Iron Man South Africa by the seat of my pants !
Anyone who is a pilot will know what that means , but as far as an Iron Man is concerned this is how I will be executing my IMSA next week 25th April ! For about 3 weeks I was training EN style , I had a foot pod , a power meter , a heart rate monitor and was downloading all this info as required . Then my foot pod broke , so that was out of the window , the next week my heart rate monitor went US ( unserviceable ) and two weeks ago my power meter started playing up and has now been sent away .........SO I am left with no more fancy gadgets and gizmo's !
Well I continued training with out all these aids and I found I could feel which heart rate zone I was in and how many watts I was pushing more or less to the number , I tested this as my power meter would work for a while then not , and when it came on I was doing what I expected I was . So just like when I fly ( I fly for a skydiving drop zone ) I know what my plane is doing by just listening to the engine or feeling the stick , I have been doing my last practise sessions on feel . I am not at this late stage going to go out and buy more gadgets , all I will have is a Timex watch .
I have trained EN style but will be executing my race in a very none EN fashion and I think it will be interesting to see how I do . I am going to try and enjoy every minute of my race and relax , as I remember the year I won my age group I had not much more information but I was relaxed and really enjoying myself .....I only realised I had WON when I crossed the finish line and I heard the announcer saying " She is going to Kona ! " Wow I just want to enjoy this race as much .
So here I go , by the seat of my pants , I will feel myself through this one . Next mail will be to tell you how it felt !
Comments
Best of luck with IM SA. I'm planning on doing thios one next year and look forward to your race report. What sort of time are you aiming for and how has the training gone?
Best of luck, we'll be several hours behind you, but we'll have to try to track you as best we can!
Thank you all for the good wishes . I am planning to get in definitely under 12hrs , hoping to make or break my PB of 11h14.....
The weather is cooling down over here as we head for winter , so it will be interesting . This will be my fourth Iron Man in South Africa and I plan to try and do others overseas next year just to take a break from the same circuit . My training went well , so maybe that's why I am feeling confident to be able to go it alone with no help from the gadgets . Anyway that's all I can do at this stage as to try and run around will only stress me further . Will get back to you with my race report and then it is REST time for me .
You go girl!!
Tina,
That's a great approach and have fun going old school with not gadgets.
Enjoy the race and have fun.
Gordon
P