Preparing for Ironman

I just finished eating a 6" sub. That's 6 inches, 1 cookie, an apple, and a clif bar short of what I normally eat for lunch. I'm FINALLY done training! I woke up today and didn't have to pack a gym bag. I grabbed a granola bar and figured I'd eat a sandwich for lunch. That's it! I didn't have to pack 3000 calories of snacks and didn't have to plan my day around my workouts. Ironman training is done...because

I AM AN IRONMAN.


Days leading up to the race:
Most of the team arrived on Tuesday and Wednesday. Coach Tony arranged group workouts for every day of the week leading up to the race. We were tapering but that didn't mean we were sitting on our butts. We swam, biked, and ran each day. As it got closer to the race our workouts were shorter but even on the day before the race we managed to do all 3 disciplines.

Swimming in the Gulf-
My first swim in the gulf was basically a series of panic attacks molded together to create an overall traumatic experience. (1)First of all, salt water is DISGUSTING. Think about walking into a small, poorly ventilated room where someone just farted. You NEED to breathe but it is absolute torture to subject yourself to the air around you. That's how I felt in the gulf of mexico. You HAVE to keep your face in the water, you have to open your mouth to breathe, there's almost no way to avoid the salt water. 1 small drop in your mouth is like one accidentally breath through your nose in that small fart-filled room. (2) I was swimming with just one other person that swam alot faster than me. For some reason I was SURE that I was going to be eaten by a shark and it was really upsetting me that I'd be gobbled up by a 20 foot shark and my teammate that was ahead of me wasn't even going to know that I had become shark bait. (3) We swam in really rough waters and were swimming a total of 1 1/2 hours along the coast. Apparently all of the giant jelly fish and stingrays like to hang out along the path we chose. My first swim experience ended with me rubbing my left hand on a giant jelly fish the size of my head. I was SURE that I had just pet a shark and decided to swimming for shore. Luckily, the beast in the water didn't follow me and I made it out safe and walked along the beach back to the condo.
...it gets better- Each day got easier after that. The more people I swam with, the more comfortable I felt. I didn't see as many jelly fish and I eventually got used to the taste of the salt water. I realized after my first traumatic experience that the swim was more mental than it was physical. I told myself "stay calm, you are making forward progress even though it feels like you're going nowhere" and "if the jelly fish gets me, I have enough teammates that are willing to pee in the sting".

Biking on the flat course
We went out for a few rides. Each ride was at an easy pace. I made sure to pack my new favorite training fuel- chomps and plenty of water. The point of these rides wasn't to show everyone how fast we were or to make sure that we've still got it, it was about keeping our legs fresh and staying fueled and hydrated. One ride in particular SUCKED. It was pouring rain, freezing and SUPER windy. I tried to stay positive. Maybe the bad pre-race weather would lead to a nice race day. We did our ride in the harsh conditions and even though I had originally thought that it wasn't worth the hassle, I concluded that the ride did indeed make me stronger and prepared me for the possibility of the weather conditions I may have encountered during the race.

Running
The first run we did at the beginning of the week was 2 hours long. I was running at night with a teammate who typically runs faster than me. We went out saying "this will be an easy run" but ended up pushing ourselves beyond the comfort zone. My teammate lead the run for the first half as I struggled to keep up and fought off all of my negative thoughts "I hate running, I suck at running, I'm never going to be able to do this after 112 miles" and replaced them with "I can do this, I need to push myself, I am going to be an IRONMAN!". The second half of the run I became VERY dehydrated. No surprise there- it was really hot and I sweat like crazy. I started dreaming about waterfalls and everytime I saw a puddle I pictured myself jumping into it face first and drinking it. Since we ran an out and back I knew that running faster meant I'd be done sooner and would be able to drink sooner. So, I pushed as hard as I could to get back to drink. I was fighting off tears because I was so upset I hadn't brought anything to drink and I knew that a hard run ending in dehydration wasn't a good idea before the big race. When we finished the run, we both were miserable. I chugged a few water bottles and went back to my room to evaluate my fears of having ruined the taper process of my workouts. The next day I was VERY sore. My hip pain was back and I decided that it was better to skip that day's 1 hour and 40 minute run to recover from yesterday's torture fest. The next runs were much easier with my teammates. We all joked around, practicing our finish line limps ( one shoulder higher than the other and a calculated shuffle/skip/gallop). The last day, our "run" was a jog back to the hotel.

Hydration
I had made the statement a long time ago that I had planned on hydrating in the "carb-loading" mindset. I was going to drink, drink and drink some more during the days leading up to the race. I have already said this- I SWEAT ALOT, so I knew that I couldn't risk being dehydrated. How do you know if you're dehydrated during the race? You're heart rate is higher at easier intensities. What does it feel like? It feels like your working your ass off and not going as fast as you know you can. Many people don't realize that the reason it feels so hard is because they're dehydrated. They simply group it into the "the longer you go the harder it gets" category without exploring WHY it gets harder.
Nutrition
Just as every article about traveling and racing will tell you, it's hard to eat like you normally do when you're traveling and it's important to be prepared for this. For me, I knew that I was eating differently but I was trying to make educated decisions. I'm not entirely sure why, but for some reason or another, I didn't poop for THREE days when I first arrived. If you've read my blog before, you'll know how important pooping is to me. This experience really made me realize that its not just physically, its emotional. For some reason, I was really upset that I couldn't poop. Everytime I poop during the day, I view it as some kind of victory. If I have a nice poop, I think I must have done something right. I must be eating good, I must be hydrated, I must be digesting correctly. If I don't poop, I feel like a fecal failure. When I got to the 3rd day, it was time to start proactively trying to end my body's poop hostage situation. Andrea and I went grocery shopping with one goal in mind: #2. We bought apples, green tea, high fiber cereal, and oatmeal raisin flax cookies. The next day, I was cured. I think I lost about 5lbs in one day. No joke. On Thursday we went to the athlete pre-race dinner and guess what? It didn't suck. There was like 5 kinds of pasta and all kinds of carbs. There was a cash bar and a line for the water. Guess which one was longer? Andrea and I made an AMAZING dinner on Friday (night before the race) with chicken, pesto, pasta, brocolli, and garlic bread. We were drinking sports drinks and water all day long. We planned our morning breakfast- whatever the hell we wanted.

The Bags and The Bike and The Outfit
Outfit:

• Team Fraser Tri Suit
• Heart Rate Strap
• Hair in Ponytail
• Body glide around edges of hair, neck, chin, back
• Chamois cream and Vaseline ALL over Chamois
• Sunscreen on face
• Sports Bra
• Wetsuit

Morning Clothes Bag:

• Bra (for after)
• Comfy Undies (for after)
• Socks x2 (one at swim start, one after)
• Extra shoes (for before and after the race)
• Jacket
• Long pants
• Body Glide
• Water bottle (drinking leading up to the race)
• Roctane Gel (15 minutes before race start)

Transition 1:

• Tube of my favorite chamios cream
• helmet
• Bike shoes
• sunglasses
• bike shorts
• Garmin
• Race belt
• tube socks (feet cut off) used as arm warmers
• socks (just in case I was cold)
• Mini butt budder

Transition 2:

• Running Shirt
• Capris
• Fraser Bicycle Socks
• Body Glide
• Hat
• Running shoes (newtons with speedlaces VERY loose)

Bike Special Needs:

• 1 Cookie
• 2 Tylenol

Run Special Needs:

• 2 Tylenol
• Long sleeve tech shirt
• bandaids
• chapstick
• duct tape cut into various sizes placed on a sheet of glossy paper (for blisters)
• Espresso Gel

The Bike:

• Bento bag with: Chomps, $2, Razor, C02 cartridge
• Saddle bag with: Sewup tire, glue, Pitstop,
• 2 Pieces of Duct tape: 1- "Endurance is Patience Concentrated" 2- My game plan.
• 2 Espresso Gels taped to my stem

Next Post will be my race report including details about "The Game Plan"- my metabolic efficiency test results! Figured I'd post in segments because I have alot to say and you may need time to rest your eyes before the next long-winded post.