There is less than a day before the cannon sounds and 140.6 miles of fun begins.
I joined a couple thousand others today for swim practice in the Ohio. The temperature of the water reportedly is 84 degrees. It felt every bit of that and maybe more. I spent 20 minutes in the water and took it easy. It was more about just moving through the water, marking buoys and watching others so as to practice defensive swimming.
Swimming in a race with 2500-3000 people in the water is a full contact sport. Punches, kicks, swim overs and the like can make it very scary indeed. My strategy always is to yield and swim defensively. There are a lot of jerks out there who will kick, even when they know someone is close. Bad sportsmanship. Bad karma. No one ever wins a race in the water. The swim difference between a professional and solid age grouper is usually only 15 minutes. Considering the day is usually 11-15 hours for most people, kicking someone to gain a few seconds advantage is silly.
The secret is a solid bike ride that is strong enough, but leaves you with enough juice to run a solid marathon.
The rest of today will be spent wheeling my bike over to the bike transition area, eating, drinking, watching bad TV and napping. Tomorrow, my day is going to start at 2:30 Eastern. I have a whole ritual with food, liquids etc that I have perfected for my body through the years.
My next report will be post race.
E
Okay, we'll be doing a countdown also. Thinking of you at this end so all we can do is sit and wait until the race begins too. Watch out for those swimming jerks. Love, Dee and Bill
ReplyDeleteGood luck Ed! Carolyn
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