Mercy me, I see the taper

A friend once told me the difference between Grace and Mercy. Mercy is when you don't get what you do deserve and Grace is when you do get what you don't deserve. Well, I was the full recipient of ironman grace this weekend. Dave and I had planned on a 7 hour ride-run on sunday and it turned out that Jon and Carole were going to their house in Damascus. So we arranged to ride to Damascus and do a run on the creeper trail - which was flat and soft. I had told myself that this would be my last long day in prep for the race...that after this, it would be all downhill. Well I had some concerns - mainly with my knee. Its been hurting whenever I try to run even though I have hardly been trying to run for quite awhile now. In fact on Thursday I had an issue (not so much pain as just something there) after just jogging slow (and having my HR go crazy) with the stroller for 3 miles. Well, I figured that I would do this last long thing and suffer. But after an absolutely glorious Sunday morning ride in which the first 40 miles we probably saw 10 cars - the run was like old times. Painless and my heartrate was controllable...even though it was hot. So after this perfect day, I decided to start the taper. My mind is in a great place and with just a few weeks to go, I am as good as I'm going to get. I hope to continue looking forward to Ironman and to continue to keep doubt and fear away. I never thought I'd feel this way...but thankfully, here I am. On other random notes - Dave's CGM kept telling him he was in the 90's but he started feeling tight and nauseous so we stopped at 40 miles in Warrensville. He was 500. He tested 3 times with 2 different meters and 2 different bottles of strips because he didn't believe it. But it was 500. His CGM had been in a little too long apparently. So we debated what bolus to do and he shot up wondering what the other 40 miles would be like. We filled our water bottles behind a restaurant and then I helped a trucker move his rear wheels forward to balance the load (which was cool) and off we went. It wasn't long before I noticed that Dave was zooming up the hills faster than I thought a person at 500 should be able to do. And a little over an hour later, he tested and was in the 130's. Amazing. The dude really is a machine. The drop into Damascus was a blast after that. In other news - I was biking to work yesterday and out of the fog on a lonely road was a horse in the middle of the road just looking at me. I talked to it as I went by. It seemed to appreciate that.

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