I have fallen shamefully behind on updating this blog. Summer, training, vacation, and life in general happened, and here I am, two months since my last post and now just under two weeks until the race.
The past couple months have held both ups and downs in my training. At the beginning of the summer Wes and I went on some incredible bike rides. We rode the Silver Comet Trail from Georgia to Alabama at the end of May, and I logged 96 miles the first day and then 106 miles the second day, setting new distance records for myself. A week or two after Silver Comet, we rode the Tour de Cure century ride and enjoyed the fun of a pace line and faster speeds. I was on a real high from these longer distance rides, boosting my confidence in my ability to go the distance.
In July we went on vacation to Maine and enjoyed some long bike rides around the beautiful countryside in southeastern Maine and long runs along the beaches. We attempted to do some north Atlantic Ocean swims in our wetsuits, but that water was just too frigid cold. We went number after about 10 minutes! Vacation in general was great, and it was nice to see some new scenery while we were training.
Incredibly, aside from a few minor aches and pains here and there, I've remained injury free. I'm knocking on wood as I type that. With 13 days until the race, I'm not quite out of the woods. I've been swimming often, with plenty of open water swim practice. I've swum the full 2.4 miles once in the pool and once in Jordan Lake, and I'm planning on one more go at it this week. I feel pretty good about my swim, and even though I won't be fast, I also won't be last coming out of the water.
I know I can bike the distance; I came close three times this summer with three century rides. They were early on in the summer, though, and I do worry about being able to get through 112 miles quickly enough. In case I haven't mentioned in a previous blog, I'm not particularly fast at any of the three disciplines. It really will take me until close to midnight to finish this race. Before this season, I tend to ride distance around 15mph. I've had a tough time maintaining even that pace this season, for some reason, so I am reasonably concerned. But I will do what I can do and hope for the best. I'd really hoped to get faster as the training season went on, but it just hasn't come to pass.
I've had a long love affair with running, but at the beginning of this training season I was ready for a divorce from it. I don't know what happened, but every run early on this year was an exercise in patience and torture. I just didn't want to do it. As the summer wore on, though, I kept at it and gradually began to enjoy it again. I went for my two-hour taper long run yesterday and really loved every minute of it. I kept up a pace that was faster than what I meant to run, but I honestly couldn't slow myself down. Yeah, it was one of those good runs. But I've run a couple of marathons, and I know what I'm in for with the marathon I'll run to complete the Ironman. Actually, I should be so lucky as to only experience what I've experienced on previous marathons. It's going to hurt. A lot, I understand. I'm at once excited and terrified of what I'm going to experience.
I want so much to finish this race by midnight. It's become a very important goal to me, and I dream about it, about crossing that finish line in the dark of the night with hundreds of people cheering me across the line. I've also imagined what it would be like not to finish in time, to have come so close to the goal but then to fall short. I decided a few weeks ago that thinking about what if I don't make it does me no good. My energy is better spent imagining success. I keep thinking that if I can visualize it, maybe I can make it happen. And I keep visualizing my success. It looks so good!
As the race date draws near, I find myself contemplating this journey and the people and experiences that have brought me to where I am right now. I look forward to posting a few more times before August 28 and capturing these thoughts.
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