Chickleta - My SBRing and other Adventures

4:30 am, Sunday May 17, 2015, my alarm beeps.  Time to get up, its race day. The first thought that crosses my mind was - why did I signed up for this? It's so early in the season, after a hard winter. My head keeps going, I can count the number of outdoors rides I've done so far this year on one hand. My stomach is turning, those butterfly again, they started on Friday when we arrived to Chattanooga and now on race morning they are becoming even stronger. I get out of bed and head down to the lobby, I need coffee and then I try to eat my usual pre race breakfast (apple sauce with protein powder and rice cake with almond butter and half a banana). This morning getting the breakfast in is harder than usual. Those damn butterflies, why can't I relax? Why di d I sign for this? still rings in my ears and kept ringing until I was on the dock to jump in the water, but before we get into this, let's go back to the days leading to the race. The Days Before the Race ...

I singed up for Ironman Racine 70.3 thinking this half ironamn distance race will be the last practice race before my biggest goal for the year Ironman Mont Tremblant. Race date is 4 weeks before the IM so perfect time to test my fitness, dial-in my nutrition and practice my IM pacing and strategy.  Race location is also very convenient, only about 1.5 hours drive from Chicago, which means we can actually drive up Saturday afternoon. In the weeks leading to the race, my training was going as planned.  Made it to the lake (Lake Michigan that it) once, and boy that was a cold one, been doing my long rides, long runs, etc. On Racine's bike course (July 4th pre-ride)  We even made it up to Racine on July 4th to ride the bike course and see what's it like.  I was looking forward to racing this bike course.  Fun rolling course, mostly out of town, windy (as if there is a course in this area that is not windy). Fast forward to race week, I had two objectives fo...