It is now less than four weeks until my big race of the year at Ironman Chattanooga.  I am in the middle of my final block of training, and at that stage, where the end is in sight. 

This will be my fourth Ironman race and each time, about a month out from the race, I start to look ahead towards tapering.  I think it is a perfectly normal thing to do.  I have been building for the race all year and just want to get to the start line.

Today was a typical ‘day at the office’.  A relatively relaxed swim, after a really big weekend of workouts.  Quite honestly, it almost felt like a day off, and that was the point.  You cannot do big workouts every day.  It is important to have time to recover.  One way to recover is to take a day off.  My coach and I prefer to just do an easy workout instead.

This particular swim was a good choice.  My legs were tired after the weekend, so for most of the swim, I didn’t use them.  I swam with a pull buoy instead.

The other part of being less than four weeks from race day, is my mind starts wandering to race planning.  How am I going to pace the race?  What are the course details?  Luckily, I have raced in Chattanooga several times before, so many things are very familiar.  Unfortunately, that also means I know how hard the run is !!!