Four days to go

Okay, only four days to go until race day. The nerves are starting to get to me a little bit, but there is nothing I can do about my preparation at this point. Essentially, it's more excitement than anything else. I am more excited than nervous, but I will admit I am a tad nervous. This is my first open water swim and I now have a little more information about what my start time is.

I will be in wave 7, women 35-39 and Athenas. We will be starting at 8:32 am and wearing sky blue swim caps to identify our swim wave. As soon as I have the link for the live tracking I will post it. Many of my friends and family have been asking for the link so they can track the race since they cannot make it to the race. Now for the goals

My very first race I ever did, I laid out some pretty lofty goals and hated every minute of the race from the first push off the wall. I had an asthma attack due to the water temperature and my day was shot from there. I was mentally done 25 yds into the swim. The rest of the race was horrid. The bike was terrible, I thought I had a flat, I could never recover my breathing after that and could never find my energy level. The run, OMG, While I wasn't DFL, I finished 194/197. So, back of the pack. I had a horrible race and learned from that to not expect a podium finish and not set my goals higher than the paces I know I can put out on a consistent basis. So, here are my goals

Swim Goal
750 yards 17:00 with a stretch goal of 15:30. I know I can swim 2:00/100 yards, but what will happen race day, with a wetsuit in the open water and drafting. If I can come out of the water in under 17:00 I'll be ecstatic.

Transition 1
I don't know the distance from swim exit to transition, but 2:30 is reasonable. I am hoping for a quick out of the wetsuit and with prior experience in races... I hope I can pull it off. The top half from the spring last year in Athena in T1 was average of 2:15.

Bike Goal
I have laid out my plan for the bike leg which is a two laps of 7 miles with two turns. On a dry course, I plan to be pretty aggressive and carry as much speed as possible through my turns and use my training to get any advantage I can going into the run. I plan to start with a reasonable pace out of transition and get warm and ramp it up the further I go, with the cautionary tale that I still have one event left. Fortunately, I have actually done some bricks this year, so I know how to come off the bike and transition into the run. Goal is 47 minutes and the stretch goal is 44 minutes.

Transition 2
This is typically the quicker of my two transitions as I am already in everything except my running shoes. I typically put my run number before the bike leg as to save a little time in T2. Out the gate and off on the run.

Run goal
Run is of course the weakest of the three disciplines for me. I have been getting stronger on the run(jog/walk) and I am happy with that, but I am still slow. If I can maintain my pace I am hoping for a 45 minute run leg with a stretch goal of 42 minutes. Considering the whole course is flat and fast, I may be able to hit at least one of my stretch goals but we'll see.

I don't have a goal of top 3, I learned the first time about that one. I do have a goal to finish. I do have a goal to have fun and enjoy every minute of this race. I have a goal to find my family everytime I am near transition and hear my daughter yell, "Go Mommy Go!!" I have a goal to airplane across the finish line and have fun doing it.

One last goal.. I am hoping for under 2 hours. I think I can do this, but with my times it will be close. we'll see what happens, but as long as I finish the time doesn't matter.