so much for a training race!

21 days to go!!

So yesterday was the Ironman Miami 70.3. Many of us have been looking forward to this race, because it is the first Ironman sanctioned event ever hosted in Miami and about 80% of the local triathlete community was signed up for it. Only one word can describe the entire experience: disastrous. We've all bitched about all the last minute changes on the course, the longer swim distance, the lack of water in the bike as well as in the run, the VERY inexperienced volunteers, and yes, the 8 God-awful bridges we had to run up and down when the sun was hitting the hardest, among MANY other details our race director perhaps overlooked. For me, this is not my A race, I was supposed to take it easy and to finish fresh, since it should’ve been a regular training day. But it didn’t feel that way. By far this was my worst race ever. I did horribly on the swim, got kicked more times than I can remember, but got kicked really badly in my mouth (thought he loosened my front tooth, the tooth still feels weird), plus it ended up being about 600 meters longer. It didn’t help the fact that I am not really a good swimmer. Oh well. But when I finished the race, I couldn’t help feeling really disappointed in myself. My ego was truly hurt, and I was angry for how tired I felt, and how lousy I did. I knew I was gonna do the ride portion in a longer time, because I kept it easy, plus I’ve been riding hundreds of miles back to back in the past weeks, yet, I still hoped I did better. But the run, that was bad. I had to walk parts of the run because I was exhausted. I know, I didn’t train for those race conditions, that’s why I was so dizzy after the swim that couldn’t climb up the stairs. I was exhausted in the run, because I never did a long run at mid-morning, also the bridges didn’t help! Still, yesterday I felt like a failure. I did think that if I was feeling like that after racing 70.3 miles, what made think I could complete 140.6 miles. I know its different circumstances, I should not compare. I was just hoping for a happy note in my life, which lately feels like I’m stuck on stupid with all the shit that’s been happening. Yes, we all have off days and we can’t help feeling crappy about it. Today I feel more focused, ready for this week and whatever is gonna bring me as far as personal and training is concerned. I’m only three weeks away from my big day, no time to waste, this is it!