Good luck to everyone! I am feeling pretty excited…as Liz mentioned, these months of training have set us up well. And I echo the thoughts about not dealing with high heat and humidity, as I am certainly more acclimated to the 70s. 🙂
My main objective is to finish and feel good at the end so that I want to do another race. 🙂 So, my goals are to stay within the heart rate zones during bike and run, stick with my nutrition plan, and, as Liz mentioned, don’t get caught up in competing with others, especially on the bike. As for the swim, one of my goals involves swimming as straight as possible between buoys.
I appreciate the comments from Joseph about the rain….admittedly, I haven’t trained as much on the bike in the rain as I probably should have, so I intend to definitely be cautious in turns and keep good distance from others. Good tips about the separate bags to keep things dry. With soggy conditions, I plan to be more diligent about taking in fluids, as I may not appreciate that the body will still need hydration. As someone who burns easily, I will also need to make a point of applying sunscreen even though we may not see the sun. As for the swim, overcast skies may help out since it looks like the start of the race goes straight into the sun.
One possible change if cooler and rainy is that I may dial back on electrolyte tablets on the run. I was planning on only drinking water at aid stations and augmenting with tablets, as I find that the concentration of sports drinks at aid stations can often be extremely variable when volunteers are mixing powder with water.
All the best to everyone racing, hope you have a great time!
