Twas the Night before Irongirl...

... when all through my house....

 

Oh screw it.  I'm not a blessed poet.  So I have the Irongirl series sprint tri tomorrow morning.  A fact that I've been trying hard to ignore for a number of reasons.  I've been feeling extra run down lately - for reasons I can't explain I've not had anything approaching my usual energy level and training volume this week.  I've been telling my coach I'm tapering for IMLP with him (solidarity!!)

In the midst of a couple of short runs and some yoga, which is the sum total of my active endeavors over the last 6 days, I have been working.  And working, and working, and working.  I have saddle sores from my computer chair (just kidding), and a very stuff upper back and neck from staring at a computer screen (not at all kidding).

This morning started with a very telling trio of activities.  After being woken up too early by the kids, I was drinking my coffee, using the TENS unit to try to loosen my back, and ready a book on time management.  Fix brain, fix muscles, fix life.  Ha!

Packet pickup was last night at a sports store about a half hour away.  Irongirl is such a large race that you must pick up your packet the Friday night or Saturday before the race.  Oy.  We took the opportunity to take the kids hiking in Purgatory Chasm, a local state park with some very cool rock scrambling.

Hiking = crosstraining

 

Then this morning we were out at the local botanical garden hunting butterflies.... 

 

A Mourning Cloak butterfly sunning itself



The general theme is that I've not been focused on this race.  I've been focused on getting work wrapped up in time for our Lake Placid trip in 4 days.  I've been focused on setting up the next 3 weeks of my course (lectures, midterms exam, announcements) to deploy in carefully scheduled time points, without any interaction mandatory on my part.  I've been trying to wrap up my other odd jobs, and am learning that is really, really hard to do all this while planning a vacation, packing, and trying to feed and entertain the small ones.

 

So it's really no surprise that tomorrow's race has been an afterthought.  "I have a race sandwiched between breakfast and a kids birthday party in the afternoon.  I need to test out that tent... hmm must update training peaks... and where did my goggles go??"

 

No - seriously.  My goggles are missing.  Any of my training partners reading this... if I've loaned you anything or trained with you please check your bags.  I have spares for tomorrow, but still.  Where are my goggles?!?!?!

 

Transition set out (before the wetsuit announcements).
Even kitty wouldn't pose like usual :(

 

I haven't really be respecting this race.  A sprint, and an all women's sprint at that (I get a little overly cynical about girl-power events).  It seems, well.... short.  Which really isn't the right attitude to have.  Already the race gods are starting to frown on me, first by stealing my favorite goggles, and now by the announcement tonight that the race is no longer wetsuit legal.  Or rather, I could wear on it I wanted to be relegated to my own special wetsuit-wearing age group wave and not be eligible for any awards.  The latter's not a big risk with a field of 550 athletes, but nobody puts Baby in a special pansy wetsuit wave.  So.. off I swim without the benefit of extra floatation.  I'm non-thrilled about this, as this past weekend's practice swim with Gypsy was a little rough.

 

Tomorrow morning has the makings.  Of what?  Well, in discussion with my coach....

 

We've decided that the only thing to do is to go out and completely crush this race. 

 

Punky feelings, sore back, wetsuits be damned.  Bring it on.  I dare you.