For the past month or so I've been focused on the Austin half-Ironman. When I don't want to train, or when I'm ready to cut a training session short, I have to remind myself why I'm doing this...Austin 70.3 on Oct. 23, 2011! I want to cross the finish line and know I trained and raced the best I could. No regrets. No thinking about the training sessions I skipped or didn't give my all to. My goal is to finish strong. I'm execting this race to hurt, and I'll probably question why I'm out there. I may even throw up a little on race day...it happens.
Last night my goal was to do 10 hill repeats on the bike. This is a work out that I know I need, but probably wouldn't do unless my coach tell me to. As much as I was dreading this workout, it turned out to be a pretty good training session. I had to keep reminding myself that Austin would have hills and this was going to make me stronger and prepare me for the half. Hills are my weakness, so I am TRYING to embrace the opportunities to work on this. Keeping Austin in mind made the workout bearable, and dare I say...enjoyable. No, I wasn't loving sucking air as I fought my way up the hill over and over again in my smallest gear while other cyclist zoomed past me, but the feeling of satisfaction I got after each climb made the thought of the next climb less dreadful. I kept telling myself, "Yes, I can do another. No problem!" I knew I had another hill in my. I just wasn't sure if I had 2 or 3 or 8. By the 7h repeat I was feeling closer to good than death. And as I climbed the hill for the 10th time I was feelin likea rock star. Sure, there were other people out there riding circles around me, but didn't care. There was a guy about halfway up the hill who had gotten off his bike and walked the rest of the way up. I felt his pain. I did that a year ago. It was a low moment in my life, and I vowed that it would NEVER happen again.
Between now and Oct. 23 I do have a few races planned. Disco is just 9 days away, and I will be competing in my first Olympic race which will consist of a 1500 meter swim, 24 mile bike, and 6.2 mile run. The swim is 3 times the distance I've swam in other races, and the bike and run are double. I know I can do all of these distances separately, but putting them together is another story. The unknown is not IF I can complete this. It's HOW I will perform. What will my bike look like coming out of the swim? How much will be left in the tank for the run? My biggest fear is that my race will fall apart on the run.
My last race was going pretty well until the run. I don't know if I pushed myself too hard on the bike, if it was nutrition and hydration issues, or if my training was off. Perhaps it was a combination of all of these factors. My coach had me write a race plan for Disco. That is not something I would have done on my own, but I'm so glad he had me do it. He reviewed it and added some notes for me. I now have a plan for pacing, calorie consumption, and hydration on race day. I may have to tweak my plan during the race and I'm okay with that. I want the race to go well, but I also know that if it doesn't it's not the end of the world. I'll take what didn't work and fix it for my next race.
"One day this pain will make sense to you." I <3 to Run Facebook post
No comments:
Post a Comment