Week 18 - hellish, happiness and everything inbetween

Wow, what a week. First of all.... it's officially taper time. 18 weeks of pain, punishment and pushing of ones self imposed limits, have finally come to an end. I now have 2 weeks to prep the mind, the body and the kit for May 1st start of 06:30 hrs. By now most of you know the dramas of the first day of this week, the dreaded Monday. It start well, I rode the bike for a bit, dropped it off for my final pre-race tune up, ran the 6kms into work and all was good. Heck I was told I might even be able to pick up the bike by noon. Then I got a call from the bike shop.... Tony, the bike mechanic, told me my frame was cracked. The good news, Felt was covering it and a new frame was in the cards for me. Bad news, it was going to be 2-3 months before it arrived from Germany..Shit. Then I was told, that my bike was already en route to Sydney where the national Felt dealer was going to have the frame temporarily repaired to limp the bike along till the new frame arrived. All costs covered by Felt and I wouldn't be out of pocket for it. BUT.... (I don't know about you, but when there's good news like that and someone throws that damn pause in there and the 3 letter word in....... The frame would arrive no earlier than the Monday before the race. I'm leaving for Port on Wednesday morning, so that would leave all of 1 days grace if I go with the best case scenario. Now I've got a road bike, but there's no way I'm doing an Ironman on it. It was truly amazing the triathlon community here, as I posted my dilemma on FB, within a couple of hours I had numerous offers from people to use their bikes for IMA. These bikes are not cheap at all, typically running in the thousands of dollars, fitted to the individuals, cared for similar to children and I was at a loss for words. I had a chat with the bike shop again and it was still looking the same, so I approached a couple of the people who had offered, and ended up selecting a bike very similar in dimensions to mine. As luck would have it, I was able to get in for a bike fititng which happened Saturday afternoon, so I have a good couple of weeks to get used to the new ride. A BIG thank you goes out to Matt and Avanti Plus in the Valley for getting me in so quickly to do a proper fitting and James for lending me his trusty steed. I only hope that you don't mind that your bike will do an Ironman before you. ;-) That was hell I tell you. Then to put a bit more of a spin on it, I had to head to Townsville for a couple of days too, throwing my whole training plan into a tailspin. Luckily I was able to get some training in, which was nice, but not what I would have done if I stayed in the city. So, up, down, happy, sad, and throw in a bunch of swearing and you pretty much have my week in a nutshell. I had to remind myself, 'control what you can control and don't let the rest control you'. I did some bigger run kms this week and I have to tell you, I've found a groove. I think I've finally found that true running tempo/form that allows me to run with ease, yet with some speed and I get the feeling I could run for ever at this new pace. As Ironman is about warming up on the swim, balancing the rate on the bike while taking in enough nutrition then starting up for the run. If I can find this zone come race day, things are in line for an interesting day. Back into 'normalcy' (if such a thing exists in IM campaigns) and time to get focused. The bike situation has been resolved, I've done the majority of the training on program and the race is closer than you can think. The hard yards are now behind me, now it's about keeping up the intensity, and keeping myself healthy. Plenty of rest, good food (and the odd glass of anti-oxidents) and next thing you know, I'm at the start line.... plan is nearing completion, just about time to enjoy the fruits of my hard work over the past 18 weeks. See you out there Rich