Numbers

When I added the Eagleman counter feature to my blog footer, the race was over 2 months away. Lately I’ve been avoiding looking at the happy stars bounding off the pink background. Right now it shows that the race is 1 month, 0 days, 14 hours, 30 minutes and 55 seconds away. Tomorrow the countdown will show a big fat 0 in the month slot.

Maybe I should switch it out for a new counter for Ironman – which is still about 6 months away. But I am not sure how much I want to I think about those numbers just yet. I recently watched a triathlon movie clip where the narrator mentioned that the 112 mile bike would seem long – in a car.

Wow, I’d never thought about that. I am going to be biking a distance that would take almost 2 hours by car.

Training and races involve many numbers - miles, meters, minutes, hours, ranks, averages, paces.

Numbers can be encouraging. The more I’ve thought about my SML swim time, the more I’ve realized I’ve made some gains through all this training. My last 750 open water swim race time was over 4 minutes longer – and that was without a wetsuit and with the timing mat right on the dock when stepping out of the water.

Other times, numbers can be humbling. In my first triathlon I finished dead last in my age group.

And sometimes, numbers can be downright confusing. Up until this weekend, I’ve been timing my mile swim based on 36 laps in the pool. Which is correct for yard pools. But, I’ve been swimming in meter pools – where 32 laps equal a mile. Doh, makes total sense now that I’ve thought through the math. At least I didn’t make that mistake the other way around.

So while I am excited for the Shady Grove Sprint race coming up in a little over 3 weeks, I know when it gets here, Eagleman will be just 7 days away.

And now, not that I am obsessing, there is 1 month, 0 days, 14 hours, 22 minutes and 11 seconds till the 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike and 13.1 (thanks Fave!) mile run. Numbers that get scarier by the minute.

Tick, tock, tick tock.