Comedy Of Errors

First let me state I am very happy I finished the race, and overall am pretty happy with the day. I came into the race with pretty low expectations and I delivered. A comedy of errors pretty much sums up my race today, though unfortunately, I pretty much wrote the script and have no one to blame but myself.

After a very rough swim in which I swallowed ample amounts of Lake Coeur d'Alene, I found myself vomiting early on the bike. Not too bad, but I should have put on the brakes right there and brought my hydration around. Instead I forged on and biked as planned. Perhaps not the smartest move, because I got off the bike feeling a bit depleted nutritionally.

I quickly improvised and took it very easy on the first lap of the run. Come mile 13 I was starting to feel perky so I dialed it in to 'normal' IM racing pace. I made it to 14 feeling good, then suddenly started vomiting again. From 14 on I couldn't take in any fluids or calories without immediately throwing up, and realized my day was pretty much curtains. There was no way I was not going to finish, so I spent the majority of the rest of the race running 75 steps - at which point I would get light-headed from being nutritionally depleted - followed by a nice, long bout of walking. It wasn't pretty, but it eventually got me to the finish line. Not particularly a time I am proud of but an effort in which I can certainly take pride.

Definitely a good learning experience (nutrition ALWAYS comes before pacing), and one I hope I won't need come IMWI!

It was great to see both Cam and Rick out there on the course. Congrats to Rick for having a great race. I know he's not overly pleased with the way his day unfolded, but he toughed it out and had a good result.

Go Time

I woke up this morning at 3:30, not for fear of the 140.6 miles which I'll need to cover this morning, rather the fear of my wake-up call not being sent by the hotel. My most frequent recurring nightmare is sleeping in and waking up in time for some event or another. I don't recall ever missing anything from oversleeping, so I'm not sure how to analize this fear, although I'll leave that for another day.

1:39 until the gun goes off, and I'm feeling an overwhelming sense of calm. I'm sure that will change the moment I get down to transition, then the nerves will kick in as they always do. Which is perfectly the time the nerves of 2,800 athletes will be raging as we all line up to use the 10 port-o-potties they have at the start.

My plan today is to be conservative and steady. My mental fall-back is my family, especially my kids. As cliche as it sounds, I really do want Oliver and Sadie to know they can do anything they put their mind to as long as they are willing to put in the time and practice in preparation. I'm not expecting my 11th Ironman to provide any watershed moments, but I do want my kids to see the payoff for all of those pre-dawn rides and runs. My other mental 'one reason' is my sister, who I don't see very often but love immensely, and from whom I received a very inspiring text message this morning. Thanks, Mis!

Good luck to all...I hope everyone has a great race today!

IMCDA: The Countdown??

As I sit in the Denver airport en route to Coeur d'Alene, I'm realizing I haven't really put any thought into my mental race plan for this weekend. I respect the distance and know better than to not have a plan (and certainly race day isn't the time to attempt to sort things out), but for one reason or another I just haven't done it. So my number one goal between now and tomorrow is to figure it out. Sounds easy enough, no?

Problem is, I feel so detached from it all; a strange mixture of being pre-occupied and apathetic. Why am I racing? What do I want to (realistically) achieve? What's my mental plan when things get tough? I've got nothing. Nothing but 2.5 days to figure it out...