tris & tribulations

Well, I made the last minute decision yesterday to make the trek to Panama City Beach, FL and race in the Gulf Coast tri, afterall. It was my plan all along– it’s home and tradition. My family has been very involved in this race for many years and it’s just become routine: every mother’s day weekend I find myself here. Things sort of unraveled with my having to take so much time off of running and my dad having tremendous back pain that we decided that maybe this year wouldn’t happen… After my performance at St. Anthony’s I told myself I wasn’t ready for another less-than-ideal race. All my house work is piling up and I haven’t had a weekend at home to do any of it in what seems like weeks. I was super tempted to just stay and have a low-key weekend, but then I remembered how terrible it feels to not be at the starting line on the day of a planned race. The feeling of regret and curiousity engulfs your every thought. I didn’t want to go through it again, so I hopped into the car and here I am.

Things definitely aren’t leading up to an A+ performance, but I’m excited to be out there on a course I know and love. Yesterday I left the pool completely dry and fuming mad. They changed the combination to get in and I wasn’t informed of the new code. I felt like a prisoner on the opposite side of the fence. All i wanted was to get in my scheduled training 2 days out from a race. I stood in the sun for a solid 23 minutes trying to get the swimmers’ attention… to no avail. While I tried countless combinations trying to crack the code I also found out that my goggles had mysteriously vanished from my swim bag. Needless to say, I left the pool convinced I shouldn’t race this weekend.

Flash forward to today (b/c it’s time for bed and forgot the charger for my computer), I found myself at the expo three (3!) separate times. It was a less-than-relaxing pre-race day than I had hoped, but I think I have everything ready to go. I left yesterday in such disarray, I will be surprised if I have everything, but as far as I can tell (fingers crossed), I’m ready for tomorrow. New goggles and all.

I’ve had a slightly off feeling tummy all week long and wouldn’t you know it’s gotten worse. As I sit here watching my stomach make visible grumblings I’m a little worried how things will go tomorrow. I’m trying to will it away and hopefully a good night’s sleep is the ticket to health. The weather seems like it’s gonna be better than last year (never been so dehydrated in my life), though Sunday looks like a PERFECT day. The oil spill is said to not be an issue any longer and we should be good to go.

I’m happy to report I’ve got two good things going for me at this race: 1) I have an early starting wave. I never have an early starting wave. Something must be wrong. 2) I have a great spot in transition. I’m on the very end and right next to a visible landmark. SCORE!!

As I go into tomorrow I’ve got just one goal: enjoy it. My coach is urging me to race without expectation and take some of the pressure off. While I have obviously been training, I’m far from where I hoped to be at this point in the season and I haven’t trained enough to warrant a stellar race. I want to race a fun race. I want to go out there with a smile on my face and enjoy the fact that I’m healthy and I truly enjoy being active. Hopefully I can stick to my plan and survive the dreaded run. I gotta redeem myself from last year.. though there I go again putting pressure on myself… i will have fun. i will have fun.

My mom convinced me to eat a piece of dark chocolate tonight, suggesting that “chocolate cures all”. She knows that’s my biggest weakness and given the discomfort I’m in, I figured it can’t get much worse. What the heck. Can’t say I’ve ever gone off my strict pre-race day diet before. Maybe it’ll be just what I need ;)