Eagleman: The Goals and some sap

The sappy stuff:

I cannot believe that my first 70.3 race is only a week and a half away. Eagleman has a special little place in my heart already because I started this blog for my friends and family to follow my journey as I trained for it. You can read my first ever blog post here. I have come a long ways in the past year! I find it slightly amusing that I started this blog to document my journey of a 70.3 but then signed up for a full Ironman. Oops :)

I also had no idea just how many friends I would make via the blogging community. I never expected anyone other than my parents and a few friends to read this thing and I have been amazed and so grateful for the people I have met through this blog and the support you all provide. The veteran triathletes such as Colleen, Jon, Jeff and BDD have offered me wonderful words of encouragement and have answered all of my questions about nutrition, bikes, and anything else. And let's not forget about the wonderful DC area lady triathletes that I found via the Internet and turned into real-life training buddies and friends. Swimming, biking and running is a ton more enjoyable when you have friends to do it with!


DC blogger friends!

 Ok, that's it with the sappy stuff. On to the goals!

The Goals:

If you read my first blog post ever that I linked to above you can get a gist of just how far I have come. Last summer when Phil first taught me how to swim, I could barely make it across the pool without nearly drowning. My average pace then for a run was 10:30 minute miles and now it is about 9:30 if I am taking it slow. I nearly died when Phil took me on my first 30 mile ride last summer and now I ride 50 miles for an easy weekend joy ride.

I am not saying this is going to be easy- but I am saying that I am very well prepared for it. Since starting half IM specific training in January, I have logged over 1,300 miles of training- 800 of which have been in the last 2 months which has been my peak of training. I have done 2 rides of 70+ miles, 5 rides of 60+ miles, and 3 rides of 50+ miles. I bricked after about half of those rides. I swam the Kinetic half swim relay as practice and I have successfully broken in my custom orthotics on long runs to save me from dealing with tendonitis again. I am ready to rock the socks off of Eagleman.

But what are my specific goals you ask? You ready for it? To have fun!

There, I said it. I want Eagleman to be a total blast. I am going to smile at every race photographer, I will not crash my bike, I will execute my race plan perfectly, I will do a funny dance through the finishers shoot, and I will scream funny things at my parents while they are watching me from the sidelines. Eagleman is going to be my day to fall head over heels in love with the sport of triathlon, because quite honestly, I am not there yet and I really want to be.

Don't get me wrong- I also plan to perform as well as possible :) my fitness is at it's peak and I am going to just let it do its thang while I smile at all the volunteers and think about how lucky I am that I am even out there racing and how far I have come in the last year. First race of this distance = automatic PR. Boom!

sorry if that was anti-climactic but having a fun race is exactly what I need to focus on to be mentally reset to start full Ironman training!