The song from that commercial is playing in your head right now, isn’t it?  You are welcome.

I can’t believe my first Olympic distance tri is less than one week away!  I remember signing up for it just before my second sprint distance race.  I’m really glad I signed up for it before that race and not after.  What a disaster that one was.  Of course hind sight is 20/20 as they say.  While I think from a fitness perspective I was ready for it, from a mental perspective, I was completely unprepared.  Part of me gained a little confidence that I could finish the race because I had done so once already.  Of course the swim was my biggest challenge and I told myself that I knew what to expect so it should be much easier and I left it at that.  I hadn’t really considered the fact that every single race is different, every day is different!

We can have the exact same routine day in and day out, but while the routine may be the same we are not.  I can wake up feeling amazing and refreshed, ready to take on the world one day, and awake feeling like a blob of blah the next.  I know that I’m not alone in that, it seems to be human nature.  To expect that the result of one race will predict that of another is a rookie move.  Yes, you can use trends to predict certain aspects of performance, but one does not constitute a trend.  I also realize now that I was having a hard time and never really acknowledged that.  I was dreading this race.  I had just come off a week of vacation, which should sound resting but we all know that while it’s a break away from the 9-5, it’s not really a relaxing vacation most of the time.  I had a really bad cold and I was just not into training.  I didn’t feel well physically or mentally.  In hindsight, it would have probably benefited me more to let that race go.  It’ was much harder, I think, to try to get myself out of the funk that race created, than it would have been to overcome that I just didn’t go.

In the months since the race I have been training harder, but not just in my physical training.  I have been doing some mental exercises as well.  I’m doing much better at putting a stop to negative thoughts as soon as it registers that I am having them, and I am always looking for that one small step that I can take to move forward.  Last week when I arrived at the pool, I did not want to go in.  I didn’t have any sense of dread, no gut feeling that something was awry.  I just didn’t want to go in.  My mind started to mess with me.  “Why bother going in?  There is nothing that is going to help at this point.  The race is soon and no training squeezed in these last two weeks is going to help the outcome.  What’s the point?”  I realized that the negative thoughts were starting to spiral and had to be stopped.  I took a second to reset and come up with a few super easy steps to move forward.  I told myself that I just needed to go to the locker room.  If I felt this against it at that point, I could leave.  When I got to the locker room, my new goal was to put on the swimsuit.  If I did that and still felt horrible, I could leave.  After that, it was to just get in the pool.  Then, just swim a hundred yards.  Allowing myself to have these small steps to move forward, always with the knowledge that after each I could bail if I wanted to, helped me get in and get it done.  I had one of the best swims that evening.  It was just my mind messing with me.

By now, everyone knows that I fear this whole thing.  I am scared when I swim in the open water.  I am scared of crashing on the bike and well, ok I guess I am not scared of the run.  So I am scared of two thirds of this thing, but I am comfortable with that now.  I used to waste time and energy beating myself up for it.  I’ve always heard that you have to conquer your fears, but it wasn’t until I acknowledged and embrace them, that I was able to move forward.  The fears are there, and they will be.  That’s ok, but they are just a part of that negative stream of thoughts.  I feel much more able to handle those this time around.

Unfortunately, my physical training isn’t as up to par these last two weeks as I would have liked it to be.  I realize that as I approach my third one of these, I have a bit of a pattern.  I feel a little burn out at the home stretch.  I don’t push as hard and I tend to miss one or two training sessions.  This blog has been the greatest gift to myself.  I looked back and realized this rough patch is a trend for me (if three can make a trend… I’m going with it).  As I get close I almost think that there is no point of pushing, my fitness level won’t change in a week.  If I don’t have what it takes, I won’t get it in the last few days of training and hey, it’s time to taper, right?  Then, when I struggle I can beat myself up and blame any failures on  how lazy I got at the end.  I see what I am doing to myself and now I can work to stop it.

This race is going to be hard, and definitely harder than the last two.  For those that don’t know, here are the differences: Sprint swim was 400 yards – this ‘OLY’ is about 1,093 yards; the bike was 10 miles – this one is 22; the run was a 5k and this one is a 10k.  I know it’s going to be hard, but things are different this time around.  I’m actually excited!  I don’t recall ever being truly excited before a tri.  Am I scared too? – heck yeah!  Am I nervous? – heck yeah!  Am I confident that I am going to succeed? – heck no!  Am I going to be blazing fast? – heck no!  But, I am confident that I will try my best and that I will not let fear make me quit.   So, the countdown is on!