Patriot plan

Ok, first. I'm writing this from a hotel at the SFO airport. This is not my ideal race prep, but I came out here to give a proposal, and it went well. So I'm going with it. Plus, for my last half I did a trans-continental flight 2 days before, and that was fine, right? I fly out at 6 tomorrow morning.

Back to the race. Since Mooseman, my knee has not been happy. And it's not been indifferent either. It has been angry. Seriously angry. Like 5 days ago, I was considering pulling out of the race angry. It's the same old thing, super tight IT band pulling knee all out of shape. But it was waking me up in the middle of the night. It was painful to put weight on; it was painful to lift my knee. You get the picture. There's been a flurry of physical therapy-esque activity, and just a few tears, and at this point, I'm pretty confident I will be racing in about 36 hours.

It's supposed to be hot. Like 88 degress hot. Race starts at 7:15, so realistically, I'll be racing through the hottest part of the hottest day of the year. Awesome. Here's my plan:

Swim: Last year I did a 32 minute swim. Sure it was one of the best swims of my life, but I'd love to see a repeat of that. Plus, I've gotten faster over winter training. So lets go with 32 minutes.

Ride: First off, I'm wearing my regular cycling shoes, they're not as fast to put on, but they are seriously more comfortable, so those extra 20 seconds or so in transition seem totally worth it. Ok, so last year, I held a 30km/h pace which works out to 18mph. But that course was flat, dead flat. In this preseason, I've been stressing feeling like I'm not able to get up to that sort of speed this year. I just haven't ridden outside nearly as much as I did in Brisbane. But I've had a couple of good rides a nearly 20mph average at Mooseman, and a 17.8 average on the Patriot course a few weeks ago, so I'm thinking 18 is doable. I'll set my computer to average and just hold onto 18. This course is two loops of 29 miles, so it's a bit longer than Busso, so my time will be a bit longer, but the course is more interesting with a few rollers to get out of the saddle for. I'm looking forward to it.

Last time, I had planned on a pee break in T2, but this didn't happen. Not cause I was concerned about time, but because I was way too dehydrated to have to go. This will not be the case on Saturday. I've been training to take in more fluid and despite my coach's recommendations, I'm not going to try to pee on the bike. Like they say, don't race anything you haven't trained, so I'm planning on stopping at the portapotties after the first loop. All in all, this means I'm looking at a 3:15 bike.

Run: This is once again the wild card. I haven't done anything longer than a 10K run going into this, so that's nerve-racking, but I also feel confident that if I keep it controlled, that I can do it. Provided the knee behaves itself. I've got my nutrition and hydration in much better shape than last year (in that I've actually planned them), so if that was truly what held me back last year, then hopefully, I should be ready. 2 hours on the run is the goal.

0:32 + 3:15 + 2:00 = 5:47 + 0:05 (transition) + 0:03 (bathroom break) = 5:55.

Honestly, I will be happy to finish this race. I will be thrilled to come in sub-6. If I come in 5:55, it will be an amazing day. Given what an awesome day I've had today, anything seems possible.