#15. Astronaut mindset, the last big ride, and a million other Ironman to-dos

When you're still learning about nutrition, the best way to inflate a tire, and seemingly everything else three weeks before the biggest challenge of your life. Hooray!

Slow, middle-aged triathlete: In a few days, I’m having an uncomfortable and embarrassing minor medical procedure with 1-2 weeks healing time, three weeks before I compete in my first Ironman.

Regular person: Oh, I’m so sorry!

Fellow triathlete: Congratulations on the great timing! Just at the start of your taper, when you’re supposed to decrease cycling and running! It would have been a crappy few weeks, anyway.

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My full account of the taper blues (if they are indeed blue!) will come soon, but first let me talk about the whirlwind that is the final peak training phase prior to tapering. These were the last weeks to get in the biggest workouts I could manage, with a focus not on maximum distance but on higher intensity and more bricks. (A brick is when you do two sports contiguously, like a swim-bike or a bike-run.)

For example, instead of doing another century (100 miles) or 112-miler on the bike, I chose to do a hilly 60-mile ride at a pace 2-3 mph faster than my race pace—which, for me, was the absolute maximum I could handle and created far more soreness, which tells me what additional speed costs. (I had the same experience a month earlier, running a half-marathon at a two-minute-faster pace than my norm.) I followed the 60-mile ride with a 10-mile run with my hubby. I’ve done plenty of bricks, but that brick was the hardest I’ve ever done, especially the first two miles.

Speeding up creates a lot of stress on the body. Hopefully, it convinced my body—and even more important, my mind—that I can tolerate more effort than I usually think, within limits! (I will not try to go “fast” on the race course, even if it’s tempting at the start. I will be a steady, chubby turtle whose only desire is to finish.)

In October, I also started to get more serious about pool swimming again after a summer of ocean swimming. I wish I could tell you I swam twice per week, my plan, but I didn’t. I did, however, increase my mileage per swim, to a maximum of two miles. For a very slow swimmer like me, who never belonged to a swim team and still doesn’t know how to flip-turn, two miles feels like a lot of laps. My intention is to swim more during my taper, when I’ll be cycling less.

BUT THAT’S ALL THE BASIC TRAINING NEWS. Aside from one last, long bike ride on the weekend (six hours, most of it on an inside trainer due to cold temps outside), I am done with major efforts to improve my fitness. Just saying that feels momentous and surreal. I’ve done all I can do! Now the key is maintaining fitness with shorter workouts and switching my focus to other pre-race chores.

Those chores have included not only finalizing travel arrangements and hotel bookings for the road trip ahead, but also working harder on job-related tasks in order to offset the work time I’ll miss. My husband just got a new job and in his interview, he had to explain he’d miss almost two weeks of work almost immediately, due to my race. Reader, I married the right man!

I also have a proper two-hour bike fit scheduled, to improve upon the extremely brief bike-fit I got from a cycling shop in spring, and a bike tuneup. And then there is the stuff one might not think about as essential and time-consuming in these final weeks:

TESTING NUTRITION. We are always told to consume in the race what you’ve practiced in training, and all summer I did that—sort of. Only recently did I do my calorie and liquid analysis (based on a sweat test I did earlier in the summer) to figure out exactly how much I need to drink and eat. Then I went a step further and ordered Maurten gels, something I hadn’t wanted to do before. (I think they cost me about $7 Canadian per large gel!) I was happy with my own brand of gels, but I also know that they use Maurten at aid stations, so I know I should accustom my gut to them during some high-intensity workouts.

I also finally ordered some BASE electrolyte salts—something I’d put off all year due to cost and low availability. I kept telling myself I’d find something local instead, and I never did. Finally, I ordered and started using them. They come in a small tube. You wet your thumb and lick the salt off. Simple.

The less-simple part is keeping all the math and timing straight in one’s head. This gel at this time; this much liquid; time for some salt; how many bottles of Gatorade have I finished? It takes more focus than you’d think when you are trying to pedal at maximum effort. I’ve noticed this in running races as well. When you’re hurting, even multiplying simple numbers becomes oddly difficult. Should I write all the cutoff times on my arm, using a Sharpie? Will I remember to keep licking that salt and drinking enough liquid on a precise timetable when I’m overwhelmed with the challenge of racing?

What I still don’t know. On my long runs, I’ve practiced a mix of drinking water and sports drink. But then I watched a video advising no water at all. Then I read an article about how you can’t digest solids (like chews, real good, or maybe even some gels taken all at once?) if you’re only using sports drinks. Don’t quote me on any of this! The point is: I’ll be spending more time Googling! Also still undecided: do I really have to subsist only on gels and liquids? Can’t I eat a banana or a fig bar near the start of the bike, as I’ve done on most of my long rides? Right now it seems like too big of a risk.

This is why we need a book called The Seventeen-Hour Ironman! (Any co-authors out there?)

The nutrition needs and tolerance of a pro athlete who takes four hours on the bike course—plenty of gels—and eight hours for the full race, total, are different than the needs of an athlete who will take over seven hours on the bike course alone—more gels and sports drink, more hours in a cramped position, possibly lots more heat and wind, and oh dear, more emergency pit stops, too. For the slow athlete, doubling everything—time, liquid consumption, sweat evaporation—should mean different strategies. Most books and articles don’t speak to the truly back-of-the-pack finisher. Please tell me why.

FEAR OF FLAT TIRES. I am probably the least mechanical person you know, which is why it is a near miracle that I have managed to change a few bike tires in the last year. But until this week, I had not found a perfect solution for tire inflation. I tried a CO2 cartridge system that fell apart in my hands on a remote road at the top of a mountain pass. I tried a new mini-inflator on another remote ride and had to accept help from a passing cyclist in order to get the tube fully inflated; even after five minutes of pumping, my pump barely inflated the tube.

Now I am using technique three: I bought what I currently consider the coolest thing possible—a “smart” inflator by CYCPLUS ($34 U.S.) You pre-set with the max PSI, screw on securely, press a button, and wait as the loud little machine, which looks like an oversized electric toothbrush, fills up the tube and then automatically shuts off. It also has two USB ports for recharging a phone or similar devices. I got to try this on a ride recently when my Shokz headphones died. After the ride, while changing clothes for running at the back of my car, after my ride, I plugged the headphones into the inflator and in three minutes, the headphones were charged enough to last me for my 40-minute trot. Now I can leave my emergency charging brick at home and rely on the CYCPLUS instead. The CYCPLUS fits into my rear seat bag. It even doubles as a flashlight! Would a serious Ironman athlete carry something extra that weighs almost a pound? Probably not. Me? I, on the other hand, will try anything.

The only problem is that the second time I tried using the CYCLUS to fit my husband’s flat—can you believe I actually asked for the opportunity to fix someone else’s flat?—I did something wrong and completely exploded his new tube. KABLOOIE!!!! I even managed to bend his rim. (Not really my fault, the bike shop has told me—the rim was twenty years old. Just looking at that rim could have bent it.)

So, what will I be doing this weekend? Practicing changing tubes on my bike. Over and over, probably in the comfort of my home in front of Netflix, but still. I shall not begin the Ironman without one last attempt to gain competence and confidence.

RACE DAY MATH: Speaking of flats, I finally did the real math and discovered that if I get a flat at mid-race and change it within fifteen minutes, I will have to bike a full 1 mph faster to make up for that delay. Ditto for bathroom or aid stops that add up to fifteen minutes. All along, I have kept in mind the magic speed I need to maintain in order to avoid being cut from the race, but the truth is, I need to do that magic speed PLUS some in order to account for both likely and unlikely delays. I sure hope this bike route is easier than what I trained for.

OMG MY GUT: And now we turn to my greatest fear—that my gut will betray me on race day. I have had bad stomach issues during marathons, and as it turns out, I’ve had a particularly bad dose of GI troubles for the last month, which may lessen (or worsen!) after my medical procedure in a few days.

Some of my troubles are simply due to age, childbirth, and my own imperfect gut biome. But I’ve added to the problem by choosing the wrong meals at times, especially when I’m in a new place or anywhere within ten miles of a taco shop! My challenge, not just the night before the race but on the entire road trip en route to the triathlon, will be to avoid tacos and most forms of greasy takeout, eat a lot of plain bland pasta, drink in moderation and then not at all as race day approaches, and basically forsake everyday pleasures in exchange for the faith I’ve done my best. On top of that, I’m now reading a book called The Athlete’s Gut for any other last-minute tips.

ASTRONAUT THINKING AND OTHER MIND GAMES

All year I’ve looked for ways to build mental fortitude. I read Deena Kastor’s memoir, Let Your Mind Run: Thinking My Way To Victory, and I’ve watched several inspiring Tour de France documentaries, including Mark Cavendish: Never Enough, about that cyclist’s incredible comeback from injury and depression.

But oddly enough, my greatest inspiration has come from an alternate-history TV show about space exploration called For All Mankind. In it, due to competition with the Soviet Union (who, in this fictional world, land on the moon first), the US has sped up its NASA program. The show has countless incredibly strong characters—female astronauts and NASA scientists of color, especially.

As someone who wanted to be an astronaut as a 10-year-old (and who never could have, due to dizziness, a weak stomach, plus possibly being too short!), I enjoy imagining how it must feel to suit up, walk out to that spaceship, strap in, and be ready for a firey takeoff that could end in disaster. How do astronauts take the stress?

Well, they’re special people, for one thing. But also, they’ve trained. They’ve run simulations. They’ve visualized. There’s no backing out. (That must help!) They are ready.

Ready is my buzzword for the weeks ahead. If anyone asks me how I am feeling, I won’t say “I’m nervous” or even “I’m excited.” I will say, “I am ready.”

I’ve done all I can. My body is what it is. And I am who I am: an unlikely athlete who couldn’t pedal an inside bike for twenty minutes without being really sore, two years ago, and couldn’t imagine swimming a mile or two in the ocean. A middle-aged woman who doubted she’d ever finish a Half-Ironman, and did. An unlikely triathlete who was afraid even to tell people she dreamed of doing a full Ironman, because it seemed like too much to expect and too much to ask for.

I’ve been tempted to write a premature post about how Ironman has changed me, because the truth is, even without doing the race—yet—I am already a much different person than I was two years ago. At the age of 52, I’m the fittest I’ve been in my entire life. I have changed my body. I have changed my brain. I know how to ask for help. I also know how to do many more things for myself, like efficiently fixing a flat. (Well, almost, dang it!)

The race is the icing on the cake. And still: it’s icing I can’t wait to taste.

Do you have your own tips for getting in the right “astronaut mindset” prior to a physical or mental challenge? (I.e., get ready for takeoff, there is no turning back!) Let me know.