The Iron Diaries

[emilyj]

I like to think that IM is really far off in the distance. Then you post the days left, and all I think "At some point you are going to post a number that has me running for a paper bag to breathe in to." Thankfully I'm not close to that yet. I'm strangely calm and zen about the whole thing right now. This reaffirms for about the 100th time that I love my new coach, and hiring him in March was the best decision I made that was triathlon-related in a long time.

Let's see. What's been happening? My students finally drove me to drink this semester. I'm rapidly approaching burnout at work, and I'm scared. I pulled a 9 minute PR at Kiawah and went sub-2:30, doing essentially a Z2 run the whole time. So that's stupidly exciting for me. I'm going for one final PR this weekend at my 5K. When I look back at this year, since March, I'm kind of amazed at how far I've come. My coach says we are just getting started, so I'm pretty psyched to see what's ahead.

Questions!

What workout adjustments do you have to make due to holidays and holiday hours for things? Any workouts on Christmas day?
- Less swim and bike, more running. We are only going to be gone for a week, so that takes a lot of the sting out of travel. Usually we are gone for pushing 2 weeks. As for Christmas day, I begged for one to get me out of the house for a bit. H's family is brewing some serious and major drama, and I'm not interested.

Let's play a drinking game on Christmas. Take a swig every time you or someone brings up triathlon, and report back on how tipsy you get 😂
- Well...his family is Church of Christ, so it will be a dry Christmas. Unless we bring wine to drink that night. But I can promise you my MIL won't ask. So unless you text me a lot...

What's the next thing you're going to eat today?
- Dinner. I don't know what that is going to be. 

Fill in the blank (sung along with Bing Crosby): I'm dreaming of a _____ Ironman
- "Mildly warm and not too humid, with cool, wetsuit legal temperature water,  a cloud cover, no sun and no wind"
That's a hell of a song.