Thursday, June 2, 2011

Nervous Excitement, Peter Organics Winner

Nervous excitement, that is what I have today. It has been brewing all week. I am sure it will build further tomorrow. I really should take the day off work just to be focused. I know that sounds odd or like I have poor work ethic, but honestly when I get excited before a race I can't focus at work. Being at home lets me work out in the yard and get my mind off things. Being here in the office lets me obsess about details.

Wait, why am I excited? Three weeks ago I decided to change my race schedule to try to find more Sunday races in my series. This lets me work my part time and be able to afford some of my races. This Sunday, with only three weeks of thought going into it I have my first Olympic!

This will be my longest race to date. This will also be my first open water swim in a race.

Can you see why I might have nervous excitement. This is a big weekend for me. The upside is that it is not just general nervousness, but excitement.

The swim will be my biggest challenge. I have only done one open water swim, it was 4x100 and is sucked. That swim should be warmer as that swim was about 68 degrees and I was in a tri suit. My Sponsors at Synergy Sport have given me a great deal on a new wetsuit. I look forward to getting it today or tomorrow. It has a 5mm front and a 2 or 3mm back. This should help the shock of cold water as well as some extra buoyancy. The downside is that as I wrote the temp. above, I realized I should check the current temp. of the lake I will be swimming in. Yesterday's temp. was 86. Not only is that above, the cut off for awards, this is above the cut off for swimming with a wetsuit at all. Hopefully it will drop by then or my new suit will be moot and I will wish I had ordered a skinsuit instead (I almost did).

The next big question then becomes nutrition. During my long brick last week I combined gel every 45 minutes (I think) and water every 10. I will do this again. However, we decided to camp at the race site, it is a state park, so I am not sure how to do breakfast. I usually have toast, except I have no electric at the campsite and no toaster. After reading Jeff's race report and Mandy's race plan I am considering some sort of substitute like Ensure, paired with a sandwich. I am also considering taking something like an uncrustable on the bike, just in case I need a little extra.

Funny story- I wanted to stay at the same campground as the race site. I had to reserve a campsite and was scouring over all the course and park maps trying to figure out where would be closest to the race. After an hour of this, it hit me- screw closest to the race, at 0dark:30 I want to be closest to the shower!

Clearly, I have some directed nervousness at this point, I want it to get to race day so I can get it done, I want to be able say I've done it, move on to training for the USAT qualifier and have more confidence in my ability to do a 70.3 once I have this down. I have been discussing possibly doing REV3 in South Carolina with Cb, but it's a question of how to afford it. We are still working out the details for REDMAN as that will be an ORDEAL.

In the end, wet suit in transit, registered for race, campsite reserved, tonight after my workotu and working on my new project I will go into the attic to grab the tent and stuff.
Without further adue the winner of the Peter Rabit Organics fruit is Laima despite not letting me win her RoadID. Thank you everyone who entered.

I tallied the entries and assigned a number to each then I picked up the phone and called a coworker. Yelling into the phone I yeled quick, pick a number pbetween X and X, quick, fast now, now, now! She started crying because of my yelling and then picked a number. I then told her to HTFU and hung up. There you go- who needs a website for randomization!

Contact me at tucker_lr<@>yahoo.com so I can get your address to the company.

6 comments:

Karen said...

Have a great race! You are going to do great on the swim. Try to relax and not worry about it as much and you will find it is not as hard as you have made it out to be in your mind. ENJOY the day!

Patrick Mahoney said...

Here's my simple olympic distance nutrition plan - get it all done on the bike. 300 calories with about 20 mins left on the bike plus plenty of fluids (lo cal OK but electrolytes a must, so Nuun or something).

Drink after the swim in transition too. 86 degree water is going to take it's toll, be ready for it.

Laima said...

Yay - first bloggie giveaway win for me!

Good luck this weekend!

KovasP said...

Camping for races is fun - no travel in the morning!

LB said...

wow! you are excited, youre all over the place today! what race is this???? where are you getting water temp info?? i looked yesterday and it said 91??? hard to believe. i emailed the race director and he said to expect 70s. so im way confused.

Jason said...

86* is super hot for water so be sure to drink in T1 and then drink on the bike as well.

You will be on the bike approximately a little over an hour and you will need about 250 calories per hour so prepare yourself that way and be sure to get your electrolytes in on the bike as well.

I also carry a gel flask on the run with two GUs in it as well so they are liquified.

Put a cooler (small) with ice aand submerge your water flask and water bottles in them. Remember to take the bottle out of the cooler for the bike and then the flask for the run.