{"id":130,"date":"2007-11-26T19:14:16","date_gmt":"2007-11-26T19:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dshen.com\/blogs\/training\/2007\/11\/26\/im_wa_getting_that_gaunt_look_again\/"},"modified":"2007-11-26T19:14:16","modified_gmt":"2007-11-26T19:14:16","slug":"im_wa_getting_that_gaunt_look_again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dshen.com\/blogs\/training\/archives\/im_wa_getting_that_gaunt_look_again.html","title":{"rendered":"IM WA: Getting that Gaunt Look Again&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m less than a week away from Ironman Western Australia (IM WA) and down in LA with all my typical Ironman equipment.<br \/>\nI look in the mirror and see my face kind of shrunken in, as if my flesh is disappearing.  It always seems to get this way right before a long event like a marathon or Ironman.  My physical therapist tells me it&#8217;s because I have reduced volume during my taper, and now fluids don&#8217;t collect in my muscles because I am not damaging them as much during the taper process.  Consequently, I see my weight dropping by several pounds in the weeks right before a race.  It&#8217;s kind of remarkable.  I hang near 148-150 lbs for many months and then it all flies away until I am almost 145 by race morning, and usually the week after as well.<br \/>\nAnother stupid thing.  I get to LA, on my way to Australia and I realize that&#8230;I forgot my bike helmet!  AUGGGH!!!  What an idiot I am.  I call all over LA looking for an aero helmet and finally find one in Redondo Beach at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.triathlonlab.com\/\">Triathlon Lab<\/a>.  What a life saver!  I pick up a Limar Cronos aero helmet there.<br \/>\nOtherwise, I battle little aches and pains here and there.  I always worry about them because I do not know if they will be OK or flare up during the race.  Racing while in pain is not good; you have enough pain from maintaining a pace and you don&#8217;t need other pains to distract you.<br \/>\nNews from Busselton and Perth.  Customs at Perth is super strict.  Hope they don&#8217;t take all my powders and gels.  A buddy of mine arrived there a little while ago and drove the bike course; he says it is pancake flat.  I hope it&#8217;s true.  Plus it&#8217;s pretty hot in Perth right now, but Busselton is much cooler on the coast.  At least the Australian drought means that it&#8217;s extremely doubtful we&#8217;ll have rain on race day.<br \/>\nTomorrow, I hit the 1030p flight to Sydney.  It&#8217;s one long ass flight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m less than a week away from Ironman Western Australia (IM WA) and down in LA with all my typical Ironman equipment. I look in the mirror and see my face kind of shrunken in, as if my flesh is disappearing. It always seems to get this way right before a long event like a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ironman-wa-12-2-2007"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dshen.com\/blogs\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dshen.com\/blogs\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dshen.com\/blogs\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dshen.com\/blogs\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dshen.com\/blogs\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dshen.com\/blogs\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dshen.com\/blogs\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dshen.com\/blogs\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dshen.com\/blogs\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}