I made it out to the swim course today and did about 30 minutes worth.\u00a0 There are buoys out there but it\u00b4s not clear if they are there as a demarcation to keep boaters away from the beach or if they are truly the point to which we will swim on Sunday.\u00a0 In any event, the water was a good temp (around 70 degrees I\u00b4m guessing) and though not terribly clear, it felt clean enough.<\/p>\n
Later in the day, I went to the athlete\u00b4s briefing where they went over most of the race rules and logistical specifics.\u00a0 It\u00b4s fairly intuitive to me, but then again, I\u00b4ve done 56 triathlons or something ridiculous like that!\u00a0 You can tell who the newbies and veterans are simply by facial expression.\u00a0 I don\u00b4t claim to be a veteran at all in the Ironman context, but I find myself feeling surprisingly cool throughout this pre-race process.\u00a0 To be candid, I\u00b4m doing my best to avoid a ton of contact with the hard-core folks because I don\u00b4t want\u00a0to be influenced\u00a0by their intensity and apply undue internal\u00a0pressure.\u00a0 However, today was the first day that I felt butterflies.\u00a0 I blame this dude Daniel from Guam who mentioned in passing how bad he\u00b4s going to feel around mile 22.\u00a0 I believe the word he used was \u00a8suffer\u00a8.<\/p>\n
With an event of this magnitude, and with the race date so close, my psyche is somewhat fragile and I\u00b4d much rather be surrounded by positive energy, not this negativity.\u00a0 I know that Daniel meant no ill will with his words, but it struck me that others could be feeling my way too which only\u00a0creates, to me,\u00a0awe at the human experience.\u00a0 Why we choose to do things that are so hard, like the Ironman but also like climbing mountains or doing extreme sports, can probably be best explained by the psychological clinicians of the world, but the layperson says that it\u00b4s the feeling one gets after completing it that makes it worth it.\u00a0 I suppose that I subscribe to that philosophy but admittedly, there\u00b4s a component of narcissism and validation of self-worth too… for I know that I\u00b4ll always be able to say that I\u00b4m an Ironman.\u00a0 There\u00b4s a pretty good chunk of pride that comes from that which, in the end, means that I\u00b4m as vain as everyone else… I just choose to apply it in a really ridiculous (and expensive) way.<\/p>\n
Tomorrow, I\u00b4m planning on cycling and running, but only for a short time each.\u00a0 I\u00b4ve got a massage scheduled and a pasta dinner to attend in the evening.\u00a0 With any luck, I\u00b4ll be really distracted all day and not become a head-case.\u00a0 I\u00b4m reading Stephen Colbert\u00b4s book,\u00a8I am American, and so can you\u00a8, and the humor is a great distraction.<\/p>\n
Oh, I bought an Ironman speedo today.\u00a0 Hey, I\u00b4m going to Rio on Monday and if I have to do like the Brazilians, I\u00b4m going to do it my way!<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I made it out to the swim course today and did about 30 minutes worth.\u00a0 There are buoys out there but it\u00b4s not clear if they are there as a demarcation to keep boaters away from the beach or if they are truly the point to which we will swim on Sunday.\u00a0 In any event, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-training"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}