Taper Week 1: 20 days and counting

The last of the IM supplies. You know your husband loves you when 

he recognizes not all anti-chafing agents are made the same. 

Clearly creativity has gone downhill when the title looks as sad as this week's. But alas, that's all I can think of. Hooray. It's taper week 01.

That basically means the hardest work is behind us, and while we still have big workouts to do, they're not the biggest. Cuz we're tapering down.

Good thing this is happening, because life is beginning to start to take over. The basic elements of home ownership, domesticity, and child rearing are beginning to intensify. For some reason, the grass has decided to grow again, so Mr. T. has found himself mowing up to twice a week now. The days continue to shorten, which means less outside-of-work time to do a workout. And my job will start tonight, which means I'll have about 40 hours less to do things during the week.

Thankfully, we're almost there.

Lately, we both keep fighting the following elements that challenge our daily functioning thanks to Ironman training:

• We're hungry. . . full . . . then hungry 15 minutes later. 
• We're tired. All the time. Waves of fatigue come every 30 minutes. We're dealing with this still, believing some of it comes from a really cruddy mattress. The new one should arrive soon. :-)
• Doubt, and then fear plague us. I wonder if I'll make it to the end, and then this feeling is stopped by a firm belief that we can will ourselves to the end by the grace of God. I've read that mental toughness counts for something in an event like this one. 

So . . . we'll see. We have twenty days until the big day. Our friends tell us helpful things like: 

• The hay is in the barn. 
• The cash is in the bank. 
• The hard work is behind you. 
• Focus on just staying healthy. 

This week looks similar to next week with a few modifications. We'll have the challenge of me starting work, and also, the local pool is officially closed. For now we have plans to make a couple of trips one hour away to another pool and then to utilize the rowing machine at the local community center to keep those muscles active and limber. 

Last night we did something that really helps me with training even this late in the game: we watched the live feed that Ironman puts out allowing anyone with an internet connection to watch participants finish a race. We watched Ironman Wisconsin yesterday, and again and again, we found ourselves inspired. 

Here's to hoping we'll find ourselves crossing that finish line in twenty days.