...until my first half ironman.
It's been an emotional couple of weeks. Last week, I has hit with a dose of reality as THE race date drew nearer. As in, the race that I have been working towards all year. THE big one. Unexpectedly, some serious self-doubt set in. I'm typically a pretty positive person, but I found myself asking: am I ready?, did I do enough?, why didn't I train harder?, what happens if I don't finish in the cutoff time??? And for some reason I was telling myself: no you're not ready, no you didn't do enough, shouldn't have skipped those couple of long runs, you're not gonna finish in 8 hours. And I began voicing those thoughts to Ken and a few training partners. They all gave me quizzical looks like I had totally fallen off my rocker.
Well, I've been plagued with injuries since I started training harder. And I'm a slow runner. Really slow. I did what any engineer would do -- entered my best case, worst case, and expected case scenarios into a spreadsheet to calculate the range of my predicted finishing time. The numbers didn't seem to add up and every case put me over 8 hours, or dangerously close to it. Not much room for error.
And then...I went out for a good run towards the end of last week. I was able to shut my mind off and just run. My legs felt great and my body felt free to do its thing. I had my fatest run ever. And then...I got out on my last hard ride this past weekend. I climbed steadily up the hills. Slowly, but steady. Surprise! My legs didn't burn up! And then...I had my first full relaxing rest day in a really long time. My mind started to unwind and my attitude changed. It became unimportant what happens on Saturday. The big thing is that I'M TRYING IT. And dammit, I'm going to finish the dang course. It might not be in 8 hours, but I'll finish it.
It's been an emotional couple of weeks. Last week, I has hit with a dose of reality as THE race date drew nearer. As in, the race that I have been working towards all year. THE big one. Unexpectedly, some serious self-doubt set in. I'm typically a pretty positive person, but I found myself asking: am I ready?, did I do enough?, why didn't I train harder?, what happens if I don't finish in the cutoff time??? And for some reason I was telling myself: no you're not ready, no you didn't do enough, shouldn't have skipped those couple of long runs, you're not gonna finish in 8 hours. And I began voicing those thoughts to Ken and a few training partners. They all gave me quizzical looks like I had totally fallen off my rocker.
Well, I've been plagued with injuries since I started training harder. And I'm a slow runner. Really slow. I did what any engineer would do -- entered my best case, worst case, and expected case scenarios into a spreadsheet to calculate the range of my predicted finishing time. The numbers didn't seem to add up and every case put me over 8 hours, or dangerously close to it. Not much room for error.
And then...I went out for a good run towards the end of last week. I was able to shut my mind off and just run. My legs felt great and my body felt free to do its thing. I had my fatest run ever. And then...I got out on my last hard ride this past weekend. I climbed steadily up the hills. Slowly, but steady. Surprise! My legs didn't burn up! And then...I had my first full relaxing rest day in a really long time. My mind started to unwind and my attitude changed. It became unimportant what happens on Saturday. The big thing is that I'M TRYING IT. And dammit, I'm going to finish the dang course. It might not be in 8 hours, but I'll finish it.
1 comment:
Hey there. Good luck for your race on the weekend! I'm sure you will exceed your expectations.
We all get nervous and concerned that we under trained. Don't make the mistake of trying to cram any real training in the week before you're race- take it easy and no big training sessions. The rest and tapering will be more beneficial than any last minute attempts to "make up missed sessions".
Good luck and I look forward to reading the race report!
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