My Mantra

I am awesome! I can fly!

I am gonna rock this tri!

I have been feeling like crap most of this week. I've been super tired and really dragged out and just didn't feel up to working out at all. Yesterday was the worst day. I had had a late night the night before and I felt exhausted all day. I was starting to worry that I'd never feel good enough to race on Sunday. Finally, I had a nap in the afternoon and when I got up, I decided to just go for an easy ride to clear my head. Erik and rode down Lakeshore and back and I felt great! My legs felt strong and felt good on the hills. It was a nice 20km ride that totally rejuvenated me.

Then last night I remembered I had a set of Eli Bay relaxation CD's that I bought about 7-8 years ago. I got them mainly for relaxation and help with falling asleep but one of them is about visualization and it's called Maximizing Performance. Given that I'm just a tad prone to nervousness (LOL) I thought it might be helpful to start listening to the CD to help relax me and fill me with positive thoughts. I really enjoyed it and had no trouble falling asleep afterward.

So I had a GREAT sleep last night and woke up feeling better than I've felt in a week. After coffee, Erik and I got on our bikes for a ride before the temps got too hot. We rode easy downtown and then rode one lap of the tri route, with a focus mainly on any smooth shifting and thinking through any trouble spots. I got up Knox in 2 minutes flat without killing myself, and then I rode fairly easy for awhile. I hit the hill on Glenmore hard and kept a pace of about 30-35 kmh the whole way up which was much better than last time. I didn't ride very hard the rest of the route and still managed a time of 22 minutes overall. It'll be so nice to ride that route without the lights and stop signs on Sunday.

On our way home, we stopped at Fresh Air Experience and Chris checked my bike over for me and then we rode home easy. All the way home, I began to chant the mantra above that made me feel strong and empowered. I am going to use it throughout the race I think.

(I was joking with a friend that I had a different swim mantra - "I am not scared. I won't die. I am gonna survive this tri" - haha)

Anyway, as soon as I got home, I ran a one km lap around the block to see how my legs felt. My shins hurt a bit so I didn't push it but they weren't too bad and I did 6:00 km. I can live with that. I won't run again until Sunday. I am just going to stretch and ice and massage as much as I can between now and then. I will go for another swim or two this week but if I ride again, it'll be easy.

From here on, I'll just take it easy, rest, stretch, do yoga, eat well, drink water. Tomorrow I will pick up my race package and Friday we'll go down to the site to see how things looks. Saturday will be pretty busy with the practice swim, the pre-race meeting, and dropping my bike off. I hope to hit the sack by 9pm so I can feel relatively alive in the morning.

The tri top I ordered finally arrived but alas it doesn't fit so I'm going to wear my back up - the pink Sugoi Fizz tank. It's way too girly-pink for me, but what can you do? I have nothing else that comes even close to matching my tri shorts so I'll have to live with people thinking I'm a girly-girl. Haha. Here's what I'm wearing.




Erik's been great this week, keeping me calm and giving me lots of support. The girls are going to come down and watch me on Sunday and I'm hoping that one of them will bring Jesse down too. My mom will be out of town but I'm going to call her as soon as I'm done and let her know how it all turned out. I've had so much support and good wishes from all of my friends, IRL and online, it's made a HUGE difference! Thank you to all of you who have sent emails, posted comments on my blog, (or posted threads on forums - Paul :) ) I could not have done it without all of you encouraging me and telling me I could do it.

I hope I don't let you down on Sunday but I'm sure I am gonna rock this tri!!!

Right?

I'll post my race report as soon as I get home on Sunday afternoon but I'll update twitter from the race site so keep any eye on the feed if you want to know sooner. :)

Thanks again everyone!!!!

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Thursday morning - just adding a bit more to this post. Here's course info and stats.

This is the 26th Annual Pushor Mitchell Apple Triathlon and it's a

» Qualifier for the 2009 Gold Coast ITU BG World Triathlon Championships in Australia: 10 AG spots in both Sprint and Olympic distances available
National Teams - How to Qualify (English) and National Teams - How to Qualify (Francais)

» Prizes: $25,000 for the Canadian National Championships and $10,000 for the ITU Kelowna Pan American Premium Cup (see Prizes Page for details)

Main Events

Friday - Aquathon - FINA 1.5km open water swim
Saturday - Try-a-Tri, Kids of Steel Triathlon, Junior Elites Triathlon, FINA 5km open water swim
Sunday - Sprint and Olympic distance Age Groupers and later, the Elite race

As of today, there are 963 Sunday participants registered online.

5km Aquathon - 15 swimmers
Olympic tri - 694 athletes
Sprint tri - 232 athletes
Sprint tri - 123 women
Sprint tri -11 women in the 45-49 age group

Here are the race routes.

Swim

Bike 2 laps

Elevation Profile in meters (1 meter = 39" or 1 yd + 3")

Run - yay it's flat but watch out for that boardwalk and the stairs...



Stats and Data ('cos I love 'em!)
The range of times for women in the sprint last year were:

There were 70 female entrants in the sprint last year.

1st overall - 1:15:18 - 13:32/37:10/22:11
Last overall - 2:20:26 27:36/52:50/45:11

1/5 in my 45-49 age group was 40th overall - 1:37:09 19:08/43:03/29:16

5th overall last year is in my AG this year (uh/oh)
Her times were: 1:21:55 15:52/37:49/25:26 (wow!!)

My estimated swim time of under 20 minutes would put me about 50/70 for the swim.
My estimated bike time of 40 minutes would put me about 13/70 for the bike.
My overly optimistic run time of 28 minutes would put me about 18/70 for the run.
My estimated T1/2 time of 4 minutes would put me about 18/70 for T1 and T2.

Of course, that was all last year. 2008 is a new year, new people, and more of them.

Interesting to look at the stats though. :)