Not excited.

The Beach to Battleship full ironman is waiting for me on Saturday.  And I could not be less excited.  If one more person dares me to race their training partner or asks me how fast I will finish, I will scream.  When you're an ironman fledgling like me, time predictions seems so arrogant. In a perfect world I'd be hoping for 13:something but that never happened.  Quite the opposite.  So much has gone wrong along the way.  My jeans are falling off but I've been sick most of my taper.  Have a sore throat and cough today, in fact. Either Gatens is right and I'm apathetic because of hidden confidence or....I'm f$cked. 

But I do know that my body can go 140.6 if I'm healthy.  Maybe not as fast as I'd hoped but my head is in the right place.  And most of this race is mental.  You have to believe that if you rode 120 miles on lemonade and oatmeal cookies you can make it to the run.  And having earned the ironman title means I have nothing to prove on race day.  Nothing to lose by pushing hard at the end of the run.  Nothing to lose by calling it a day if old injuries seek vengeance. I won't know until I get there, assuming I get there.

It's just such a long day. It will be cold for this Florida girl in a short sleeved wetsuit.  And I know it will hurt because it's a freaking ironman.  Plus the unknowable crisis that awaits. I can't teach 2 classes without a crisis. Who knows what will happen on race day?  The key is to make it out of the swim, then have a fun ride through North Carolina coastline, then see the sites through downtown Wilmington.  Right?  I hope.