Well my cool and calm demeanour from yesterday cracked a little bit today with a bit of an attack of the nerves. Not really about the race yet funnily enough, I am sure that will come later, but more about the trip.
I am not a nervous traveller, I have no particular qualms about flying (although it is getting tougher to feel that way these days), I am okay with foreign countries etc. However, whilst I am not a nervous traveller I am a pedantic one. I am that way with racing too. That means that I like to have things as sorted as they can be before I take that final step, whether that final step is getting on a plane or getting on a start line. I have found that that tendency often leads me to over think things. That was what happened today. I had a sudden panic about some of my gear choices. I am well aware that the night that you pack your gear is not the time to be making gear changes and so I have resisted my panicked urges. It is very easy to get caught up in the whole, this will cost me XX seconds, this will gain me XX seconds, which of course is all mostly rubbish. The gear choices might make a slight difference, but it is unlikely to make or break your day. But sometimes you can disappear down a rabbit hole before you remind yours to come up for air.
In the end my choices for gear set up this race are based on fairly well thought out reasoning. They may not be the correct choices but they are definitely not random (although I will admit I am still considering my best bottle configuration choices).
Speaking of nervousness with the race. It is not unusual that I am not nervous at this point in my prep. Typically at this stage there are so many other things that have to get done before I line up on the start line (like getting to the country) that getting nervous seems like a bit of a waste of energy. I will get nervous later of course, but doing so now just seems a little premature. Having said that though, I had a bit of an epiphany (I love that word) yesterday. My races for the last forever have always had this footnote attached, 'the goal is to do well enough to qualify as a pro'. Whether you want it to or not, that adds a bit of pressure to a race. It is all self created pressure, but it is there all the same. This is the first time I have raced in what feels like ages that I don't have that pressure. Yes I now have to back and up and race as a pro, but that just means racing to the best of my ability, which is what I would do normally. There is no additional pressure beyond that. I am not sure I have explained that well, but it was a liberating thought yesterday.
My activities today have included a few more last minute jobs, printing out some maps and some recent competitor info that came out today and stuff like that. I spent a bit of time on Google Maps looking at the roads around where I am staying sussing out cycling routes. To be honest you really can't tell until you are there, but it was fun to do. Putrajaya looks like an interesting place. Large and very developed, impressive buildings etc. Road surfaces look good.
Beyond that I had another sleep in this morning. Not quite as impressive as my effort from Monday, but solid all the same. Tonight I have my final session before flying out, which is a bit of an easy run tonight. Looking forward to the session since it will be a good chance to clear the head and focus on doing rather than planning.
Tomorrow I have an unusually cruisy day. For whatever reason my flights for these trips always seem to leave at stupidly early times. However, tomorrow I don't leave until 4:00pm. That means I get another sleep in plus a relaxing morning before heading to the airport at a humanly reasonable hour.
I should have time to get an blog entry written sometime tomorrow, but if I don't, then there will be one on Friday from Putrajaya.
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