Anticipation and a Forced Taper

I find myself only a few days out from my first Ironman, and the anticipation is overwhelming. Luckily, my schedule is too, at least until Friday. I’m trying to pick up extra hours at work in preparation for the long race weekend and at the same time my next wave of MBA classes start this week. For the fall, I have class T, W, and Th nights…I may or may not survive. At least I won’t have to worry about IM training. I may find myself more concerned about being able to train at all. The good news is I’m pretty excited about the classes themselves. I tend to enjoy learning, so that’s a nice bonus for nerds like me when it comes to approaching the school environment.

That being said, the busyness may be a blessing in disguise. It has essentially forced me to taper since I can’t fit workouts in edgewise unless they are extremely short. Since I get antsy when I’m inactive, I would certainly be at risk to go overdo the last week of the taper. So far, this has been prevented by my life schedule. Along with keeping my workout volume down, my schedule has diverted my focus away from the race. This is good, since I am already starting to feel anxious, but in a good butterflies in the stomach sort of way. I’m not sure I’ve felt this level of excitement so far out from race day since maybe my first sprint triathlon. It’s fun being back on the newbie side of the fence again after spending a few years as the “experienced veteran”, so to speak.

As far as the race goes, weather looks to be hot, as expected…but nothing I haven’t trained in. Humidity looks surprisingly low though, so we can keep our fingers crossed that holds up. My pacing goals are essentially unchanged, but I can see myself finishing anywhere in a broad range (from 10:30 if everything is perfect to 12:30 if the wheels really start to fall off). I know I’ll be pleased to have completed the race no matter the time, but I’d be lying if I said that 12+ would leave me a little disappointed. Either way, I wanted to get a pre-race post out, although this is much less detailed than my normal race plan layout.

As a quick additional note…I am going to be using a GPS system so my family and friends can track me on the course. I will try and post the link to the page that tracks me if I remember to do so before the race.