the surreal life

I have had some time to ponder about my experiences at training camp. The bike course is hard. I must admit it put some fear in me. Not fear that I can't do it (I know I can do it), but fear that I won't do as well as I would like. I think I am going to have to add some time onto my (secret) time goal in order to make it realistic.

On a positive note, I am not worried AT ALL about my 70.3 in Tupper Lake in a couple days. The entire half IM is going to take less time than 2 loops of IMLP bike course. I am going to go to Lake Placid the day after Tinman and ride a loop of the bike course again. I would do 2 loops, but I have to work Sunday night and just don't have enough time. I think I will have some company for the ride - another Rochester triathlete that is also doing Tinman. It was actually his idea, but after riding the course and discovering its challenges, I want to see it again! I want to learn everything there is to know about that course so I have no surprises on race day.

Training camp was kind of surreal. I felt like I was lifted out of my life and plunked down in the mountains where my only purpose was to train. Even though I was only there for 3 days, coming back to my job, my messy apartment, and my responsibilities kind of sucks!

Ironman is 4.5 weeks away.

I am in a weird mood today. I slept for most of the day. I was basically a zombie at work last night. Thank god we didn't have anything challenging to do. I was nauseous, exhausted, and by the morning I had the shakes and probably couldn't have told you my own name. Even so, I somehow managed to run a spectrophotometer test on a sample (which I had to do a double dilution for) and ended up with 0% error between the 2 replicates. Although last week I was well rested and working days and I tried to clean the screen of my calculator with acetone and melted the top layer of the plastic screen - so I guess I do dumb things when I shouldn't and I do quality work when I'm 75% dead.

When I finally got home at 7:30 am, I took sleeping pills (I know, bad idea). I just couldn't face the thought of ANOTHER bad sleep considering I barely slept at training camp. I basically slept from 8 - 2:30, dragged myself to DiBella's to get a really early dinner, and then slept from 6:30 - 9:00, only to have to get ready for work again.

Thinking about training camp makes me smile. :)