~First of, holy cow I'm so proud of Armando! His swims still leaves a little something to be desired* so a no-wetsuit swim doesn't suit him as well, BUT he kept his head on straight and executed and even split the bike (4:58) then ran a 3:34 and missed beating that 10 hour mark by 5 SECONDS!?! It was a 17' PR which is super... but keep your fingers and toes crossed for a roll down b/c he was 11th and last year there were 9 Kona spots in his age group... 10:20 qualified last year in his age group so clearly those guys all raised the bar this year... looking at Ironman races across the board clearly the bar is being raised across the board so getting a Kona spot is no easy task these days. Crazy to think that 10 hours flat wouldn't qualify you...
~While I was out spinning this morning I had some thoughts about handling ourselves during race week... specifically about how to keep our heads on straight so when race day arrives we're confident... I say "we" but for this I'll just talk about me and what I did this week... I remember reading one time about how Simon Whitfield's coach would not let him see any of his data (pace, power, etc) when it got close to race time. That didn't make much sense to me at the time but I think this week I got it... I had a couple of key workouts that I wanted to nail but at the same time I didn't want to leave my race out there on the training day... so how to balance working as you need to in training without digging too hard and ending up flat on race day? You know what I did? I left my garmin at home. On Thursday I did ride with power b/c I had some numbers I wanted to hit but afterward I went running and made a choice to leave my garmin at home and do the run by feel instead of pace. Part of that was b/c I figured if I was running well I might just end up really blasting and digging super hard to see lower numbers than I even needed to (I know myself well enough now to know that I have no self control if it appears I'm running faster than I should be I don't just let that go... no, I milk it for all it's worth and end up full on racing myself in the workout and digging a little hole to crawl into for a few days.) But then it could actually go the other way where you're not running as fast as you feel like you should and then the race is in 3 days and OMG what if all that training was for naught and now the race is going to suck. See what happened there? Data we perceive as bad will mess with our heads and reduce our confidence level so no need to do that to yourself prior to race day. Best bet is to just give yourself enough information to allow yourself to feel confident without giving it too much info that could sway you too far up or down the scale. So today I used HR on the bike but not power... I just wanted to see that my HR was acting in a responsive way (and it was)... I didn't want to see power b/c if the numbers were good (and they would have been) I could totally see myself jamming through some crazy set trying to hit that elusive CP6' I've been missing every time I try... I guess the point I'm trying to make here is that when it gets close to race time and you're feeling peppy and ready to rumble, I've found that I can save myself from myself by taking away any pieces of electronic equipment that might give me data that might screw with my head. Instead, I trust that I'm doing the right work at the right intensity b/c it feels right and then when the gun goes off on race day you just go unleash all that you've had bottled up this week.
~And if my race totally sucks tomorrow then disregard all that crap I just wrote and go back to doing it your old way. ;)
~Moana is stoked to come watch me race tomorrow. She helped me put my temporary tattoo numbers on this afternoon (she's a pro at those!) and she put the sticker on my helmet and my bike and put all the stuff I wanted in a crate for my car... good little helper! Having her at races gets more and more fun every year. She's planning on brining her pom pom and her cowbell down to the race so if you're there, you probably won't be able to miss her.
~Ok my wave goes off at 5:45AM tomorrow so Ambien is taking me away at the moment... But before I go... check this out. Real bugs drink Porter. (Hawaii grows real bugs.)
*Don't worry I'm on it.
2 comments:
ACK THE BUG!
I like the idea of not looking at data during race week. I never look at it the week AFTER a race but the week before, hrrmm hrmmm rhmmmmmmm...
So true on your 2nd point. I went out yesterday for a pre-race spin on the course and was somewhat disturbed at the fact that my legs felt heavy and I was barely managing something like a 14mph pace. Today on that stretch? Over 20mph. So definitely worth ignoring the data!!!
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