For some reason, this week, my brain has been full on ironman panic mode. I’m not sure if it’s the fact that I’ve seen so many friends crush their races lately that I put pressure on myself not to totally shit the bed at mine OR if it’s all the talk on blogs and facebook about preparation. Part of me wants to shut down social media a week or so before but part of me is afraid I’ll miss something I need to know about all things ironman racing.
 
The good news is that I’ve got awesome friends and family who have either raced the distance before or who know me well enough to know how to calm down my crazy. I’ve been leaning on all of them for support and encouragement. The S.O. has been nothing short of amazing and tells me before all my long rides and runs that I can do it.
 
I’m thinking about race goals and strategies. I’m not quite ready for that post yet, but I’m sure in a few weeks I will be ready to share all of that. For now, I’m just going through the first ironman training motions. I swim. I bike. I run. I eat. I sleep. I panic. And repeat.
 
In thinking about other big races and how I react before and after them, I am finding some consolation in the fact that I am in the exact same mode I always am before a race. This leads me to believe, I’ll race the way I always race. This doesn’t mean I have flawless or even “happy” races all the time, but it does mean that I typically finish what I started and look back after it and think, “Hey, I did that. It was hard. But, it wasn’t as scary as I thought.”
 
It’s funny, we watched the Lego Movie the other day and I absolutely loved it. The theme song, “Everything is Awesome” has been stuck in my head ever since. I think it’s a good reminder that even with all the highs, lows, and panic moments, I have a ton of support and love and everything really is awesome. I apologize in advance to my fellow ironman Chattanooga racers for singing this really loudly on the bike for the last 20 miles.