2 days until Race Day, and I feel fine...

Yes, it's true. 1) It is 2 days until race day and 2) that was a bad rip off of REM lyrics (you know, "it's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine... except race day isn't the end of the world. It's super cool!) I am getting excited. Not jittery like I was earlier in the week, but feeling like I'm ready for it and that I am looking forward to the race. Maybe it was that great swim I had yesterday and the wonderful bike ride I had this morning (more on those in a few moments). But I feel alive and ready to go!

Even my horoscope is excited about race day. It said, "Today can be best spent organizing your resources and cataloging your talents. It is likely you have specific goals you hope to achieve in the near future, and while you no doubt possess all you need to move forward, you may be unsure as to how to begin (I think this is in reference to packing and getting my home/personal errands taken care of so I can be prepared for the big day). Streamlining your plans can help you better understand the rigors you will eventually face as you pursue your purpose. Accounting for every possibility will likely be impossible, but that should not stop you from preparing yourself as thoroughly as possible for the future. Whatever your dreams, the time you devote to preparations today can help you realize them." I generally like to read my horoscope more for fun than for guidance or direction, and I usually read it at the end of the day to see if it came true (so as to not predispose my mind a certain way). But today, I read it in the morning and I have to say, it's good advice and it's definitely about race day.

So my goal today is to get ready: house, family, errands, laundry, packing (for me, the dog, and if time allows, for , visualization, the whole 9 yards. No extraneous activities (other than work). Just sheer focus and streamlined purpose. A "to do list" is involved, of course... as well as the red pen to cross the items off when complete. For those of my readers who know me personally as well as through the blogosphere, this is (of course) no surprise. Dear Bill once said that I have to do lists for my to do lists.

So far this morning I had a wonderful bike ride with some of the TNT team members. The 14 miles felt good - even the hills were easy. Of course, I was riding easier on purpose as well, but still. I felt great! And after yesterday's swim where I was like a torpedo with great arm strokes (my reach and body rotation was absolutely beauty in motion, if I do say so myself) and body positioning making my 1400 meters seem like nothing, I feel completely on fire. (I was so fast, I left my own personal wake.) I feel like every fiber of my being is ready for this experience and that now I just have to carry this through tomorrow (a training day off), the travel down, and the experience of the weekend. And I think if I follow my horoscope's advice today I can be successful in doing just that.

What makes me even happier is that I raised $4,650 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in my dear Angela's memory. I know she would be pleased and that I have done something to help others with cancer and to help bankroll a cure (along with other funds raised of course). Even better is that our team raised almost $38,000, and our team is just one of many from across the country raising money for this race or for other races like it. If just one dollar I raised helps find a cure or helps a family struggling with cancer treatments, etc., I have done exactly what I set out to do.

And I will most likely do Team in Training again. It has been the experience of a lifetime on a multitude of levels - emotionally it helped me deal with Angela's death and not feel like a victim of her cancer diagnosis, spiritually it let me see the big picture of how Angela affected all that she knew and how I could pass good from the bad forward, physically it helped me tone up, rediscover a little of that competitive nature while allowing myself to accept not being the best at something and being ok with that, drop 2 dress sizes, get into physical shape, and find something that I love and am passionate about doing.

Carrying all this with me helps me with that streamlined purpose my horoscope suggests and that fire that I feel. So far today, I've gotten boarding for the dog set up (although I have on my list to find her shot records for the new vet), a call into have my prescriptions refilled so I can pick them up this afternoon, my bike computer is installed and functional (although in km instead of miles - but I can read the manual and adjust this), and I have laundry in the wash. Bill and I decided that he is going to drive back Sunday afternoon with the girls but that I will accept the ride from my coach back home on Monday so I can stay and celebrate with the team, and my coach told me the space in her car that she offered me is definitely reserved for me. (I feel a little guilty about this because Bill will be in the car for 4 hours alone with A&M, but he assures me that he is more than happy about it and wants me to enjoy celebrating the achievement I've worked so hard for the past weeks.)

This afternoon, the cleaning people are coming to clean the house, and I will pick up my prescriptions, purchase a fine tip sharpie, pull all my gear and other items together and pack it all up. And even better, the yard man just showed up to mow. I just love it when all is right in the universe!

There's something about a good swim...

There is something about a good swim that is completely cleansing and cathartic. Others may have a different way for mental cleansing - whatever that activity is, it is such a blessing when it arrives.

I did not want to get out of bed this morning to schlep my self and my stuff down to the gym. I wanted sleep. It was to the point that I stayed in bed without eating my breakfast because my brain (working on its own dark purposes) remembered that Joe Friel says that if you can't make it up for breakfast for an early morning workout you can either drink a bottle of your favorite sports drink or eat 2 gel packs and 12 oz. of water 10 minutes before warming up. (He prefers you eat breakfast, but says its better than hitting a workout without some sort of fuel for it.) Of course, his definition of early morning was more around 5 am but for my purposes this morning it was 7:15 am when I hit the pool. My Gatorade was ingested on my commute when 10 minutes from the gym. I couldn't fall asleep last night until midnight despite being completely exhausted, and this was my "reward."

But somehow I found the way to get myself in gear and hit the pool. And I am all the better for it. (For some reason that just reminded me of Robert Frost, "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. " Anyhow.)

I think I mentioned that I didn't make it to Monday night's group swim but that I had done the workout for today on Tuesday. So, I didn't really feel like doing the same swim workout again and devised my own. I did a 400 warm up that was really 4x100 but with only a break long enough to switch out gear. It was a 100 swim, 100 kick, 100 pull, 100 swim consecutively. Then I did a nice 800 (32 lengths of the 25 yd pool), a cool 1/2 mile. Then a 100, 200, 100, and a 100 cool down. The 800 was truly cathartic . Focusing on my stroke, the sound of my breathing in and the continuous exhale into the water before I breathed again, the sound of the water as it changed with the stroke change each time I breathed, the counting of laps... which I do in sets of 8 (I counted to 8, 4 separate times but without stopping). I have no idea where counting in 8's came from but it's my number of choice while swimming laps. The idea of being lost in my swim... counting to 8 in sets lets me know when to stop, but otherwise it is as though I'm adrift and apart from all else that is in this world. Poetry in movement. An interpretive dance where arms and legs move and torso sways and somehow the stress and grime of daily life floats away... if only for the length of the swim.