Pre Ironman: Almost Like Being on Vacation

Today, I slept in until 8AM. Wow. It’s amazing how I’ve been getting caught up on my sleep; I didn’t really realize how tired I actually was until I started the taper. I mean, I knew I was tired, but I didn’t think it would take me as long as it has to feel like the batteries are recharged. I’ve been napping during the day, going to bed regularly, and sleeping relatively late. It’s heaven not to have to rush around to multiple workouts.

Week 23: Ironman Training Totals = 8:17 (2:00 swim, 2:56 bike, 3:21 run)

Week 8 was the last time we were under 10 hours. I bought my bike that week and we did our first team time trial out on South MoPac. I swam 2000 yds in 55 minutes and was very tired that night; a highlight of the week was “…got my wetsuit on the best ever!” That seems like such a long time ago.

We had a nice Father’s Day yesterday. It was a grand slam of father celebrating, as first we went to the hubby’s Dad’s house, then my Dad’s, and ended up with taking my hubby/our Dad to see the Indiana Jones movie at Alamo Drafthouse. He also got a special breakfast after I got back from my workout with Cathy (we had a nice run and a very relaxing “swim” afterwards).

Packing Transition Bags for Ironman

Today I will begin packing. I decided to print out my lists for my bags (swim to bike, called T1; bike to run, called T2; and both my special needs bags, one for the bike and one for the run), tape them on giant plastic bags, and put the stuff in them.

I have quite a few lists.

I hate to make lists.

Necessity forces it, but it is like drawing fingers down a chalk board to me. Yuck.

I prefer to be a minimalist, but since this is my first I realize I’m overpacking, preparing for every contingency. It’s like the first few trail races/trips. Man, it was a TON of stuff and then, the more I did it, the less stuff there was and the more efficient I became in pulling it all together. That’s happened a lot over these 23 weeks of preparation, but it could be much better.