Three days before Half Ironman...

Hey all. It has been a long time that I have posted. There ain't too much going on here. I had a very good time going to my Church's conference over the weekend. Afterwards, there were a few questions I have to ask myself and pray for.

Over ate this weekend (had some junk food) and little exercise, I gained 5 lbs by Monday. Woah. Good thing by now, I am back to normal.

I didn't kill myself throughout the week. Just low intensity stuff and keeping it short. It is weird to ride 40 min when most rides I done were in hours. It is also weird to go for a run with no worry about water and gel.

Body is very ready for the race. But the mind is almost there. I keep thinking that it is much longer than a marathon. And first time ever to reach such a distance. Need to focus on the nutrition and hydrtion. I am also trying to lighten up for the race. I got it from this article, Process Focused vs Results Focused. The article talks about Scott Molina advocating the need to love your training (the process).

For endurance sport, I know this is very important. I find this very simliar to our working career. People are burnt out (at work and at training) b/c largely they don't enjoy the process.

Earlier this year, I did not enjoy my training. I was over focus on my results. Everything I do is too slow and not fast enough. Training your body is an interesting thing. It ain't like work where there is a set quantity value that you know you are over this level. At work, you can work for abc years or xyz profit to get recognition. But the body doesn't work that way, running for xyz times will not have a guarantee you to go faster. Sometimes progress is slow, sometimes progress is fast. But the more you do it the more progress you will gain. Only after I started to enjoy my training again, my motivation came back.

On friendster, here is what I wrote about myself:

I can't explain why I do what I do. I can't explain why I would get up at 5 in the morning to ride for hours and run afterwards (and enjoying it at the same time). I do know I have seen some of the best sun rises ever. I have seen rolling hills prettier than the one on my desktop. And for that, I am grateful to be alive.

I am feeling quite calm with the taper. Half calm (for a half ironman) is more like it :). As the race gets closer, I found myself needing more alone time to think and relax. Of course, I have anxiety too. Anyone has them. Just like a date :D. U have every detail plan out. Everything down. But on the actual date, u will never know what to expect.... :)...the only difference is I don't wear spandex on my dates and don't sweat as much.

I am only thinking about my strategy. When should I go all out? I figure I treat this like a Ironman. Not thinking about racing until the last 5-10 km of the race. Everything before the run is just a warm up (low HR, eat + drink). I do hope I get my running legs back. If I do. SWEET. If not, it will be a long long day.

I probably won't post much until after race day (this Sunday). Mike, I got the tag and will post it later. Have a great one, everyone.