Ironman Austria is only a week away. It’s been an easier path (thankfully) to ironman this year. I think my body is adapting to this type of stress which makes training more interesting.
I have discovered that I do not need to do as much training as previously thought. Rather, the multiple years of training, as well as cross-training effects between the 3 sports, has allowed me to focus on building strength and speed and endurance second, as endurance comes much faster and easier than strength and speed.
I hope for great weather and not super-hot weather. I hope that my IT band doesn’t act up as I just put on compact cranks on my bike and the extra revolutions have aggravated it somewhat. And I hope for a banner run off the bike.
This year, I am much more relaxed. I had more “Ironman Paranoia” last year and was always wondering if I did enough to get me to the finish line. I know I put in the training this year, and have great confidence that I will make it to the finish line one way or another.
The reasons for Ironman have not changed. It is still a journey for me to see how fast I can go. It is also accomplishment based; to finish Ironman is to do something only a fraction of the world’s population can do. My motivation is still high and I enjoy learning about my body and my mind, and what both can do separately and together.
I head out from LA to Heathrow on Tuesday night, and then to Vienna, and take a twin prop to Klagenfurt, arriving on Wednesday night.
The site is Ironman Austria and on race day, you can track me at Ironman Live right on the web. For all you west coast-ers, by the time you get up in the morning, I should be on the marathon. If you log-on and see that I have not made it yet to the run, start worrying….just kidding – remember my motivation? I will be making it to the finish line even if I have to crawl. So no worrying…heh.