Slowin Down

05/11/09 - 05/13/09

Well, I'm just a few days away from my first triathlon. The last 15 or so weeks have passed by in a blur, but one thing is for sure, I've come a long way from when I first started. I'm now equipped and trained to finish my race on Saturday. This week, I'm just focusing on getting mentally prepared for the event.... believing that I can do it has been a little hard for me the last few days. I'm doing my best to get back the confidence I had, but it seems that under stress I sometimes don't have the strength to carry on with everything. Balancing life, family, friends, work, sleep, eating, triathlon, and all the rest of it may be taking an emotional toll on me right now.

However, the good news is that those feelings of doubt seem to dissipate the moment I start doing one of my activities. I was having a rough day yesterday, but after an evening of biking my race-day course and practicing T2 transitions, I felt that surge of strength come right back. I'm just doing my best to remember that feeling, and carry it with me throughout the day. As I type this, I literally feel like just putting my head on the keyboard and going to sleep though... like I said, I'm struggling a bit.

I'm pretty sure that some continued successes, good nights of sleep, and light workouts should get me back in the right frame of mind. As of Monday, I've begun tapering, which means I'm cutting the length and intensity of my workouts. This allows me to rest up my muscles for the big race day, while still maintaining a certain level of fitness. The other thing I'm doing is practicing some final details, like going and actually walking the race course to visualize all the details, riding my bike to learn just when I should be shifting, picking spots on the race course that are reminders to drink electrolytes, perfecting my flip turns, putting on and taking off all the necessary components at each transition so that it becomes second nature. The less I have to think about on race day, the more I can just relax, push hard, and have fun!

The name of the game for me since the day I started all my training has been fun. I know that sometimes I've complained because it's been challenging, but at no point can I actually look back and say that I wasn't smiling through the whole thing. That in itself, may be my greatest success!