Are You Ready? - What’s Your Goal?

I can’t tell you how many times I have been asked the above questions over the past few weeks. “Are you ready?” I always respond with a resounding “yes” but honestly, I don’t know if I am ready or not. How do you know when you are ready? More importantly, how do you know when you are not ready? Do I feel like swimming 2.4 miles, riding for 6 hours and then running a marathon right now? Well, no not really. Actually, it sounds like a really long way.

This may sound bad, but the one thing I am definitely ready for is to get it over with. I am tired of thinking about it, tired of worrying about it and I am definitely tired of training for it. Let’s just roll the dice and get a result, whatever it may be. I don’t think my current state of mind will prevent me from enjoying the pre-race festivities; but it is undoubtedly the reality, and I don’t see it going away until I start swimming on Sunday. Beyond that first swim stroke, I have no further predictions on how my state of mind will evolve over the course of the day.

I have been asked about my time goals for Ironman at least a hundred times and I never have a definitive answer, or one that is insightful or funny for that matter. That’s due in large part because the opinion I have formed over the past several months of training is that it may be a bit naïve and even foolish for a first-timer to marry themselves to specific time goals. It’s such a long day and so much can happen, I don’t think anyone really knows how it is going to go from the outset. Desiree Ficker was so strong at Kona in 2006, and you just knew she was going to be a factor in the 2007 race, but it just wasn’t her day. Another example, a bit closer to home, is Mac Brown at Lake Placid this year. All indications were that he was going to be strong, and when he ran himself into the top 10 during the first 10 miles of the marathon, that seemed to be confirmation that he was going to have a great day. Then, unfortunately things just fell apart. Those are just two of the thousands of examples I had to choose from. My point is that these people are much better athletes than I am and they do this for a living. If they don’t really know how it’s going to go, then how in the world is a part-timer like me supposed to know?

I have heard an array of predictions from my friends about how I am going to do. Anywhere from sub-10 to 11:30. I never debate with the predictors, but when I hear sub-10 I think to myself, “that’s ridiculous!” Because it is ridiculous. On the other hand, when I hear a prediction in the 11s, I naively think to myself, “I will be faster than that right? The truth is I have no idea. I don’t think many Iron-rookies do, although I’m sure that most think they do.  I read in “Going Long” that most rookies are 1-2 hours slower than they predict. In that case, I predict I will go 7:30. HAHA! Honestly, I am not even taking finishing the race for granted. Like I said, a lot can happen over the course of a day.

Having said all that, I have come up with two goals. From a race perspective, my goal is to negative split the marathon. I realize that is a tall order. But even if I fall short, if I let that serve as my guide from start to finish on Sunday, I think I will do more things right than wrong. And in the end, I will have a great experience and the result will be one that I can be proud of. I feel like Ironman is less of a race and more of a game, and the most patient players seem to do better. So maybe keeping that goal in mind will help me stay patient.

From an experience perspective, my goal is to always remember how lucky I am to be healthy enough to do something like this. If I do that, I think I will always be able to manage a smile, a wave and some signature sarcasm when I see Steph and my friends on the course. Additionally, I hope that keeping that in mind will give me some much needed perspective when things go from difficult to unbearable, as they undoubtedly will.