Ice, Ice, Baby!

Saturday was my last long brick workout before the race.  The schedule had us riding 40 miles and then running 16.  A bunch of veteran IM T3 folks volunteered to come down to Circle C where we were doing all this training and set up water/food stops for us with all the nutrition that would be available on the course on race day.  It totally rocked! 

We started the ride at 7:00 sharp, and there was some nice cloud cover to keep the extreme heat away.  I busted out 40 miles in under 2 hours and felt great, slipped on my trusty running shoes, and took off with my friend Meredith at a solid clip.  A mile into it, we saw the first waterstop, and I almost tripped over my own feet when I saw my name chalked on the sidewalk.  "Go, Jennie, you'll soon be an Iron-Woman!"  It is so awesome to train with cowbell-ringing friends.  They flooded us with water, Gatorade, PowerBar gels and fig newtons, and we continued on our run.  I was able to hang with Merciless Meredith until about mile five, when she said, "we're averaging 8-minute miles."  "Um, ok, I need to slow it down then."  Meredith went on her way, and I plugged along.  We were fully exposed to the sun by 11:00, and I was getting hot. 

At the next stop, my friend Jerry grabbed the back of my shirt and poured a cup of ice down it.  It was AWESOME!  He also told me to run holding ice in my hands to keep cool.  Totally worked!  It was 88 degrees for the last 10 miles of my run, but I kept a solid clip.  I hydrated right, never bonked, and finished with a smile and a spark.  And I learned a great lesson:  Ice is gold!  Jerry's done multiple IMs before, and he said it's not always readily available on the course, especially later in the day.  So I'm tasking Jody and whoever else is out there on race day with that one thing:  ICE! 

T-minus one month.  Getting excited, folks!  Thanks for sharing in this with me.