Saturday, November 3, 2018

Diary of an Ultraman: Day 3

4:31 am.  I glance at the clock.  8.5 hours of sleep.  Zero percent chance of me falling back asleep.  I roll out of bed and head to the bathroom to brush my teeth.

4:44 am.  "WHAT ARE YOU DOING????"  (someone is NOT a morning person).  Me:  Ummm, well, I'm awake so I'm getting ready to go swim.  You can keep sleeping for another 15 minutes if you want... 

5:56 am.  Meditation done.  Breakfast eaten.  Bottles filled.  We're heading toward The Club for our 10k swim.

My lane for 10k.


6:20 am.  Swim starts.  We alternate PBB 100s on short rest with straight swim descending from 10 x 100, 900, 9 x 100.... down to 1 x 100.  My arms are basically dead by 7k.  It's fine.  I have 20 more days to make this feel normal.  I'm not worried. 

9:30 am.  I'm sitting in IHOP waiting for my pancakes.  I eat #allthefood and it basically makes me feel not starving.  That's the power of the 10k swim.  You can literally eat everything and never get full. 

10:48 am.  Back in the room.  I start checking my email.  HOLY SHIT.  The invite for my next big thing sits in my inbox.  I text my friend Melody, who is also my swim training partner, "WE GOT IN!!!".  I shouldn't start freaking out about this yet.  I gotta get through the first big thing first.  Then I can freak out.  I used to think I was going to run out of things that scare me at some point.  But now I know that's not true.  You just have to expand your horizons a little bit and look outside the box.   

12:50 pm.  I'm getting on the bike for an easy spin.  90 minutes.  Just cruising.  Hills.  Wind.  Sun.  Amazing views. 

2:35 pm.  I make it back just in time to grab an acai bowl from Basik before they close.  The banyan.  It's my favorite one.  Bananas, peanut butter, hemp seeds, almonds.  Perfect treat post ride. 

3:30 pm.  I'm hungry again so I eat a bowl of ramen noodles and tomatoes. 

3:56 pm.  We prep for tomorrow.  Make a list of all the things we need to bring.  Make sure I'm not going to drain my supply of nutrition for race day.  Decide on a 4:15 am alarm. 

4:22 pm.  I've got 30 minutes in the recovery boots while catching a chapter or two from Alex Honnold's book, Alone on the Wall. 

6:33 pm.  Bottles are filled.  Ice chest is filled.  Not much else to do now but sleep.  Don't mind if I do. 

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