No Stopping...

This has been a crazy day. Go, go, go. It started with a doctors appointment to see if I needed any shots before I leave to China.

The nurse jokingly gave me a bad time for leaving it so late. There was a couple of shots they would have given me, but there wasn't enough time for the vaccines to work before I left for China.

The main concern they had was Malaria. They had two types of pills they could give me and one causes horrific nightmares. Last night I had a scary dream about Ironman China, I can't imagine ramping it up to nightmare status.

It turned out they couldn't give it to me anyway. They won't give it to anyone who can't be monitored for three nights before they travel, for safety reasons. They ended up giving me a prescription for a daily pill to take and they didn't give me any shots for anything.

Initially I did tell them that if the shots could negatively effect my performance, I wasn't interested. I'll take the risk. They ended up giving me a LONG list of things not to eat. It would have been easier if they just gave me a list of what I could eat.

They also gave me an antibiotic to take with me in case I started getting flu like symptoms and diarrhea. All in all, I was there for an hour and forty five minutes. It took a ridiculous amount of time for what I ended up getting.

I then went to a medical lab and had my annual physical blood work done. I figured this was the perfect time to do it. I've been training hard and haven't had a beer in over 2 months. It will be interesting to see if my GGT levels come back to normal.

The morning was pretty much a write off and I got to work around 11:30 am. I had employee job interview scheduled for 4 pm and was hoping I'd get my swim and bike ride in by then. But it wasn't possible, so I rescheduled the interview for tomorrow at 9 am. She knew I was going to China and was happy to meet on a Saturday. She must really want the job.

I did a lot of training today, almost a full half Ironman of training. I started at 2:30 pm and finished at 10 pm. During the bike ride it was also around 3 C with a big wind and wasn't enjoyable. Good thing I had my toe warmers on.

It was a grind it out ride. I'm finding that my performance is at an all time low. I have no power. If I remember correctly, I think this is normal. I think Mark Allen may have said the first week of the taper "you will feel flat", but the second week "you'll feel great". I think he said that? I hope he said that!

When I got home, I ate and had a nap. When I woke up my spirits felt better and I was off for an easy run. I enjoyed the run. I ran a route I only run before a race. It's starting to become a ritual and I'm getting superstitious if I don't do it. Right after finishing the run I was off to the pool. I felt strong and I finished just as the pool closed. It was perfect timing.

I was chuckling to myself throughout the day. Yesterday's blog post must have hit a cord with people, I think it generated the most amount of comments I've ever gotten for a single post. The first one arrived only 10 minutes after the blog entry was posted. The comments were great and really added to the post.

During the swim, those comments got me thinking that the world is such a small place. The readers of my blog are from all over the world, living in different cultures, speaking different languages, yet we all have the same issues and feelings related to triathlon.

What we experience during swimming, biking and running is consistent for all of us. It's like a McDonald's restaurant, where ever you go in the world, the experience is the same. We can relate to how each of us feel during every stage of our triathlon journey, no mater what continent we live on.

Long Bike - 3:22:41 / 93.63 km / 27.72 kph / 118 avg hr

Mod Run - 42:40 / 8.18 km / 5:13 pace / 131 avg hr

Mod Swim - 41:37 / 2000 meters