The Journey to a Texas IronMan

Hi Everyone,

“The taper” has arrived. In a nutshell, taper means to reduce the training volume while maintaining or in some cases slightly increasing your intensity. So for months, the muscles have been broken down then rebuilt. You would think I would be all over the fact I get to have a breather and rest up before the race….not so fast.

It was exciting to see another day off added to my weekly workouts. It turns out the extra day off replaced sweat with guilt. I kept thinking I needed to workout! I stared at Celeste, the super tri bike. I walked around the house looking to clean something however the housekeepers already took care of that for us. So I did my best to “taper” by playing with the dogs and have conversations with the members of the household who were also surprised at my being at home. I thought to myself, what the heck am I going to do post IronMan? Instantly, my mind responded “plan the next IM silly”. I thought that was a pretty cool response.

The goal for the next two weeks is to stay healthy and don’t over do things. I really hope I am prepared enough to finish this race. Finishing 140.6 miles before the cut off is the goal and trust me, I take nothing for granted. I made myself stop following the strings of online comments about the race, the route and the weather. Let’s face it, Houston in May is humid and hot, the lake is shallow and turns into a canal, and the bike route is pretty flat which can be mentally challenging (I actually like hills now – nutty eh?). Considering I cannot change any of the above, all there is to do is roll with it.

Am I nervous? In all honesty, my answer is no. If anything, there is curousity about race day. A lot of patients and friends stop in to check on me and I hear repeated feedback of how relaxed I am about the race. I can’t figure out why I am not nervous. Then again, I have busted my tail over the past year so maybe it’s a way the body is telling me that we will be good on race day. I like that and I like the fact others are feeding off my calmness throughout the work day and at home. So if you would, do me a favor and keep your fingers crossed the calmness stays through race day and beyond.

Talk to ya next week,
Janet