I’m sure you’ve heard it before… TWO nights before the race is the most critical time for getting good sleep. Be it that I’m racing TOMORROW, I wanted to make sure last night was extra solid. The following precautions were taken:

• I OD’ed on Hershey’s Special Dark Pieces. And that’s coming from a chick who really doesn’t enjoy chocolate. The question is… why did I buy the bag in the first place? And… bag? Yes. The whole bag. My bad.
• Because my body was so busy digesting a whole bag of said pieces, I was hotter than a mo-fo. And I’m pretty sure they contain a hidden diuretic, because I was up to pee like 3 times.
• My sister texted me at 6:20 am (which for her benefit was 7:20 her time). She was excited about something at work. I’m excited for ya chica, but I promise, I’d be more excited in a couple of hours.
• My neighbor decided to mow the lawn at 6:43. I suppose he wanted to get it  done before the rain came? It’s 10:19… it’s still not raining buddy.
• My mom called me at 7:20 asking if I wanted to run this morning. I love running with you mamacita. I would wake up at 5am and run an out and back to the Panama Canal with you. But tomorrow is a special day….

7 straight servings of crack.

I would estimate a total of somewhere between 5 and 6 hours. We can call it semi-solid. Some of the worlds greatest  creations are found in a semi-solid state – delicious sorbet from Sebastian Joe’s, imitation crab meat, and mother nature’s tubby baby: watermelon. Unfortunately, I do not think pre-race sleep makes that list.

Also not invited to join the world’s greatest semi-solids list is your pre-race mentality. But I’ll be straight with you – that’s where mine is at. All day yesterday, I was just mentally fried. On edge, tense, and I couldn’t make decisions about a damn-thing. Several things are contributing to my less-than-stellar feelings about tomorrow’s Manitou Tri, but instead of bringing myself down, I’m going to [try to] focus on the positives:

• Official results were posted from last weekend’s New Bri Tri. I found out that of the four girls who finished ahead of me in my AG, I had a faster run than all of them, and a faster swim than three of the four. My average swim pace was 1:41 per 100, and my average BIKE pace was 20.0 mph. 5th or not, I was pumped seeing those times. If you’ve been reading regularly, you might know that my bike times were frustrating the heck outta me because they just weren’t getting any faster. Obviously “fast” is relative, because for some people 20 mph is their cruisin’ speed, but I was happy with it. And 1:41 pace in the water? Given that it was a stretch for me to even call swimming “sporadic”, I’ll take it!
• I’ve run races in much less favorable [sick, injured, sleep-deprived, post-surgery] conditions.
• The forecast for tomorrow is pretty darn near ideal for racing.
• I’m over whatever germ infestation hit me last week.
• I get to spend the entire day with feet up, ♪ chillin out maxin, relaxin all cool ♪, with family at my cousin’s graduation party.

Good lookin’

Feet aren’t up quite yet though. I am currently mid-stride in a little shake-out // pre-race workout. I may or may not have felt several Special Dark Pieces pop out of my pores. Then a little core. THEN the feet go up. Maybe I can even sleep a little in the car on the drive up….! Although truthfully, that aint gonna happen. My mom and I are way to chatty for any Zzzs to be attained.

Leavin’ you here kids. I’m feeling slightly more towards the solid end of the spectrum than when I first started writing this. I hope all my teammates and buddies who raced LIBERTY today had a blast, and good luck to anyone and everyone racing tomorrow!! Once again, I’ll be donning my Peace Coffee Racing kit. If you see me out there, say hello! Catch ya’ on the other side.

-E

Tags: race, tri | Category Uncategorized