The end is in sight!!! I started the week feeling a little tired after a very busy social weekend. My feet are on the improve and I have got some awesome K Tape for running. Lucky for me the only colour the physio had left was hot pink!! Goes with my race day out fit of course. For those who have never heard about K Tape it is a lighter tape that can be used instead of strapping tape. The stuff is marvellous. I don;t know if it is mental but all my runs since I have started using the tape have been pain free.
I did the Tuesday morning squad run at West End. I covered about 10.3km including 10 push ups every 5 minutes in an hour. Thankfully I had my lovely Ironman buddy Krista to chat with as we ran along the river. Krista has just completed her first IM at Port Macquarie and she has been great to bounce last minute race day tips off. Something that Krista said to me at training which I think is a great thing to keep in mind on race day is "don't worry about what other people are doing on race day and what time you are doing, it is your race not theirs and it is your box to tick". It is often difficult on race day to not get consumed by what others are doing. Feeling the need to speed up when passed on the bike, worrying about not achieving the magical goal race time, wanting to stack well against others in your age group and squad.
Because the training routine has become so much a part of my day to day life I have become a little blase about the commitment it has taken over the past 5 months to get through it all. It is my new normal!!! It is easy to forget that for most people the effort of even getting to the start line of your first Ironman race is an achievement in itself. This is something very important to remember what ever happens on race day.
I have found myself with lots of energy to burn this week. I have had 2 nights where I have been awake in the middle of the night. Clearly not having the same volume of training is impacting my sleep patterns. It is nice to wake and go to a training session through feeling like you have got some energy rather than that constant tired feeling. Unfortunately work has become very very busy so I have been diverting my extra time not training into work as I try to tie up some lose ends before I go on leave next week. Its Murphy's law that everything hits just as I am about to go on leave.
I finished the week with a solid windtrainer session on Friday morning ( the legs were a little sore after 15 x 3 min, hard efforts in the big ring. Then on Saturday morning I joined the squad for a ride out to Cleveland ( 85kms) including a social breaky afterwards. I always look forward to a chat, coffee and breaky after a ride!!
Sunday morning I only had to do an 1hr30mins. I set the alarm for 6:30am as I was meeting some friends for coffee. I thought to myself this is probably the first Sunday in the last 18 weeks where I haven't (a) been up at 5am, (b) ridden 4 plus hours or raced!! I happily rolled around the riverloop. One thing all this riding has done is given me a lot more confidence on the bike. Whilst I prefer not ride on my own and I am happy to also set out for ride on my own if I need to.
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