Trying to finish 140.6

About 10 months ago I registered for Ironman Lake Placid scheduled for July 25, 2010 in Lake Placid, NY. Its a 2.4 mile swim, followed by a very hilly/mountainous 112 mile ride and then you get to enjoy a 26.2 mile run afterwards. Keep reflecting on why I did this. Was I dropped on my head at some point during my childhood? Am I missing some critical brain chemical that causes me to do strange, painful things to my body? Did some boyfriend dump me at a formative period of my life and I want to prove something to society?

I think the answer is simple - I wanted to see if I could do it. I've run 7 marathons and done 7 half-ironmen. Wanted to see if I could finish/live through the big daddy/momma of them all - the full ironman.

So I've decided to start a blog part way in to my ironman training for several reasons...

1) If I ever decide to do this again, I can look back and remember how ridiculous the training really was and re-think the decision :-)

2) Reassure my friends that I have not dropped off the face of the earth. Rather I am living in a surreal world training, eating, working, kid caring, eating, not enough sleeping, whining and training, training, training. I've found I spend a lot of time talking to other triathletes because no one else would find this existence very interesting. (Not that my tri friends find it all that exciting but they are stuck out on a bike ride for the next 6 hours with me so pretend to listen)

3) Have a place to capture the random thoughts that float through my mind during the long hours out on the bike and running in the woods.

So far I have a love/hate relationship with the training. For example, next week I will bike 200 miles, run 30 + miles and swim about 10,000 yards over the course of 7 days. That adds up to between 17-18 hours of time, with the longest training day being about 6 hours.

My first 90 mile ride was about 3 weeks ago and I remember actually enjoying it for the first 2 hours - words uttered out of my mouth included 'what a beautiful day', 'ironman training isn't that bad', 'its nice to catch up with friends'. Then the temperature hit 90 degrees and my mood did a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde switcheroo. I found words such as 'I hate this sh*t', 'What part of this is remotely fun?' and various tirades about how much my bootie hurts.

So tomorrow I get to start riding at 5:30 am and do another 90ish mile ride with a few tri friends. Will try and capture any memorable moments and bleep any curse words.