Countdown Breakdown

Saturday might possibly be my last 5K before the tri. Although I knew that, it suddenly occurred to me that that means I want it to go really, really well so that I'm as confident as possible about my progress and my potential. Although this means a slightly unnecessary increase in the pressure I feel to do well on Saturday, I am the queen of self-induced pressure. So that works out alright.

And even though every time I run in a race I want to do better than the time before, this time I feel like there's a little more at stake. With only 44 days until the tri, I fluctuate daily, sometimes hourly, between feeling confident and excited (like when I realize I’ve biked 30 miles and finish feeling like a freakin’ rock star) to feeling overwhelmed and underprepared (like when I am lifting weights at the gym and need to reduce the weight to the lightest possible...eek, I’m such a girl).

To compound this, I will be in Mexico in the beginning of July- I get back and there's a week and a half until the triathlon. While I fully plan on training while I'm in Mexico, I know that margaritas and lying on the beach will be a bigger draw, and those few days in Mexico will be a test of my willpower and determination. Not to mention that I want to be at my goal weight on triathlon day, which is currently 7.6 pounds away. With the tri being about 6 weeks away, I’ll have to lose about 1.3 pounds per week in order to make it. Did I mention how much I love Mexican food and margaritas? I usually like to live by the rule that there are no such thing as calories when you’re on vacation, but I don’t think I can afford that kind of logic this time. Again: unnecessary pressure, but pressure I will put on myself regardless.

Ok, so it's obvious that what’s happening here is that I’m allowing myself to stop and think too much, something I haven’t allowed myself to do lately because of its disastrous side effects. Believe me, not thinking much (for me) is much better than thinking like I normally do because a normal amount of thinking is an insane amount of thinking, to be honest. See how it started with thinking about the simple fact that this could be my last 5K before the tri and snowballed from there? Yeah. That’s nothing compared to what my thought process can be. Sometimes I exhaust myself. And what I've learned lately is that I really don't know as much as I think I do. I always think I have it all figured out, or that I could figure it out, if I think about it enough. This long-held belief of mine, however, is bullshit. It's funny to realize that you don't have things as figured out as you thought you did, and to be okay with that.

So I just headed to the gym right after work, where I hopped on the treadmill and don't remember a single thing I thought about the whole time. Besides "How many minutes do I have left on this thing?!?", of course.