This past Saturday marked the both the pinnacle of my summer from a training perspective and also (sadly) the end of summer. For the past four years the Lake Norman Triathlon has been the big event that kind of caps off the summer - after this race all the pressure to train and get out there in the early morning hours is gone. To be honest, it kind of makes me sad. I enjoy having the looming race dangling out there as a carrot to get me out of bed in the morning and to be outside while most people are still sleeping and TOTALLY enjoy the first fruits of the day. It really represents my "coffee." If I don't get a workout done before work I am cranky and ill tempered. I enjoy my day SO much more if I can get out in the AM.
This year was a really different from last year from a training perspective. Last year I had a Half Iron Man race in mid-September that was the main event I was training for starting in January. This year with the arrival of the Bransonator, it was a really casual summer of training with significantly reduced training volume. I only squeezed in about 106 miles of running spanning 14 hours and 467 miles of cycling spanning 26 hours. My swim training was hardly worth measuring - but the cool thing was that all the technique work I did during the winter paid off. My swim time was not bad considering I did not train hardly at all...it still represents my weakest triathlon discipline. If only I had swum in High School!!!!
This was the first race that I literally had no stress/anxiety about. I was not up the night before the race thinking through my race and nutrition strategies and I didn't have any butterflies in my stomach. I enjoyed being so at ease this year but to be honest I also missed the anxiety a little bit...there are so few things left in life where you get super jazzed about something and you re-visit those "butterfly" moments. I also know myself better and how to prepare for something like this - with a spreadsheet checklist of course! I perfected my triathlon checklist last summer for the Duke Liver Center 1/2 Iron Man and I pulled it out again for Saturday's race. As I scratched each item off my list I felt more and more at ease :)
Race morning was much less intimidating than previous years. I know the venue so well. I know the race routine so well. There just are not that many surprises left - it is a known entity. It really let me focus on the efforts expended during the stages of the race and I TOTALLY enjoyed pulling out all the stops and blasting through the course at race pace. It is impossible to simulate the race motivation during training - you can't push your body that hard until you are in the race event...and then it is just plain FUN!! I am sore today - but it is a good sore :)
One of the most impressive things about the race was the dedication my wife had to getting there with 3 kids, 1 camera, and 1 video camera by 7:15 AM. That is probably a more significant achievement than running the race!! And as always, Bruce and Lynn were there to cheer me on like they are every year. Thanks to my cheering squad!!
Enjoy the short slideshow/video. Enjoy the AC/DC....not sure why I picked that song...
VIDEO
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