I haven't done anything since last Wednesday when I swam. Oh well. The day before that I rode for an hour at lunch. Meh. I have had Life get in the way, and I don't have the energy to fight it. It is what it is and I haven't been able to do a proper taper. So be it.
The big race is this Saturday. 70.3 miles of swimming, biking and running. I have come to a point that I am very familiar with, but has only happened recently in law school. The feeling is hard for me to describe, so bear with me.
In law school, when it came close to finals there began a marathon of studying. I would schedule out pretty much about 5 or 6 weeks of my life, kiss the family goodbye and I would maniacally adhere to the schedule in order to be as prepared as possible for each of my finals. The load and my ability to study would increase as I got closer to the 10 to 12 day period that my finals usually occurred. I would get into a zone and at some point--usually, if things went well--I came to a point where I was resigned to my fate. This sounds negative, but it usually wasn't. I just knew that mentally the tank was full and it was time to go and see if I had studied the right stuff well enough. There was little hope that I could learn everything, there was not enough allotted for perfection. I did all I could and "ding", I knew it was time to get in there and get it over with. If I bombed so be it. It was zen-like.
Only once did I really bomb badly and in that case I still felt the same even though I actually knew it was going to be ugly. In that case I felt like I was going be fore a firing squad blindfolded with a cigarette in my mouth. I was resigned to me fate. That was Securities Law. It was my last final of my 4th semester at law school. That was an ugly final. I stuck to my plan in studying for that exam, but stuff was just not sinking in. Securities law has its own legal lingo, even worse from normal legal lingo. And for whatever reason it was just not sinking in despite the fact that for the most part I had kept up with the reading during the semester. The exam questions had page line limits. On one of the questions with the longest line limits I got maybe about 25% of the way to the limit and found I had nothing left to say. I started to panic, but eventually I decided that I wasn't going to fail, I was probably going to dip down into "C" territory though for the first time. I finished the last question of the exam and circled back the that truly ugly question and stated something like, "And in addition to Z above, X comes to mind, and possibly Y but how they relate to this situation is beyond me. Luckily, if this question ever comes up in my practice in the real world I will know just do: Call a Securities Lawyer." I don't know if she laughed or not, but I did. I knew I was never going to practice Securities Law, but I knew that I had learned enough from the class to recognize issues and keep myself out of trouble. I did what I could and took the punch and tried to roll with it as best I could. I ended up with a C+ I think in that class. And I was grateful.
I have a similar feeling now. Sort of peaceful, with some underlying butterflies. I have done all I can do. If it sucks, it sucks. I won't drown though, my usual fear. If I can swim 2500 yards without getting tired in the pool, I can swim around 2000 yards in a reservoir even with a freak out or two in the middle of it. If I puncture a tire in the bike section, so be it. I have a repair kit for tubular tires and if that doesn't work, I will take my DNF. Whatever, I can deal with it. If I cramp up and have to walk part of the run, so be it. I have done longer runs this year than last year and I have more knowledge of how much water and nutrition my body needs. Hopefully, that will be enough. If not, so be it. I will roll with it. There is just nothing more I can do. Just like in a final exam or even the state bar exam, there are only so many things that can happen and many of them are unlikely. I hopefully have prepared enough for the most likely things that I can get a passing grade/finish the race and do it in a good time (for me). You can't be prepared for everything so you play the odds. If worst comes to worst, so be it. I am at peace with that.
At least right now. 2 hours before start it might be different.
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