It's kinda like childbirth...

This whole first time Ironman thing. You anticipate getting pregnant excitedly, a little nervous, but mainly excited - and naive. You feel pretty good at first, then as pregnancy gets hard you wonder what you were thinking. Your body is tired and heavy. You think about the baby all the time, wondering what he/she will be like, wondering if you can handle the event that childbirth is. Then in that last week as a birth day looms you're so excited to get on with it, but a little sad to see it over too. Then you're rewarded greatly after much hard work. You forget about all the pain, and eventually do it all over again (and then question again "what was I thinking?!")

And so it is with Ironman. I signed up very excited, nervous of course, and naive. As training was just in base, no really big miles yet, I was feeling good about things. Then as the weekends went from 3 hours of training to 10 hours of training I got tired, a little cranky, and wondered why and how I was doing this, but still held onto that excitement for race day. Now the race is upon us and I can't believe it! I'm so excited to see what the day will hold and what my body can do, but as with the end of pregnancy, I am a little sad to see it this journey end, and (unlike pregnancy) hope this last week doesn't pass over me too quickly without me even realizing it.

Yesterday I spent all morning running the transition area at the Spring Sprint Tri where several friends became triathletes, and others just enjoyed another great race. I enjoyed cheering on others, and even had some people come up to me to wish me luck for this weekend. Thanks!
I've felt a little cheated of the taper mentally because I've been so worried about how I'm going to run. Well, yesterday after the tri, I got to try it. I felt confident enough to put in a couple miles at least, and needed to know at least a little, what running on Saturday was going to feel like. So after a 2 hour ride I pulled on the running shoes and ran 3 miles. I wore a RecoverIce menthol soaked ace wrap, had taken 2 Tylenol in efforts to quickly experiment with pain meds, and while it wasn't pain free for sure, there wasn't a limp. I know I'll finish the race, and I have a fair amount of confidence it could be close to what I wanted.

I've finally finished a couple nagging tasks to get ready for this trip, and am getting excited to go. Still packing and planning left to do, and a busy week with my baby's 2nd birthday, my sister and her husband coming into town, a couple Muscleworks appointments, a few short workouts left, and a couple of days at work (yeah, that's just Monday-Wednesday), then we'll be off Wednesday afternoon.

I'll be updating the blog as much as I can this week as to keep ya'll informed about what's going on, and how this whole Ironman thing works. But for now, here's the deal for those of you not traveling to St George. If you go to IronmanStGeorge.com on Saturday and click on Race Day Coverage (which will take you to Ironman.com), enter my number, 125, you'll be able to track my progress live. They'll show a swim, T1, several bike splits, T2, and a couple run splits as I cross over those mats. You will also be able to watch the finish line via video feed LIVE. Pretty cool!

The photos in this post I had taken for PowerTri in February after the Tuacahn Duathlon. I'm pretty happy with them.