17 Days and Counting

This morning started with an open water swim at Lucky's Lake. In my new wetsuit.  Coach said "you have to go try it out."  And so I did.  Of course, I had to use the restroom first so I rushed to put it on and get in the water because everyone was starting.  Um. Yeah.  You can't "rush" putting on a wetsuit.  I ended up with extra material behind my knee and the crotch of the suit being 3" below my actual crotch.  Yet I swam in it. Yup. Sure did. 

After the 1st length of Lucky's (500m although probably farther since I was having a hard time sighting in the dark - the sun is no longer up at 7:00 am), I stood on the other side and readjusted.  Better.  Back across the lake, I tried stretching out the neck a little.  It felt like the whole swim I was concentrated on the feeling of pressure on my adam's apple (or is it an Eve's apple since I'm female...).  The 3rd leg was better, more comfortable but I realized that I wasn't really kicking.  I guess the fact that I was so bouyant without having to kick made me subconsciously think that I didn't have to kick (aka to keep myself afloat and moving).  After a final adjustment of the neck of the wetsuit, the last leg back to start was the best.  I didn't feel like I was choking or like the suit was trying to make me shorter, and I was using my legs (although I probably could have used them more) and focusing on a nice stroke.

Taking the wet suit off was easy as pie. 1-2-3 and off!  If only I could get it on that way.  I didn't push myself overly hard on the swim today because I just wanted to get used to that wet suit.  If I had adjusted to it a little easier, I would have pushed to see how fast I could go.  As it was, it only took 48 minutes for the 2000m swim including all the stopping at the other end to adjust my wetsuit and check in with Training Buddy (who was also testing out his new wetsuit), rinsing off the wet suits, gathering our stuff and then wandering up to the car.  I would say that we took about 3 minutes at each end of the lake, and then it probably took about 5 minutes to wash down our wetsuits and walk to the car (leaving us at around 31 minutes for the swim). Not too shabby.

As we were leaving Lucky's Training Buddy told me about how he's decided to get a new bike and that now all of his mental imaging of race day was going to have to replace him from being on a red bike to being on a blue bike.  I said, "I'm impressed that you're already doing that.  I really need to get started on that too." And he looked at me like I had 3 heads and said "Race Day is ONLY 2 1/2 weeks away."

That's when it hit me.  Race Day is 17 days away... and counting.  That's really not all that far away... especially with all of the things that I have going on with Mr. Darcy's birthday and the weekend at Mr. Darcy's parents, then leaving for Arizona with work, followed by a work trip to DC, and then the race!  AY CARAMBA!

So I will start visualizing race day going very smoothly.  I'll also visualize crazy things happening and how I'll fix them - I always do that one at least once and follow it with the visualization of everything going smoothly. 

As for my 70.3 Ironman Augusta goals, I'm pretty sure I've said them before, but here they are again in order of descending importance: A) Finish in 7:48:34, in an upright position with a smile on my face.  (I'd love to finish in a shorter time than that, but I'm trying to be realistic in my goal setting. This is my very first 70.3 Ironman afterall.) B) Finish within the time allowed by the race officials, in an upright position with a smile on my face.  C) Finish within the time allowed in an upright position. D) Finish within the required time.  I want that shiny finisher's medal!!!!

This afternoon is the girls' first soccer practice.  It should be a hoot.  They wore dresses to school, so I'm going to have to get them changed into shorts and t-shirts, those cute little shin guard socks (Angelfish and Ladybug are so small that they don't make shin guards their size.), their tiny little soccer shoes, and their soccer balls.  They say they're excited, but I think I'm looking forward to seeing them all decked out and running around like silly things on the field.  I'm thinking there will be photos tomorrow...

Tomorrow is Mr. Darcy's birthday so I'll be moving my 35 mile bike to Friday so that I can be home with him and the girls in the morning.  Another swim thus is on the schedule for tomorrow. 

17 Days and Counting... at this time 17 days from now (it's about 4 hours and 40 minutes after my approximate wave start), I hope to be finished with the swim and the bike leg and on the run.  But first, to continue to train and prepare for the next 17 Days of life and triathlon!