Hope I Can

The alarm did not need to sound. I was awake. 0300. Race day and I cannot bring myself to go deep into REM. Might as well get up and get started. I have decided to drive to the 0455 sailing on the ferry a half-hour away. I stop for gas and arrive with ten minutes to spare. The boat will be delayed for fueling. I fume.

Already in a less-than-perfect mood I get to the site as it starts to rain. Everyone I run into annoys me. All they want to do is talk about themselves and their last race, their last workout or their latest purchase of equipment. I am not in the mood.

There is no water in transition so I must walk back to registration to fill my bottle.  This used to be a great venue, back in the day, I think, now, just another expensive local fiasco.

I am talking with someone about this when he says that my group, the blue caps, are about to start, so I swim out to join them just before a low volume, uninspiring count-down gets us underway. I cannot get suction on my goggles and brackish, oily lake sewage seeps in. Without good sleep for three days I accept the situation and agree to pull out the minute I detect atrial fibrillation, something I am sure will occur any moment. I try to find a groove, try to relax, try to raise to the occasion, but today it seems like I simply do not have it.

I finish the swim and saddle up. I try to rally and ride hard. Nothing there. A thousand negative thoughts haunt me as if this was Halloween. I convince my legs that they can power up a little 40k and we 'survive' the hilly course and start the run.

Plodery. One short step after another and my chest is heaving. I am breathing as if I was a an all-out 1500m, but it is only a 10K. I need a gel. With one shot of condensed carbs, some electrolytes and caffeine I can make it. There is none to be found.

We finish, I never stopped or walked, but it was embarrassingly slow and that makes me all the grumpier.

I win my age group. I am disappointed.

I was crap today. I had a bad attitude, I whined and I moaned and then we were done. Why?

So now, instead of ending on a bad note, I'll have to go back and see if I am capable of making it fun again.

I hope I can.