On Making Do

Just a little over a week to go until triathlon #2. I had big goals for this week, big expectations for myself. I was going to put the pedal down and push hard going into taper week. I felt minimally trained for my first triathlon of the season - I wanted to feel totally prepared for the second. Sure. Whatever.

I had a great 11 or 12 day string of workouts, a rest day Monday, then planned to be right back at it Tuesday. Except I had a pretty nasty bout of insomnia. And there was a thunderstorm that brought Amelia to our bed around 2:30pm, Ava following around 4:00am. When my alarm went off Tuesday morning I kept telling myself, 'get up, get up, you're going to be tired anyway, get your workout in.' I didn't. BUT I made it to Spinning over the noon hour. Better than nothing, right.

Wednesday morning I had a pretty decent swim. A little over 1000 meters.

This morning was, rightly, John's turn. So I headed to the gym over the noon hour with the intention of going to Spinning again. Except the instructor didn't show up. I got busy congratulating myself for having packed both my bike cleats AND my running shoes and went to the locker room to switch shoes. It was a beautiful day - not a cloud in the sky, low 80's and I just couldn't bear the thought of running on the treadmill. I headed out the front door to run through Downtown Des Moines.

I started the run thinking how great it would be. A change of scene! Run through the sculpture park! This is going to be great! Except the sun was hot, I was hot, I am not used to running at that time of day at all. I ran 3, it felt like 8, I was S.L.O.W. and it took me until 3:00pm to get cooled down.

Why do runs (or workouts in general) like that shake my confidence so much? Why am I left feeling like I am going to tank this race? That I am ill prepared? By far my biggest challenge in all of this is mental. Breaking it down further, my biggest challenge is to stay focused on running my own race. I can only do what I can do. I can prepare as much as I can in the context of my life. I need to enjoy myself, I need to enjoy the challenge, I need push myself and then I need to celebrate the accomplishment that is getting myself to the starting line.