What to expect when you're expecting

I'm sitting here after listening to a rooster crow several times (not three - that wouldn't be a good omen) early this morning.  I figured that I needed to put in black and pixels what my goals are for the race tomorrow.

But first, a little recap of the past few days.  In brief: cold and rainy.  Yeah, I know, it's Canada - what did I expect?  Last year at this time, it was beautiful and sunny.  But as I watched the weather forecast dip into the 50s, I pulled my sundresses out of the suitcase and added in my winter Heidi hat and umbrella.  But I can't complain.  Race day looks like it's going to be a mix of sun and clouds with a little rain on the bike.  And with a high of 65 (18) and very little wind it'll be perfect racing conditions.

The trip north was long and uneventful, if you don't count seven stops for peeing/eating/gassing, but most importantly, for the ritual Eating of the Cinnabon.

We caravanned with our friends which made the time go a little faster.  But really, nothing can disguise a 13 hour drive.  Since we arrived, we've biked (Mark & Mary), run, and swum (Mary), caught up with old friends who are so fast its like they occupy a whole different planet of issues and focus (fascinating), eaten escargot crepes, purchased new ironman gear (see pic of shirt with all racers' names on the back inside the M-Dot) and ridden the gondola oodles of time (see other pics).

If you squint really really hard,
you'll see my name just to the
right of the center of the M of the M-Dot.

Selfies are mandatory on the gondola.

As is acting goofy.

And of course there was the athlete dinner last night where we were entertained by some incredibly athletic acrobats, sang O Canada, and ate brownies with tiny M-Dots on them.

After returning (via gondola, natch) to the hotel last night, our roommate and I quickly assembled our four bags (swim to bike transition, bike special needs, bike to run transition, and run special needs) with our nutrition, numerous body glides, sunscreen, helmets and caps, shoes, and teeny tiny packets of things like chamois butt'r, pepto bismal and immodium (just in case).  Our bikes have their numbers and spare tubes attached and are ready for racking today.  It was actually fairly gratifying to see how quickly the bags came together thanks to a couple of previous Ironmans and a separate packing list for each bag. (Yes, I'm organized that way.)

So, here we are.  T minus 1.  Back to expectations.  I've gone back and forth on these goals.  A few months ago, I thought "I can break 14 hours." (My previous best was 14:15 on a completely flat course.)  Then I backed off that when my run wasn't where I wanted it to be.  But I've come back to it, in part because the data from my training shows me that I'm capable of this, but also because I'm trying to be a different kind of racer this time around.  One who actually sets goals.  

This is scary for me.  All my racing career, I've set very low expectations, exceeded them (sometimes wildly like at Kinetic this year where I took 30 minutes off my PR) and consequently felt incredible about how I've done.  I've realized too, that--athletically--I was raised with pretty low expectations.   My family simply doesn't and never did exercise and even now doesn't understand what we do.  Pretty much every "good luck" or "we're proud of you" is bookended by "don't hurt yourself" or "don't abuse your body."  While I appreciate the latter given our various low-speed or completely out of our control crashes we've had during our cycling journey, I know that the comments refer to everything that we do and not just the biking.  It still amazes me, given the plethora of medical evidence showing that exercise - even at the level we do it - is good for your body, that people somehow feel that we must surely be hurting ourselves.  There was even a study last year that showed that running puts less stress on the joints over walking, simply due to the longer stride and shorter duration of weight bearing impact as each foot strikes the ground.

I've been writing this blog for over five years now and wonder how I've failed to explain how gradually we train our bodies to do what we do, how careful Mark and I are particularly when cycling on the roads, how all this exercise is designed to keep us emotionally and mentally fit and happy as well as physically and how much more fit and physically younger we are in our middle age than most of our contemporaries, or our parents when they were middle aged.  We fully expect to continue on into our old age, bike touring and racing around the country well into our 70s if not 80s.  We've laid the foundation for that over the past 10 years and fully expect to reap its rewards over the next 30 years.  

And if we get killed on a bike ride along the way, then we died doing what we love most in the world.  

Sorry - a bit of a diversion into rant territory there.  PSA to all you people out there who simply don't understand why we do what we endurance athletes do and think it's dangerous - please try asking us questions about our motivations and our training that might answer your concerns or curiosity.  Simply consider that we might be using our bodies rather than abusing them and you might come to appreciate that at this stage in our lives, we know what we're doing.

As a kid, I played netball (until I stopped growing and all my Amazon classmates took the higher level slots that I'd previously occupied) and my brother played cricket.  Neither were particularly athletic or required any specialized aerobic training (sorry bro, but really, it is a lot of standing around in silly mid off) - at least at the middle school/high school level that we played.  And when I was last at home, I talked about taking my niece and nephew out for a hike or a 2 mile walk home from breakfast and was told "Oooh, I'm not sure they'd be able to do that."  Of course they could - they did that and more - my favorite day was when my niece and I hiked up to the top of the pass, back down again, drank coffee and ate pastries and just talked the entire time.   And when I go home in November, she and I are going to run a 5k.  I would fully expect my nephew to be able to join us with absolutely no trouble whatsoever if only out of an abundance of energy, though I hope he'll train with my niece to race too.

So in my lifetime, I've gone from "no expectations, therefore why even bother with any kind of exercise?" to "low expectations and exceed them every time," and now I'm facing my first race of "expect to do as well as you can."  I suppose that Ironman might not be the best time to try this for the first time, but go big or go home, eh?

So, here goes.  Here are my "achievable" goals.

Swim: 1:18:00 (1:51/100yds)

T1: 00:08:00

Bike: 07:15:00 (15.4 mph)

T2: 00:05:00

Run: 05:10:00 (11:50 min mile pace)

Finish: 13:56:00 (20 minute personal record)

I also have two more sets of goals.  One is "stretch" based on a better bike time and one is "died and gone to heaven" based on a better bike time and better run time.  I'm not publishing those, but both are possible, if everything comes together for me, including conditions, nutrition, no mechanicals, did I eat the right things this week?, did I pick the right fuel for the bike?, how will starting behind 2580 other people, in several waves 3, 6, 9, 12 minutes ahead affect my race if I have to swim through maybe 500 of them?, did I despair or maintain a positive attitude the entire time?, and myriad other big and little things that need to right or not go wrong.

So there you go.  I'll write a race report afterwards, as I always do.  I expect that a lot of it will revolve around the 3500 volunteers for 2680 racers, my 63 teammates, many of whom are first time Ironmen, and the all the others little stories that go to make up an Ironman.

See you on the other side!