Calories. They matter.

Yesterday I went to check out the race site.
Here's what it takes to bring all my gear plus hubbie and kid in tow....


We didn't have time to do the bike all together (probably because it took so long to load up all that gear!), so my husband and I switched off swimming and running around the lake (which is small part of the run course) pushing the jog stroller.

My swim went fine, other than some annoying goggle issues. BUT. Get this: the lake was lovely. Smooth as glass, small, protected, trees all around (ie no pesticide run-off fouling the water). After the crazy wave debacle in my ChelanMan sprint, and the freezing early June water of Lake Sammamish from my first Issaquah Tri sprint, I am ready for some smooth easy swimming. Here's a pic from the website:


When I started my run, I felt so sluggish. I took an enormous amount of energy to move my body through space. And pushing the jog stroller, OI!

The negative voices started up, a cacophony in my head. "How will you ever do this race if you can't even swim then run a tiny portion? This race is in 2 weeks - you haven't trained enough! Who were you kidding that you could pull this off? Your body is just too tired, maybe you should just rest for today.' Man, when those voices start up, they really put up a fight.

Then - THANKFULLY - I thought...wait a minute...I calculated how long it had been since I had eaten breakfast. Ah. It was now 5 hours later. Ah. Thankfully I had stuck an energy gel in a pocket, so I sucked on that while I tried to be more patient with my chatterbox son. In a few moments, I didn't have to work quite so hard to be patient...what he was saying was amusing and distracting. And, in a few minutes, my legs suddenly felt like they were running through regular oxygen instead of goo. OOohhhhhh. I had been hungry. My muscles weren't working right. It's not that I am under-prepared for the race, or incapable of doing this much activity, or need to quit. It's that my body just needed calories.

(with apologies to the great Dinah Washington)
"What a difference a GU made,
twenty-four sips of glucose...
Brought the sun and flowers
where there used to be rain!!"

Still, after running the first 1.5 mile loop, I left the stroller with the husband and ran a 2nd lap just to be sure.