my mom, on the other hand, i think is pretty ready to have her husband back :) it’s pretty easy to get consumed in the sport and it’s hard to relate back to reality at times… but i wouldn’t know anything about that ;)

me and my compression socks just dropped my bike off at transition where she’ll stay through the night with thousands of friends– some that make her look trailer trash. (don’t tell her i said that). i love races, you see the sickest gear from all around… and it’s EVERYwhere. every other bike has a crazy race kit that just oozes speed. i love it.

I spent the rest of the day trying to stay off my legs as much as possible. My sister and brother-in-law and three nieces drove over from Jacksonville and arrived around 7. My mom was accommodating enough to have dinner on the table promptly after they arrived.. probably b/c i kept whining about needing to eat early and be in bed at a ridiculously early hour. It’s always a gamble whether or not I’ll get any sleep the night before a race so I need to up my chances as much as I can. Per my request, my mom made clean chicken breasts, asparagus, salad, and broccoli. perfect. we finished dinner, sang happy birthday to my sister as she blew out the candles on my mom’s homemade chocolate cheesecake. while the rest of the family indulged in the yummy dessert, i stuck with a handful of raspberries and the remainder of my water bottle.

before bed, i talked to my friend who left me with some inspiration. He read me an excerpt from a book called Once A Runner by John L. Parker that he had read. He found it inspiring and parts of it stuck with him and now i think it will do the same with me:

“…It’s a simple choice: We can all be good boys and wear our letter sweaters around and get our little degrees and find some nice girl to settle, you know, down, with… take up what a friend of ours calls the hearty challenges of lawn care…OR. [if we listen to our demons]

They’ll speak our names in hushed tones, ‘those guys are animals’ they’ll say! We can lay it on the line, bust a gut, show them a clean pair of heels. We can sprint the turn on a spring breeze and feel the winter leave our feet!
We can by god let our demons loose and just wail on!”

There’s something about that that just makes me wanna run. makes me wanna just get out there and go. not look back, not for time, not for competition, not for anyone or anything but myself… but since tomorrow’s race day, i think i’ll save this idealistic thought for another day :)

Decidedly my motto for tomorrow’s race: