For Once I’m Glad to Be Working

I started back to work full time last week.  The teachers all started back today.  Kids start Wednesday.  I took a personal day Friday to head down to Louisville that morning.  Work has been busy with lots of projects that I am co-in charge of with the other School Psychologist at the high school, so the day goes by quickly with limited thoughts about my upcoming race. 

My stuff is completely packed, although the bike shop still has my bike.  I will be calling them tomorrow about that, if they don’t call me first.  I’m starting to load up on carbs.  My meals for the remainder of the week will consist of pasta.  And then I will have my traditional pre-race meal of Papa John’s pizza. 

Anyways, I’m off to stew in my spectrum of thoughts that run between excited and scared as all heck.  It looks like I’m going to have a good showing of fans down in Louisville on race day, which will be so incredibly nice.  Seeing familiar faces out on the race course is the best pick-me-up!  It definitely lights a fire under my butt.  So I’m looking forward to that and am so grateful for all of my friends and family that are able to show their support (whether it be from near or far). 

Just a reminder if you are following along from afar….here’s a more direct link to what will hopefully be a way to follow along with a gps device I rented:  http://www.myathletegps.com/EventTrackingInfo.html.  My name should pop up on the list on race day.  Not sure if it will name my event or not.  They didn’t ask for the event, but they may just rightfully assume what event I’m doing because there are only so many Ironman distance triathlons in the Louisville are on August 29th.  And remember you can likely watch live feed from the finish line at www.ironman.com (it would be cool if someone saw me on the internet from the comfort of their own home). 

I guess I should spell out my time goals, which have somewhat changed since I first wrote out my goals when I started this mess.  So, here they are, but know that I could be way off on all of these times. 

Swim – 1 hour, 15 minutes

T1 – 8 minutes (Total elapsed time: 1 hour, 23 minutes)

Bike – 7 hours, which is a pretty steep goal in all likelihood, but maybe I’ll surprise myself like I did on the half ironman (Total elapsed time:  8 hours, 23 minutes)

T2 – 10 minutes…I may just sit for a couple minutes to gather myself and rest my butt on a full-coverage seat (Total elapsed time:  8 hours, 33 minutes)

Run – 5 hours, 30 minutes…if I can hold a 12:30/mile pace I will be golden.  On my run/walk today I kept telling myself, the more you run, the faster you finish.  I think that will be my race-day mantra during the run just to keep my butt in motion – running motion, that is (Total elapsed time – and potential finish time:  14 hours, 3 minutes)

If I could finish in 14 hours I would die.  I’ll hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst.  And who knows what the worst even is.  I’ve never taken on anything this big.  Who knows how my body will handle it.  But I’ll deal with whatever comes my way. 

Let’s say I start the race at 7:15 (there is a time trial start instead of a mass start, so it all depends on where I fall in line that morning.  I’ll be in the water by 7:30 at the latest.).  If I finished in 14 hours, that would put me in at 9:15 p.m.  It would even still be a tad bit light out (maybe)!  So, just keep that in mind if you’re trying to catch my finish.  I’d say this will probably be the soonest I finish.  I wish I could provide a better guess at my true finish time!

I’m not sure if I will write again before I leave…but I will do some blogging while I’m in Louisville with some pictures of all the festivities.  I can’t wait to get down there!