Ready or not

Tomorrow is race day. Thought maybe I should put down some goals.

1. No drowning.

2. No falling off mountain bike.

3. No tripping during the trail run.

4. Maybe, hopefully not finishing DFL

Swim is 750 m (686 yards), bike is 12 miles (11 on singletrack, 1 on dirt road), run is 4.8 miles on trails. Swim should be no problemo to easily finish but my time won't be great. Went to too many open water Reservoir masters swims instead of interval/pool workouts and I'm sure I've lost some swim fitness. Bike should be o.k., too. I've done a reasonable amount of riding this summer on harder trails than the one the race is on. I've got some new hunky tires on my bike that are ridiculous overkill for the trail I'm riding tomorrow (people were asking the race director is they could use Cross bikes which are beefed up road bikes) but I'm too lazy to change them. I'll probably have a weirdo panic attack at 10:00 tonight and decide I need to change them back to my skinnier more nimble ones but oh well. Run is 4.8 miles and will be the toughest part and biggest unknown. For some reason I thought the run was 4.2 miles when I signed up but only recently found out I was mistaken. Farthest I've been running is just under 3 miles. I'm up to a run/walk pattern of 8/1 which is near enough running straight through but the distance will be a big step up. I'm sure I'll be fine but how my knee will hold up is something of an unknown. Didn't feel like I could have pushed the getting back to running program much more than I did though and hopefully the steep hiking will have helped. I was up to 6 miles or so of steep hiking so I know I can cover the distance and I'll slow to a walk if the knee acts up.

I didn't do any brick workouts (bike then run right afterwards) which is a big mistake. This was mostly due to logistics as most bike rides were done in the mountains with other people who don't run so once the ride was over we drove straight home. Again, I'm sure I'll be fine but the first mile or so after T2 won't be pretty.

Racing is a rare treat for me and this is my first race in 2 years so I'm excited for it. The course is beautiful, the weather should cooperate and though I wish I was in better shape I think I did the best with my training that I could have given the constraint of my knee and I know I'm prepared enough to finish. Hopefully my knee will be in as good a mood as I am when I wake up tomorrow.