Triathlon Update

Mark and I went to South Dakota for vacation this past weekend, and it was fantastic. I'll blog about that later when I've pics and stuff.

Only a week and a half to go until the BIG DAY, and I'm REALLY nervous today. But I'm nervous about stupid stuff. I'm not nervous at all about the race. I've broken down the race into these thoughts:

Swim - I'm going to try really hard to swim the crawl, but if I just can't do it or I need a break, I'll flip over and do the back stroke. This is what I did during the mock tri, and it worked wonders for me. It was still able to get through the water quickly, but I didn't get tired out as easily. I'm hoping to finish the swim in 45 minutes or less.

Bike - I'm quick and 100% prepared for the bike. I know the bike portion is long, but this is by far my strongest of the three sports. I feel ready and excited about this portion. If I need a short break, I'll coast down some of the larger hills of the course. I'm hoping to finish the bike in 1 hour, 45 minutes or less.

Run - I feel pretty prepared for this. I'm sticking to my strategy of run for 20 minutes, walk for 2 minutes, then back to running. If I get really tired out or my body shuts down a bit, I can always walk and still make it to that finish line. That is, after all, the goal here! I completed my last 6 mile run in 60 minutes, but that was without doing to swim and bike first. I'm hoping to finish the run portion in 1 hour, 20 minutes or less.

So, overall, I'm hoping to finish between 3.5 hours and 4 hours.

But again, I'm not that nervous for the race itself. I'm nervous about all the stupid little stuff that I have to deal with - Where do I park at race site? Where do I go to meet up with my team? Where do I go to check in and set up my transition area? I have to be at the race site by 5:30am, but my race doesn't start until after 8:30am - what am I supposed to do during that entire time? Where should my family and friends go to watch me? Where should they park?

Seriously people, I'm nevous about the most stupid things in the world! Ah well. Who's surprised by that? I have a big meeting on Monday with my Team in Training folks, and I'm assuming that all of my little fears will be cleared up by then.

For the next 10 days we're not supposed to do major training sessions. I am going to ride the bike course one last time on Saturday just to make sure that I've got it down. But other than that, I'm not going to do anything strenuous. Maybe I'll do a short 1 mile run a couple of times, and I'll get into the pool to do easy laps. I'm going to be doing a lot of stretching and keeping my muscles loose over the next few days.

Starting on Saturday, I'm going to try to post everyday until the triathlon to keep my thoughts focused. Keep coming back with supportive comments - I'm going to need them!