Wake Up Call

I travel. A lot. Fortunately I can sleep anywhere...airplanes, movie theatres, Hampton Inns, Courtyards (by Marriott), Holiday Inn Expresses (I may not be the Most Interesting Man in the World, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night!). Sleeping isn't the problem. Its' waking up.

I always set the alarm on my Crackberry but always leave a Wake Up Call as a backup. Have you ever overslept and missed a meeting, or even worse, a flight? I have and its a terrible feeling when you know its too late and there is nothing you can do about it. No amount of hurrying with get you caught up.

Sometimes I wake up and wish I had set the call a little earlier. This is one of those times. With two weeks until the Boise Ironman 70.3 (1.2-mile swim, 56-mile bike, 13.1-mile run) triathlon I'm wondering if I woke up too late and whether I have enough time left to get ready.

I set the wake up call for May 15th, my birthday, when I signed up for the Littlefoot Triathlon in Lakewood, Colorado. I figured that would give me a goal one month out from Boise. It would also be a very cold swim in Bear Creek Lake, which would help prepare me for the cold water of Lucky Peak Reservoir in the east Boise foothills.

The morning of my birthday it was 37F and raining. They cancelled the swim and replaced it with a run so the Littlefoot Triathlon became a duathlon (1-mile run, 11.5-mile bike, 5K run). After a decent first mile (7:58), followed by a really slow bike segment and mediocre 5K (26.55) I finished fifth out of five guys in the 45-49 age group.

My mind was saying, "Hey, at least you showed up!" (as my friend Dane Rauschenberg says, "You can't cross the finish line if you don't show up at the starting line!") but my brain was telling me, "This is your wake up call. You have one month left before Boise. Do you have enough time left to get ready?"

Two weeks later I am still asking that question. I have trained hard for those two weeks adding brick workouts and increasing mileage and distances. My biggest concern is whether I have put in enough miles on the bike, enough time in the pool and enough miles pounding the pavement (which is how I run). I travel. A lot. It's hard to find time.

Guess I will find out soon enough. Boise is two weeks from today. Not much I can do about it at this point. After one last long run tomorrow I will begin tapering to shorter, more intense workouts for the final two weeks of training. One thing I can do is eat lots of lean BEEF to recover from an intense week of training and refuel my body so I can reach the finish line!

My goal is to complete this event in under six hours. Six minutes faster than the Boulder Ironman 70.3 this past August. That won't put me on the medal stand or anywhere close to it. But that isn't my goal. My goal is always to set a new personal record. I'm not sure that is a realistic goal this time. But I plan to finish strong and hopefully not suffer too much in the process.

Ride on...

Daren