"The" Weekend

I've been eyeing up a weekend on my training schedule since my Coach first sent it to me. It's not the biggest weekend I have during training, not even close. But for some reason, I decided this specific weekend will be the one that will prove whether or not I have this in me. No idea why this one stuck out so much to me but I've been thinking about it since the start of training. It seemed so far away at the time and now all of a sudden, it's here. On tap this for this weekend: 90 mile ride, 1.5 mile OWS race, 16 mile run. I think it's the # 90 that made this weekend so significant to me. I never in a million years thought I'd be riding 90 miles. And with the way my crazy mind works, breaking things into chunks to handle it mentally, being able to ride 90 miles will give me the confidence to know I can do 112. So this weekend that has been on my mind for months now is here. And you know what? I'm not nervous or scared about it at all. I'm actually looking forward to it and the feeling I'm going to have when it's over. And I'm not talking about the sore crotch...

As for the OWS race, this will essentially be a practice swim with my new wet suit. I don't have many opportunities to test it out in open water before the race so I signed up for this event. I'm feeling so confident during my swims lately that I really hope that carries over to Sunday. I will admit, when reading the athlete note, my heart started to race a little bit. I just need to keep telling myself that this is nothing more than a practice swim and I'm out there to do my own thing. I will say this, I'm so happy I picked an IM that has the swim in clear water. I think a lot of my panic is from not being able to see what I'm swimming in. At least in FL I'll be able to see the jelly fish before they sting me.

After I make it through this weekend I have a cut back week which finishes with my first Tri of the season, NJ State Olympic. While I would love to all out race it and see how I stack up to when I did it last year, I'm just not in "racing" shape right now. Meaning, I haven't done much in terms of anaerobic training and that's apparent with my running paces. It's going to kill me to not go all out but I need to keep it in check and use it as nothing more than a brick workout. Either way, I'm looking forward to being around other people and in a racing atmosphere. I've missed that.