Yesterday was a milestone day in this IRONMAN journey. Eight weeks to race day and a 100 mile ride. If you’ve done a 100 mile ride, you know how I feel today. It’s the strangest combination of pride, exhaustion, self-reflection, and well let’s just be honest, pain.
I’ve come so far on my bike, but still have lots to accomplish in these last 8 weeks. I managed to stay with the group the first loop of our 24 mile course. Speed 16 and power 98. All good. Loop 2 I dropped to 15.3 mph and 93 power. Loop 3 I just couldn’t keep up so the long, lonely ride into the wind down 1485 by myself seemed to go on forever. Wanted to quit but I completed loop 4 and average mph was still above 14. Average power was 80. Need to get my cadence higher and learn to keep fueling more consistently – think I ran outta gas. There were a few beautiful moments though, heading down 1314 with the wind at my back, 21 mph in aero – I couldn’t have even imagined that just two months ago!!!! There is no way I could be where I am right now without the help of Ivonne, Christy and new IM training friend Nikki. They are faster than me but they still let me ride with them, and chasing them makes me faster. Their support is amazing and I’ve learned so much from both of them. I am grateful and blessed to have these ladies on my journey with me. I just have to keep pedaling forward and telling myself to make my weakness my strength and hopefully some day I’ll be able to stay with them the entire ride.
Swimming is going well and so is running. My brick after the ride yesterday was at 10.5 pace – super happy about that.
Going to spend some time changing my tire this week and make sure I’m prepared in case that happens on race day.
Starting to visualize the race. I know I can’t control or predict what is going to happen on race day. But I want to make sure I’ve thought about every possibility and that I am calmly prepared to take on whatever IRONMAN TEXAS 2018 serves up to me and I get to that finish line. I’ve worked so hard for the past 2 years and while no one is going to be impressed with my “times”, I fully intend to become an IRONMAN on April 28th.
ironcheryl2018 