Trying to put the nerves aside isn’t an easy thing. \u00a0Frankly, it makes no sense… having nerves, that is. \u00a0There is no reason for me to be nervous, or anxious, or apprehensive, etc. \u00a0I’m not a professional; I’m not looking to beat anybody; I’ve done this before; I’m well-trained; I’m healthy; and I’m at peace. \u00a0Except, I’m not at peace; I’m nervous.<\/p>\n
I have my strategy all set. \u00a0I have my gear all laid out. \u00a0I have the love of the most amazing woman, the presence of wonderful friends, and the support of other friends, family, colleagues, and the Facebook community. \u00a0I’ve seen most parts of the race course. \u00a0I’ve read about and understand the unpredictability of the weather. \u00a0I am aware of the aura of the Hawaiian Gods who can be cruel, but who will grace those who persevere with the greatest memory of a sports lifetime.<\/p>\n
So, with all of this, I am struggling to understand why I have anxiety. \u00a0Anyone who reads this will assuredly be able to identify with some time in their life where being nervous made no sense, be it for work, for a personal milestone like a wedding, or for a sports-related scenario. \u00a0How did you deal with it? \u00a0Most likely, the way I am… which is to just let the hours go by and try to just remember to breathe easy. \u00a0That’s what I’m doing now.<\/p>\n
As I write this, Roya and my nine other friends here in Kona are all out doing this or that, so I am alone with my thoughts. \u00a0Soon they’ll all be back, we’ll have our group dinner, and I’ll retire to the bedroom. \u00a0I’ll then have about 7 hours to try to sleep. \u00a0Up at 3:30 or so, out of the house at 4:30 or so, at Transition by 5 a.m. or so, in the water at 6:30 or so, and ready to go at 6:59:59 a.m. \u00a0When the cannon goes off one second later, I will embark on the greatest athletic journey of my life, though these 11 years of training and racing have actually been the journey, and this therefore is simply the pinnacle.<\/p>\n
There is a lot of hard work ahead of me tomorrow. \u00a0Hard may not be accurate in the micro view as I will do my best to conserve my energy and expend as little of it as I can. \u00a0Hard is really only accurate when you consider that the sumtotal of all of the micro efforts will add up to 13 or so hours of constant output. \u00a0Hard will also be accurate insofar as I try to find the way to articulate what it felt like on that final stretch along Ali’i Drive.<\/p>\n
Thank you for everything. \u00a0You know who you are. \u00a0I will remember you and bring you on this journey with me.<\/p>\n
Race number 1070. \u00a0Follow me at www.ironmanlive.com.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Trying to put the nerves aside isn’t an easy thing. \u00a0Frankly, it makes no sense… having nerves, that is. \u00a0There is no reason for me to be nervous, or anxious, or apprehensive, etc. \u00a0I’m not a professional; I’m not looking to beat anybody; I’ve done this before; I’m well-trained; I’m healthy; and I’m at peace. […]<\/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-695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-training"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695","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=695"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":696,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695\/revisions\/696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}