My First "What Was I Thinking?" Moment

Dear Self,

The illustrious Britney Spears said "I'm a smart person, what ... was I thinking?" when reflecting on her recent psychological trauma and strange behavior. I am saying that to myself after seeing the elevation of the run and bike courses for Ironman St. George. The 112 mile bike course contains two, eh-hem, hills, er--I really mean MOUNTAINS that climb up to almost a mile high. Basically, 1,700 foot elevation gain on the bike. Then a 500+ foot elevation gain on the run. Now when they said that St. George was at 3,000 feet, I took that literally, and I knew I could operate at that altitude. I did not take into consideration the massive hills they might throw at us. And if you take a look at the map pictured here of the St. George bike course, you'll see they are quite massive. I did not expect to be biking at 5,000 feet. Alas, as it turns out, I am. Or, I will be. I'm freaking out just a teeny-tiny bit.

The good news is my first response to seeing this course was "well, at least there are huge down hills after all of those huge up hills." That's my response and I'm sticking to it! Up hills with subsequent kick-backs make it worth the work. I will work, too. Super duper hard. And I will stay positive! I will search for the positive and squeeze every good-thinking bit of energy I can out of it. That's my plan and I'm sticking to it!

In other news, I felt like a wild animal during my workout at Quarry Lake last night. I did a fast 750m wet suit swim in the open water of the Quarry and then a 2+ mile run. For the first time in a long time, I took only 5 seconds to jump into the icy 65 degree water of Quarry Lake. Granted, I had a wet suit on, so it should have been easier to take the initial plunge, but I have to admit even when I have a wet suit I take upwards of 2, 3 to even 5 minutes to get into cold water. I have a sinking sensation that this cryophobia (fear of cold) will not bode well at the upcoming Lonestar Quarter Iron. I know that I will need to be able jump into the cool water of the Gulf. And so I have to find a way to make myself do it. So, I devised a very complex plan in order to bribe myself into getting into cold water. In my head, I said "Ok, Mercedes, if you don't all OUT JUMP into this water in 5 seconds there will be NO POST WORKOUT SMOOTHIE for you!" And so I counted down, part-way through wondering if I would actually jump in, and by the count of 5, I was in, and I felt SO STRONG in the water. On the run afterward, I used the 1.1K loop to help me do a tempo run. I ran the first 1.1K slow, in about 5:30. The next loop was 5:09, the next loop was 4:30, and the next loop was 4:00. Then I did a long cool down. I used the same complex bribing tactic as I did to get myself into the water quickly. In my head I thought "if this repeat isn't at least 20 seconds faster, no SMOOTHIE for you!" And needless to say, I got the smoothie. And it tasted even sweeter than I thought it would.

Current book I'm reading: The Reader by Bernhard Schlink