Tomorrow is the big day!

I spent the morning volunteering at the DRC booth at the Expo. Saw a few people I know, and talked about running a lot. Gretchen happened by the booth. Fun to see her. She was probably the most important influence in my starting to run, so I have a lot to thank her for. Also saw Roni Jackson. She's a customer who is just one of the million women who are stronger cyclists than I am. She was wearing an Ironman T-shirt, and we talked about the beginning swimming lessons at the Town North Y. I'm a little less self-conscious about thinking triathlon these days, but swimming is a problem. Or at least a big challenge. Yes, I learned to swim at the Y when I was 6 years old, and have always "known how to swim." But I do not really know how to swim. I know how to avoid drowning. I think with some work I could learn to swim well enough to at least beat the time deadline in a triathlon. That would be pretty awesome. What I need to do is simply decide if I'm going to do it. If I decide to do it, I can train well enough, I'm sure. And I think the decision is really made. I've just got to finalize it in my head. Perhaps I'll change my mind after tomorrow. But if it goes well, I'll probably be even more motivated.

But that's just a possibility for sometime in the future. Now I've got this challenge for tomorrow. How is it going to go? I just need to start out at an appropriate speed not to kill myself before the finish. I feel like I'm obsessing over this. But I want to do a good time AND I want to finish as comfortably as I reasonably can. Those are competing goals. I think finishing comfortably is more important, so I'm going to try to take it really slow and easy. Which means that at the beginning I'm going to feel like I'm barely walking. I've just decided that I'm going to get in with the 4:15 pace group. That will be 9:44 miles. I'm sure I can hold that. Then after about 18 miles or so, if I'm feeling good I can go ahead. If not, I can use the group as motivation not to slow down. And a 9:44 pace will let me walk through water stops with no trouble. I don't know if the group will walk. At that speed, though, even if they don't I'll still be able to keep up.

It's interesting that I've had some miscommunication with people because some people talk about their pace in minutes/mile terms, and some talk in finishing time terms. So today when I told someone I was thinking I'd try to do a 9:30 pace, he thought I meant I was going to try to finish in 9 hours and 30 minutes. He looked at me funny, until I realized he was trying to pretend to be positive about this ludicrously slow time. He felt much better when I told him I was talking about per mile pace.

Now I'm going to go sit where I can prop my feet up and watch a James Bond movie. Sound like fun? I'm going to the official pasta dinner tonight, and then I'll hit the hay early, of course. I'll be up around 5:30 tomorrow to eat and get to a parking spot in time to be reasonably close (I hope) to the finish line.

Wish me luck!