Final Exam Week

Well, I feel like I've done my homework on this one:

Bike: 2968 mi

Run: 795 mi

Swim: 119 mi

Total Hours of Swim, Bike, Run: 360

Ab Ripper X: 69 times, sometimes twice, so the equivalent of over 20,000 sit-ups

Weight Lost:12.9 lbs

Domestic Arguments Related to Training: 1

Toenail Casualties: 2 bruised, 2 fatalities

Injuries: 0

If you were to put all that swimming, biking and running together that would be 26 Ironmans, with still enough extra running mileage for 4 more marathons and 23 more 2.4 mile swims. That’s about the equivalent of an Ironman every weekend so far for 2011.

Without a doubt, this season has been the hardest I’ve ever trained for a race. Foregoing wine and beer was one of the hardest sacrifices, and I can’t wait to pop open a cool one after the race. Eating right has been tough as well, and I remember a night when Angie just couldn’t muster up the energy to cook and brought home Orange Shrimp from the Chimanese joint. I wanted it, but just couldn’t bring myself to eat it. I shoved a small mozzarella pesto pizza in the oven instead and went to bed hungry.

I’ve kept an aerial photo of Kona on race day on my bathroom mirror and looked at it at least once a day to say, “I don’t know if I’m coming, but I did everything I could today to get there.” My work computer has a countdown in the corner of the desktop telling me how many weeks I have left to IMCDA. This thing has been on my mind every day throughout the training season, which I claim to officially have begun on March 1, but it really was in the making months beforehand.

And I’ve had to hear the words at work that I should put as much effort and passion into my job as I put into training. (I think I was supposed to take that as some sort of message to step it up, but instead I immediately thought something along the lines of, “Great! My training must be right on target if even the president is noticing this is all I do!”)

So, with just one week to go, I have to say that I have no idea how race day will go but I’ve done all I can. If the Kona World Champs slot doesn’t happen……well, I haven’t prepared myself too well for the answer to “what next?”……and I honestly haven’t pumped myself up into thinking I’ve got a good shot at this…….but that might be a tough pill to swallow given the effort I’ve given this. But if the stars just don’t align, I hope I can find pride in just knowing I gave all I had and accomplished some pretty cool things in the process (like a PR half iron – even though the swim didn’t happen, giving up the sauce for 4 months, or getting down to a level of fitness I’ve never seen myself at before).

Thanks for following this journey with me all these months and be sure to track me on the Athlete Tracker on www.ironman.com. If you just want to know if I’m surviving the day, put my last name in and it will show you the last timing mat I’ve crossed. If you want to see if that Kona slot has my name on it, track males 40-44 and it should show you what place I’m in throughout the day. I figure I need to come in no higher than 9^th to be assured a spot, - 10th might earn a roll-down. That’s out of 497. Ugh. Other than that, please send me all the good energy you can on race day! There will be suffering! Let’s get this fun over with!!!!!!