Questions

For the past couple of days, I've been thinking alot about my 1/2 Ironman. It is 34 days away and I'm really starting to wonder about my preparation. The past four weeks have not been good training weeks. On Tuesday, I'll be doing my June wrap up and I'm actually embarassed to check back to see how many workouts I've missed.

Why have I missed these workouts? It boils down to a variety of reasons. I have been lazy. I have been tired. I have been traveling. I have been busy with other things, etc. etc. etc. I haven't been dedicated to my training and I'm really worried that my lack of training is going to show up on race day and that I'm not going to be able to finish the race or that I'm going to have a really non stellar sort of day. These missed workouts are weighing on me and are causing alot of doubt regarding my decisions, goals and dreams.

When I was doing the BAM tri and I crashed and burned on the run, I started to question my ability to do any long course triathlons. I'm not really sure what happened on that race. I don't know if it was nutrition or lack of training or lack of ability or what. In last weekend's race, I saw a man die during the swim and he was probably a better swimmer than me.

So, yeah, I've been worrying about this race quite a bit. I'm not sure how it's going to go and I'm very disappointed in myself for not being diligent with my training. I feel like it I had been more consistent with my training during the build phase, I might feel more confident going into the peak phase. My family is going to Hawaii for 10 days and I know that I'll struggle to get my training in that week. That's adding to my worry, as well as the fact that I only have 34 days until I step up to that starting line, knowing that I'm going to have go 70.3 miles.

While I've been thinking about this, I've also been thinking about my own race day plan and what I need to do to be a little less anxious for race day. Over the next few weeks, I need to get my nutrition in place. I've never been very good at nutrition in my marathon training, so I need to get some sort of handle on that. I need to start pulling together a race day plan and some race day goals. I've got some ideas floating around in my head, but I haven't been able to really put them together into any sort of coherence.

The main thoughts going in my head concern my ability to actually do this and my decision making ability. I wonder what I was thinking in January when I signed up for this 1/2 IM. I wonder what I'm doing thinking that I can be ready for IM Wisconsin next year. I wonder if I'm totally nuts thinking that I can race at Kona someday. I struggled with a distance shorter than an Olympic race and I only have one more race (and it's in a pool) before this 1/2 IM. What in the world was I thinking?!?