We've arrived at the end of week 22 of 24. The next two weeks are what is known as "tapering" leading up to the race...in exactly TWO weeks. Boy this thing is really happening, huh? So, after the past two weeks being pretty intense, sleep deprived, and never ending - we have arrived at the taper. Thank God - I need a break.
To give you an idea of how busy the past month has been, here is a breakdown of each weeks hourly training and how far we've swam, biked, and ran during just that time:
Week 19: 14 hours and 40 minutes
Week 20: 17 hours and 45 minutes
Week 21: 13 hours and 16 minutes
Week 22: 10 hours and 20 minutes
(The last two weeks weren't as long in hours but higher intensity workouts)
All distances being approximate, we swam a total of 25,700 yards (14.6 miles), biked 452.5 miles, and ran 107 miles within those 4 weeks. I wouldn't believe it myself if I didn't write it down!
The next two weeks workouts begin to slow down, get shorter in duration, and have more of a recovery purpose. Also, more time to let the mind play games with me and start to freak me out.
At this point, I am feeling pretty confident in my ability to finish this thing. If I can get through the bike with no issues, fueled, and hydrated, I think I could shuffle my way through the marathon. The main purpose on the bike is to set yourself up for a good marathon - I'll work on making that my main priority during the race. I'm going to take it an hour at a time...just focus on what I need to do within that next hour to fuel and hydrate properly. I think that will also make the bike go by a bit easier too - not so overwhelming if you break it down into parts. I'll probably employ the same idea during the marathon...just focus on when I need to eat and drink.
If all goes well, I'm hoping to finish between 14 and 15 hours (9-10pm!) - but who knows what can happen over the course of that time. The nice thing is that anyone can track me during the race, so you can see my splits throughout the day and have an idea of when I'll be finishing. So, if you see the splits stop for a long period of time on the bike or run, you can guess something went wrong. Fingers crossed everything goes smoothly!!
Cheers to the taper as I toast with my glass of wine....I'll certainly need it. I'll end with a fun "Ironman tip" regarding the marathon that was found online:
"Once mile 16-18 comes and you are racing to your potential, you will feel as if God’s wrath has come down upon you. Accept this pain as your fate, put your head down and get ‘er done. If this was easy, everyone would be doing Ironman. There is no magical “tip” to give you for putting together a strong last 10k of an IM Marathon. You gotta feel the pain and keep it painful. No easy way around it. It’s gonna hurt….period."
