It’s 7:30 PM and I’m getting ready for bed. Brushed teeth, washed face, drank vitamins, and took two Benadryl to help me sleep. Tomorrow I’m racing in my fifth triathlon, a sprint, the same distances as Surftown last month:

500-m (about 0.3 miles) swim, 15K (about 9.3 miles) bike, 5K (3.1  miles) run.

This is my last chance until next spring to get my time under one hour at the sprint distance. So once again my goal for the race is 0:59:59.

I plan to go all out on the swim, something I’ve never done before. In all my other races, I’ve always reserved some energy. I hope with all-out sprinting, I can get my swim time to 10 minutes or under. I feel very confident on my bike. On this morning’s ride, I tested my legs for just a little bit and I was able to go about 25-28 mph almost effortlessly in a high Zone 2, low Zone 3. My run needs to be close to 20 minutes, something I’ve not been able to do ever. But I’ve been working hard at my running, and with the ample rest I’ve had this week, I hope I have my fastest 5k time. My goal is to spend no more than two or two and one-half minutes in transition. All in all, I need to have a perfect race to go under an hour.

I feel a little more relaxed than usual, definitely not wound up or uptight.

This week I had light workouts. I went easy on the brick run on Tuesday night. I did an easy four-mile run on Thursday morning and skipped the track workout. Friday I skipped swimming at the Cove and swimming altogether. And today, I did an easy 45-minute ride followed by a 15-minute run, about 10-miles and 1.5 miles, respectively. I got my bike tuned up this past week, and it is running smoothly, thanks to Matt Simpson of Rivet Cyclesport in Oceanside.

After picking up my stuff at the race expo, I bought a new tire at B&L to replace the one damaged by the metal shard a couple of weeks ago. My race bag was packed hours ago, and it’s already sitting in the passenger of my car.

Wish me luck!