She loves me. She loves me not.

As I write this I am 8 days, 10 hours, and 6 minutes from the gun of my very first race as a professional, Ironman 70.3 St. George. As with almost any training block, the one leading into this race has had its ups and downs: the flu, a cold, terrible week long stomach cramps, the flu part two. Okay. So maybe it feels like it’s been a little heavy on the down due to some sickness; but, don’t get me wrong. I’ve had good weeks and good workouts. What has really been getting to me in these 2-3 weeks leading into St. George though, is this feeling that each training day is a coin flip. Either I’m going to feel great and get a big confidence boost or I’m going to feel like trash, cut a workout short, and go back to being terrified.

Yesterday I had a solid swim set of 4 x 500, coming in at under 5:55 for each interval (scy), immediately followed by a 30 minute threshold run where I warmed up at 6:40 pace and ran 5:34 average for 30 minutes. Both workouts felt relaxed, fluid, and repeatable. Contrast that with today where I felt mediocre on the bike and then cut an evening swim basically in half because I was worried about my cramps returning. Did I give up a little easily? Probably. But why? The biggest race of my life is coming up.

These small and big hurdles from this block have conditioned my mind to think if it’s not a great day, it’s a day not worth having. As soon as I feel the congestion in my chest or a tightness in my abdomen, I find myself writing the workout off. These days, of course, only accentuate my feeling on unpreparedness. Am I actually unprepared? Not at all. Could I be better prepared? Without a doubt, but not all of that has been in my control.

As I was in the pool today I compared my current mentality to picking petals off of a flower, trying to determine if my affection is mutual.

She loves me. She loves me not. She loves me. She loves me not.

I’m asking myself if St. George will fall on a day where she loves me or not. But this is entirely the wrong mentality. I was sharing some of these feelings in a group chat with a couple of good friends and training buddies and one replied with a sentiment that I was surprised I hadn’t heard before.

“A good workout is never a fluke. Can’t pull fitness out of thin air. Bad ones are though. Plenty of random reasons a workout can go south.”

While this doesn’t address the mental weakness I’ve been exhibiting, or give an excuse to cut one of those workouts that goes south, it’s a thought I’ve been trying to run through my mind. I’ve had good swim, bike, and run workouts. I’ve had them recently. Those workouts prove I’m capable of competing at this level. St. George, and any other race in the future for that matter, will not be a coin flip. It won’t matter what side of the bed I wake up on. I need to go into race day not wondering if she loves me, but knowing that I love her. And I do. I love the nerves, the pain, the competition, the experience. I am without a doubt the fittest I have ever been, but so are every one of the other athletes on the line next to me. I need to continue to grow my mental strength with my physical strength if I am going to be as successful in this sport as I know I can be. It is now 8 days, 9 hours, and 26 minutes until the biggest race of my life.