T Minus 4 Days (or is it technically 3?)

I can't believe it. After only a few months, I'm now down to the wire and just a few short days away from my first CA triathlon. You'd think that having one under my belt many moons ago I'd be calm and collected, but I'm still as nervous as day one. Sometimes I think I'm crazy for doing this, and other times I get so excited I can't even sit still.

Physically, I'm feeling pretty good. I was tired early on in the week, so I'm taking the next few days and just doing some active rest.....easy bike ride, maybe an easy swim instead of the prescribed monster workouts. Santa Barbara is a really short race, too.....so short that I kind of feel like a chicken doing it! 500 yard swim, 6 mile bike, 2 mile run. I've been trying to estimate my times based on practice, but I'm coming up FAST if you can believe it compared to last years' results. So I'm thinking that perhaps the distances are just a tiny bit longer.....because 500 yards should not take me longer than 10 minutes to swim, but 10 minutes was the fastest swim time for the ladies last year. And 6 miles should not take longer than 20 minutes to bike, yet 20 minutes was fast for last year. My run time is slow, however, which totally makes me worry.Now, I know everyone is thinking "just enjoy the moment and be glad you are there." I know. I wish I could! But deep down I am competitive as all get out, and I desperately want to do better than average. But I am average. I just hope on Sunday, I can become better than I usually am. Maybe then I can be happy. (I want to come in around 55 minutes. If I'm there, I'll be jumping off the walls!)

Practice last night was rough. The seas were much choppier than I've ever experienced, and the swells were so bad that I couldn't see the buoys until I was right on top of them. Some of the less-experienced swimmers were getting seasick out there. Our superstar added 5-minutes to her mile time and was uber irked about it....so that made me feel better about my time. I did the 1/2 mile (more like .65 miles) loop in 21 minutes. It took me forever to swim out, but once there, I attempted to get into my groove. I questioned my sanity the entire time and kept saying over and over again, "just make it back alive." I was stuck on the outside coming back and this one girl was glued to my side....she kept forcing me over, but I couldn't swim past her because she was keeping pace with me. I could have screamed! Well, I did.....but anyway, we ended up way off course on the return and probably swam another 100 yards or so as we got swept away by the current. Good grief.

Had a slow transition because I didn't feel like running in sopping wet shoes....but it didn't help, because I still managed to drip into my socks and stain my shoes pink. I knew I needed to do laundry.My run was slow, but that was fine......I need to baby the knees, so I really treated them with kindness and even walked down some of the hillier terrain to prevent reinjury! (I'm pretty sure running downhill the day I got hurt was what damaged my knee) I did 2.5 miles in 25 minutes, so that was okay with me. Hopefully on Sunday I can kick it up a knotch and do some 9-minute miles. Gosh, anything is better than 10.

I'm eating a lot of cereal these days. I've been so lazy that I'm eating hubby's leftover 1% milk and raisin bran. It's all I eat. Not only do I feel bloated, but I'm spending a lot of time away from my desk......need to get away from the Raisin Bran.Coach wanted to know if I was still trying to lose weight and train for a triathlon last night. I had to laugh. It's not possible!!! You either stick to WW and feel light-headed halfway through a workout, or you just eat what your body tells you to, maintain, and get stronger muscles. In the off-season I'll definitely return to the point counting, but for now, I am just being moderate. (You never really get away from counting points....I keep a mental tally through the afternoon, and make sure dinner is sensible) I've felt guilty about this and haven't posted on Weightwatchen for a few days, but I suppose I can mozy on over as a "maintainer." That's not a bad thing, right?Anyways, that's what's going on in this messed up head of mine. Nerves. Bran. Faster.