Hawaii race plan

The day before a race is NOT my favorite kind of day and today has been no different...however, spending a day of escalation in Hawaii doesn't exactly suck. Today there has been a lot of lounging around...and I even turned on the TV at one point (French Open) when I was at a loss for sedentary activity (at least watching Serena running around was better than nothing). The 4 of us (Karen, Duncan, Julie, and me) also biked down to Hapuna to check in our bikes & helmets. This was a 30 minute/7 mile easy spin...well, easy except for the big fat gale force wind that was blowing us all over the road. I'm not sure if it's good or bad to have THAT in my head going into tomorrow, but I think it was probably good to spin a bit and get a handle on staying aero in the wind.

So it appears that I haven't done a race plan for tomorrow yet... I just looked at my race report from Osoyoos last July since that's the only 70.3 distance race I've ever done. I haven't been biking as much yet this year and, for whatever reason, I'm not feeling as confident as (a) I did last summer and, (b) as I'd like. Plus, we just came from the (totally worthless) "mandatory athlete meeting," where I had the mandatory pleasure of sizing up the field and more of their bikes...which was damn impressive and intimidating, as usual. Karen and I did meet a guy, though, who did an Ironman 25 years ago and this is his first race since then. He also was diagnosed with lymphoma and had just come from a hospital/treatment and will assess in the morning whether or not to do the race at all...gives a little perspective.

So, regardless of how lousy and heavy my legs felt today, I am looking forward to getting out there. Taking into account the wind, heat, and early season, my super stretch goal time is about 6 hours. My time in Osoyoos was 6:19, so the idea of going faster than that is certainly a stretch. 35ish minutes in the swim, 3:30ish on the bike, and 2:00ish on the run would be great.

So, today, while I was poolside, I read one of the Tri magazines that actually had some good reminders and I decided to work on some mental training tomorrow (as recommended by Mark Allen, the guy obviously knows a few things). Of the 10 tips he gave, there were a few worthy of focusing on tomorrow:

1. Keep your mind quiet. OK, joke. Nevermind, we all know that one is unattainable for me. I'll continue reading "The Power of Now," which I left in Seattle, when I get home. NEXT.
2. Suspend judgment. I can work with this one...his advice is to let go of labelling each segment of the race (i.e. "I'm feeling good," "I'm going too slow," etc.). You don't have to feel good to have a good race. Hm. Let it go, don't spend energy assessing every single thing.
3. Break it down. I already do this, just a good reminder. Chop things up, especially the run. Yesterday when I did my short run, I was thinking that it was a quarter of the run distance and pretty painless...If I have to just make it to the next aid station, so be it.
4. Stay Calm. Another good reminder. I re-read one of my mantras from last summer that worked great. It was "calm and efficient," especially in transitions and whenever it's possible to get rattled.
5. There is no such thing as the perfect race. But you can race your race perfectly and deal with things as they come up (including feeling like crap and solving unexpected problems that inevitably arise).
6. Race with gratitude. Tatyana reminded me of this recently when she said that if/when I feel like crap out there, just remember I'm feeling like crap IN HAWAII. Good point. I am healthy, I am on a great Hawaiian vacation with really fun people, and...after meeting that guy today who had just come from the hospital, it seems my life is pretty damn good. Hopefully, it'll be good WITH a time of about 6 hours tomorrow, but I think it'll still be good regardless.

Is it time to start yet?