I think I might faint

I don't remember ever being this nervous for anything. This is the feeling I had 2 seconds before I got my nose pierced for the second time. 2 seconds before your nose is pierced for the second time, the piercer (who has more tattoos than clear skin, some kind of weird shaving pattern on his/her head, and about 32 man-made holes in his/her head) is holding a needle as thick as a pencil up to your face, the piercer's perforated face is 4 inches from yours and s/he's lining up the sharp end of that needle on the little dot s/he's drawn on your skin and suddenly you realize, "This lunatic, who is probably a junky, is about to IMPALE part of my body with that gigantic needle." Then you remember how much it hurt the first time, and that even after they pierce you, they still have to put the jewlery into the wound, which hurts even more. And if you're a sane person, no matter how calm you look, you're still pretty damned nervous, because you just paid $80 to get stabbed in the face. You wonder what the hell you were thinking, and you'd be crazy not to want to back out. I feel like that. Normally my resting heartrate is in the high 50's in the morning and around 70 while I'm sitting around doing stuff. Yesterday in the car driving (after a day of inactivity), my heartrate was 90! That's how nervous I am.

To prepare for this race I have swum 227,591 yards, biked 2,059.6 miles, rode 99 hours, 20 minutes and 15 seconds on the trainer, and run 782.2 miles since November 11 (when I started my log). But still I don't feel ready! I could probably count on 2 hands the number of times I've run off the bike. I've only run off the bike on exactly 4 rides longer than 50 miles, and only twice was the run more than a mile. I haven't run more than 13 miles since April. I've swum 4000 yards at a stretch twice all year. I've done nothing to practice my nutrition... Was my taper enough? Was it too much? I don't know.

Yesterday I went back to the time trial. My legs had felt like trash all week. Since I tend to perform better towards the end of the week than the beginning, I figured that moving them for half an hour would be just what I needed. Cunt on a Pink Bike wasn't there, but her husband was. With my bike in perfect working order I only went 5 seconds faster. I couldn't believe it! Given, I think I paced it wrong, and felt like I was going to puke for the whole second half. If the 220 minus your age rule of thumb is really true, then I reached 96% of my MHR (187 bpm), and averaged 94% (183 bpm).

While I'm gone, feel free to catch up on the AIDS LifeCycle reports (I've posted Day 6 below; it's a long one, I apologize). I don't know if there's an athlete tracker function, but feel free to check (if you know my last name!). This blog is a tremendous motivator to not suck ass in races, so I figure that if I put my race plan up, it will not only give me a chance to collect my thoughts, but will also give me something to hold myself accountable. Feel free to comment/criticize. I'm sure all of it will go flying out the window when the gun goes off anyway.

Pre-race I will focus on the little things: Getting coffee, finding a bathroom, getting my wetsuit on, peeing in my wetsuit, etc. I will try not to think about what I'm about to do.

In the swim I plan to start nearer to the front and inside than usual. That way I will get swum OVER rather than swimming head-on into feet. If I find feet, I will follow them. If I don't I will concentrate on keeping my head down, my catch, and not swimming off course. I have no idea about pacing but I expect to swim between 1:03 and 1:10 (I know that's a huge gap, I have no idea how fast I swim in open water!).

In T1 I will put on sunscreen, cycling shoes, socks, helmet, and glasses in that order, put an extra bag of nutrition in my pocket, look around for all my shit, stuff it in my transition bag, and hightail it out of there.

I will not eat anything for the first 20 minutes of the bike and concentrate on settling into a rhythm. Once those 20 minutes are up, I will start eating every 20 minutes and draining a bottle every 45 minutes. I am going to try to hold an average of above 20 mph, but if it's not happening, I'm not going to worry about it. My race is going to happen on the bike, so I'm going to concentrate on keeping my effort at an even 75% from mile 10 to mile 105. The last 7 miles will be about loosening up my legs. I hope to go around 5:30 on the bike, but will certainly be done in around 6 hours.

I plan to do a flying shoeless dismount into transition. I will put on my shoes (with lace locks), visor, and race belt, and run out of transition with my run bottle (empty with drink powder already in it) and transition bag in-hand. I'll drop the bag at the first available bush or tree, and fill up the water bottle at the 1 mile aid station, while I'm still getting my legs.

I have no idea what pace I'll run, but I'm going to try to keep it between 9 and 10 minute/miles and just focus on form rather than distance. We must have sexy photos, you know! There's an aid station every mile with blocks, pretzels, and snacks, so I'll just do my nutrition on the fly. I'll take it easy until mile 18, and see how I feel from there. Really, the marathon is a big, black hole in my imagination. We all know that I hate running, I hate marathons, and I hate running in a triathlon. So it would follow that running a marathon at the end of a triathlon will be the most painful, unpleasant experience of my life. My only expectation is to finish the marathon. I hope to do it running. If I break 5:00 I'll be happy. If I break 4:30 I'll be ecstatic.

Stay tuned, because depending on whether I get Shane's permission or not, I might put up his cell phone number for you to text messages of support. Please, no "you're doing great" stuff. Please send things that will get me fired up, like, "I bet you can't do it!", "You're a winner just for finishing!", "I'll be so mad at you if you don't beat Bobby's time!", etc.