The Half Ironman Freak Out

I am getting stressed about doing TWO half Ironman distance tris this summer. I am really worried about the bike. I am glad to have my new tri bike and just need to log some miles! With the upcoming move, I have been attempting to organize and clean once the kids are in bed, but I have been sick since the marathon and just have not been getting things done. I don't have an official training plan, and I probably should have one. A willy nilly training plan I make up entirely myself works fine for sprint tris and even the Olympic tri, but I am not so sure I can "fake it" through a half IM. Well, I am confident I can get through it on my plan, but I want to do more than "get through it".

I need to sign up for Racing for Recovery this week and really decide if I want to Steelhead or Muncie. I can't do both. It occurred to me this evening that perhaps I could do them both if I didn't do R4R, but that is the least expensive of the three races and gives me the most time between the two. I feel like the R4R race will be a good "practice" race. It is fairly local (to MI), and won't require any hotels. It will only require a trip "home" from KY, which I have planned for and already paid for Keira to attend school the weeks following it through the end of the school year and my next race. I can do 2 races on 1 trip home. Bonus.

It will be a confidence booster that will show me that I can in fact do the distance before spending a large chunk of money and causing my mom to drive all over the state to help with the kids. I told her that for her to come with me would only add about 3 extra hours of driving to her weekend. She has a crazy weekend lined up on account of my dad doing a bike tour called the "Shoreline West" that goes from New Buffalo MI to Mackinaw City. My dad will ride through Benton Harbor a few days before the IM. My mom need to pick up my dad in Mackinaw City the day after the IM. The drive there from Benton Harbor is about the same as the drive from my house to Mackinaw, so the only added driving is the distance from my house to Benton Harbor. See, it all works out, right? I have a hotel booked already and it is on the way to Mackinaw to help her out (since I waited to long to get something in St Joseph). But, it requires hotels and lots of gas, which is VERY expensive right now.

My facebook status today was that I finally am over our old Explorer Sport Trac, which up until this afternoon at Meijer getting gas, I missed every time I saw an older one on the road. That tank would cost around $100 to fill up, and we had to do it VERY often when Ryan would drive it back and forth to work. When prices were very high before, he drove my car and I drove the truck. He liked driving that truck, which is why we didn't always do that.

Back to the Muncie race. It is on a Saturday. I usually don't race on Sundays for religious reasons, but I tend to make exceptions for bigger races. I did not want to try to qualify to Boston on a Sunday marathon. I felt I needed all the help I could get. Steelhead was on a Saturday last year, so I had hoped it would be again this year, and TIA has a lot of athletes there. There was also a huge charity event there last year that was organized and supported by members of my club. I will have people there I know, which is always important to me. I don't like going to big races all by myself. Cristina is tentative on it.

With Muncie, Valerie is planning to do that one since it is on a Saturday. I ran it by Ryan's boss, and at the time, he was told that he would not be able to go anywhere in July due to work. Now, things have changed with the timing of his work. He might be able to go. It will be a lot closer to go to Muncie from KY. The new tri club that I plan to investigate will have a lot of people going there. I am learning about more people going there. It is not a great lake swim, also a plus. It is a tad cheaper, will require only 1 hotel night, and a lot less gasoline. I feel like I need to get this figured out pretty soon because I need to sign up for R4R pretty quickly. Like in 2 days before the fees go up. The entry fee is a lot for a practice race, but before I make some big trip out of a race, I want to know that I can at least finish the distance. I don't want to haul my family all over and make them jump through hoops for me to finish my FIRST half IM. I want to go into the race where I need a ton of help with the confidence that I can do it and have more than just finish in one piece as my goal.

Advice anyone?