The Spinning Wheel

I still find it absolutely amazing and a testimony to my determination or call it my heart, that I finished the bike portion at last years Ironman Arizona under the cut off time. As sick as I was, as bad as those conditions were, I don't know how I did it. Thank God someone with common sense pulled me from the race in T2 and took me to medical.

I have run the numbers in my head many times. I had a viral infection in my lungs and ultimately I should not have raced that day. Between waking up and when I went to bed I drank 2.5 gallons (+20 lbs) of liquid and took in four liters of IV (+9 lbs) and yet I still went to bed 23 pounds lighter. Fuzzy math says I lost close to 52 pounds in less than a day. And I still wanted to head out for the marathon. I never said I was smart, just determined.

At this point in training for Arizona 2008, there is not much left to do. When I go into race day healthy and 100% rested I have no doubt that I can swim the distance and run the distance. Biking....thats something I have been thinking about a lot lately. Can I bike 112 miles? Well of course. But I can do it with the output I need to have a good race and finish proudly. That's the question I will only be able to answer on race day.

Of all the different places to put pressure on myself for a good race, it comes down to being competent on the bike, the one component I feel I have not invested as much time into as the others lately. Oh I can blame the concussion last fall. I can blame the flu several weeks back. I can blame Mo for all his health issues the last two weekends. I can blame a crappy trainer that ate my tires every time I got on it. But blaming others doesn't solve problems. On some long ride days I felt it was too cold. I equivocated elevation changes and RPE for distance. I choice pack mentality over doing what is right. And maybe that is the lesson I am learning and the one I wish to impart today.

If you train alone, don't cheat your time or your effort because your just accountable to yourself. If you train with a team don't get sucked into going with the flow because you want to get out of the weather or go eat or they are not going as far as you. You can't bluff yourself out on the race course. No matter how many alibi's or how many issues you come up with, in the end at Ironman, its you against the clock against yourself. Good race, bad race, all anyone wants to do is finish the damn thing.

I'm pretty confident that, if healthy I will finish Arizona and have fun doing it. I still have my goals from last year I want to meet. I suppose the pressure I put on myself for a good bike is because I want to do well in all my events and its the longest and potentially the hardest part of the course. But I have another two weeks to train hard and then a couple weeks of taper and then I get to see what I am made of all over again.