Mental Hurdle

I spent 15 minutes today thinking about how on earth I would run 13.1 miles after biking 56.7?

Today was my last official long bike ride before the HIM. 2.5 hrs followed by a 15 minute run. My bike ride was uneventful for a change. No one threw anything at me. No bugs attacked me. I had a head wind on the way out and on the way back for the first time in 5 attempts at this route a tail wind for 10 miles on a flat. YAHOO! Hitting speeds of 19 and 20 MPH without much effort. If come race day there is wind and hills I will be prepared but not happy. If there is only the one giant cliff that the race is named after to get up and no wind I'll be in great shape to battle out the 56.7 miles.

The question is how will I do on the run? Today a measly 15 min run. As I started I realized I had no music. So instead I listened to my breathing. Not smooth. Raspy if you want to call it. I still had the HR monitor on and I glanced down to see just how high the rate was. I was supposed to be running in zone 1 or 2. Which is a max HR of about 140. Really it should of been in the low 130's. I was just shy of zone 4. 149 to be exact. Now I didn't have my garmin on so I don't know how fast I was running and there is no way to tell when you are running right off the bike. Your perspective is all screwed up. I think it may be time to invest in the triathlon garmin with a HR monitor built in. Anyway, I think I was running about 10:00- 10:15 pace. But in the past I have thought that and I was running about a 9:15-9:30 pace. Once I got about 10 mins into the run my breathing smoothed out and I found my rhythm. By this time I would venture to guess I was running about 9:30. That would be great for the race. But there was no way I was going to be able to keep that up for 12 more miles. I see a walk/run in my future. I can only hope that I nail the bike portion and get the perfect nutrition plan in place. If I'm able to do that then the run should go ok. In my mind as I rode today I think I've got the nutrition where I want it. It's all about timing. I still have trouble getting my food out and eating it while biking!

The run........I have determined it will be the hardest thing mentally and physically that I have ever done. Do I dare say even harder than childbirth? Ok maybe not quite that hard. But close. As I have trained these 5 months I have even more respect for Ironman athletes. I just don't know how it's done. Maybe after a few HIM's I'll understand how the body can do such a thing.

Really did I just say a few HIM's? Well I must be more confident than I thought.

Tomorrow is a swim day and that is it until Sunday for the LITH sprint tri. A 800m swim, 15.5 mile bike and a 4 mile run. I should be done by 9 am. Goal for the race is to race hard but not too hard to damage any recovery efforts for the next race 6 days later. Last year time was 1:51:18. So let's go with anything under 1:50. I should be able to do that.