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<\/p>\nI’m pretty sure this is going to a level of overthinking that even I’m embarrassed about but here we go!<\/p>\n
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Let the freakouts commence!<\/em><\/p>\n One week out:<\/p>\n Luckily, I get a 3-day weekend the weekend before the race.\u00a0 This is fortunate because I can a) have one last night of staying up past sunset (IF I feel up to it, TBD) and still get plenty of rest b) have an extended weekend to get everything ready to go out of town and c) spend some time with my BSS peeps at the Spring Social and my family for easter without feeling all frantic.<\/p>\n However, the mandate will be to not go cuh-ray-zee and I’d like to be 95% packed and ready to go for The Woodlands by Sunday night.<\/p>\n Race week:<\/p>\n Workout plan will be:<\/p>\n Life plan will be:<\/p>\n Basically, I want to be the most boring person I can be.<\/p>\n Thursday (Travel Day):<\/p>\n Agenda<\/p>\n Food:<\/p>\n This is just another long day, right?<\/em><\/p>\n Friday:<\/p>\n Agenda:<\/p>\n Food:<\/p>\n Saturday morning:<\/p>\n The swim can’t be nearly as bad as some days at the Pflug lately, and even if it is, I’m prepared.<\/em><\/p>\n Swim:<\/p>\n T1:<\/p>\n I’ve ridden my bike a few miles to prepare for this race.\u00a0 In the cold and the wind and the heat and the hills, so 112 miles on a tollway should be easy-peasy, right?<\/em><\/p>\n Bike:<\/p>\n Pacing goal: It’s a long day.\u00a0 Pace yourself.\u00a0 Both long day outings on this bike have been about 16-ish mph (so about 6h30-7h).\u00a0 If you’re rolling above 16.5, check your effort\/HR\/power.\u00a0 If you’re too far below 16mph average after 20-30 miles, check it as well.<\/p>\n Fueling goals: One gel\/three blocks per 45 minutes and I should go through about a bottle an hour.\u00a0 If I have real food (english muffin, pb sandwich, etc), that should last about 1.5-2 hours.\u00a0 In other words, my goal is to, as evenly as possible, space out about 1100 solid calories over the ~7 hours and suppliment with gatorade (at least another ~100 calories per hour).<\/p>\n Caffeine: I will aim to have gel #1 or 2 be caffeinated, and a gel in hour 5-6 be caffeinated (just the 20 mg salted watermelons).<\/p>\n Special needs bag:<\/p>\n Effort goals: I dialed in the effort pretty well.\u00a0 Keep some power on it (120-130-ish?\u00a0 if that feels right?), but I should never be breathing hard for more than a minute or so to get up a hill.\u00a0 Stand up occasionally to stretch the legs.\u00a0 Stay in aero as much as possible but not at the expense of tweaking my neck too badly.<\/p>\n T2:<\/p>\n Again, take my time if I need.\u00a0 I found I ran better if I gave myself a SMALL break to compose myself and didn’t rush.\u00a0 I’m not winning this thing but 5 minutes in transition might mean the ability to run more regularly.<\/p>\n Run bag contents<\/p>\n Yep, just another long day like this one, with a slightly longer run.<\/em><\/p>\n Run:<\/p>\n Pacing goal: Well, this is the huge and great unknown.\u00a0 I’ve run 2 hours off a 5 hour bike at sub-11 minute miles, which would PR the fuck out of my marathon if I could keep up anything close to that (even if I slowed down to almost 12 minute miles on the second half…).\u00a0 It really depends on my legs, my heart, my stomach, the weather, and how much pixie dust exists in the universe on April 22nd.\u00a0 My goal is 5h30-6h but the real, ultimate goal is just getting across the line to hear my name called and my results counted.<\/p>\n Effort goal: I can pretty much keep up a 11:30\/min per mile clip forever on your average long day if it’s not STUPID hot.\u00a0 Sometimes this is best achieved by running an even 11:30\/mile pace.\u00a0 Sometimes it’s walking for a bit and then running 10 minute miles.\u00a0 I’ll be prepared for either.\u00a0 What it comes down to is that the more I concentrate on my form, the longer I can stave off that awful ache in my hammies\/glutes.\u00a0 So, I want to cruise as long as I can at an easy pace, and then decide if it’s kick ass, continue, walk\/run, walk, limp, or crawl the later parts.<\/p>\n The one thing I’m greatly looking forward to is this run will generally get COOLER, not warmer, like a half or a standalone marathon.\u00a0 So, I’ll have that to look forward to in the later miles.<\/p>\n Run special needs:<\/p>\n If the day goes right, I’ll get me another one of these that DOESN’T say 70.3 on it…<\/em><\/p>\n Finish Line:<\/p>\n If I execute solidly on what I expect that day, I’ll be rolling in about 15 hours, give or take.\u00a0 Hopefully at that point, I’ll be upright, smiling, and making silly faces.\u00a0 I’m rarely ever in bad shape at the end of races unless I’m overheating (which is unlikely here), but we’ll see, there’s a first time for everything.<\/p>\n Then… it depends.\u00a0 If Zliten is done or going to be a while, I will go start making a dent in the 7k calories that I will have lost.\u00a0 I hope there’s crappy pizza because crappy pizza is the BEST after a race.\u00a0 And also beer.\u00a0 There will be beer.\u00a0 If he’s close on my heels and I’m not ready to crime for a gatorade or plate of WHATEVER, I’ll wait and cheer him in.\u00a0 Making myself not fall down is priority #1.<\/p>\n I told Zliten I would do my best to do something with the bikes if I was first in and he was significantly behind me (and he would do the same), but we’ll see depending on the car situation or if there’s a shuttle to the hotel or whatever.\u00a0 Worst case, if we’re both done around midnight and completely wasted and can’t even, there’s always Uber XL or whatever to get us and our bikes and shit back to the hotel and we’ll figure out the car thing later.<\/p>\n Considering the late night options, it’s very likely that I’ll end up with something like this in my face after the race.<\/em><\/p>\n Food:<\/p>\n Here’s another place I feel like I need to be overprepared because I feel like I need super easy access to various types of food, and not have to count on dealing with humans to do it.<\/p>\n If we can people, some late night options in the area:<\/p>\n In case we can’t people, we’ll make sure to have a lot of food stored up at the hotel.<\/p>\n Luckily we have the whole next day to lounge and relax, and we’re not heading home until Monday.\u00a0 I’d love to hit up the Omega Grill and\/or possibly Willie’s Icehouse but also our hotel has free breakfast and there’s a IM lunch\/awards about a mile away (y’know, just in case a meteor hits the entire upper 75% of my age group and I’m first across the line, lol… just kidding.\u00a0 Free food.\u00a0 That’s the only reason.), and our hotel puts out a spread at 5-7pm and popcorn all afternoon and drinks and there’s other places within a mile so we may not do any of the things that involves getting in the car.<\/p>\n While a lot of this is indeed complete overthinking, we’re going into this with two athletes and no sherpa.\u00a0 Two first time Ironman hopefuls who have NO IDEA how to expect to feel after.\u00a0 I fully expect not to follow everything to the letter or have to type A the whole thing (just some things), but it’s like when I speak in public, I always write myself a full script JUST IN CASE I blank and all I can do is read from my paper.\u00a0 Here is the map and the plan, should I lose my mind and all I can do is follow along.<\/p>\n Save<\/span><\/p>\n\n
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