I'm embarking on my next adventure, my next challenge, this one is more familiar to me than previous ones. This one is an old haunt, one I want to put to bed finally. Back in 2014 I attempted the inaugural Race in Donegal, to help out a friend who wanted the numbers to get the race going. I turned up ill prepared and failed. Now, I don't like failing, so here I am.
Will I finish it? I don't know, but that's the point of this race, you aren't meant to know if you'll finish it. It could be injury, it could be weather related or just pure exhaustion. But one thing I do know, I'm going to give it all I have. It is three weeks short of a year ago that I got my place for the 2016 event and I've been building to this for that length of time. Initially just getting the basics, I had a bad foot injury last year so it took me a few months to build and get over that. In all honesty I'm not fully over it at all, but it is better and manageable. So I've built up from 5km distances, bought myself a road bike and started training. Finding the time has been the hardest part, I have two jobs, one full time and one part time. In the early stages of training it was short runs and cycles, not too bad to find the time for that, but here in the latter stages it was whole weekends I have had to devote to training. Giving up a social life and other commitments to focus on putting the effort in so that when I get to the start line in 54 hours time I can do so safe in the knowledge that this time I have done all I could to complete this.
So, what's the furthest I've done in training? A marathon, 100km on the bike and 10km on the rowing machine, so about half way!! How did I feel after that? Exhausted! All I know, is that I will put everything I can into completing this. Lying here with the thud of the waves I am playing over in my mind each stage, what I'll wear at each transition, what food I will have with me, what state I'll be in, what time I am aiming for! The same things circling around in my head. I so want to finish this.