Why am I Still Training in November?

So whose bright idea was it for me to sign up for an Ironman at the end of November while training in New Hampshire?  Oh, right, that was me.  Even worse is that five years ago I swore I'd never do Ironman Arizona again.  And yet there I was in June scrambling to find a way in.  What an idiot. 

I've never trained this late in the season before.  Well, that's not entirely true.  Twice I raced in Clearwater, which would've been this coming weekend.  That said, both times it came after having raced in Kona, so I wasn't so much training for it as I was just doing a few workouts here and there to make sure I could survive the world's easiest half ironman.  I mean, one year I shipped my bike directly from Hawaii to Florida.  And that was my 56-mile PR.  Imagine if I'd trained! 

Normally now is the time I'm totally sick of training and just want it to be over.  It's not even so much that right now for me as it's feeling like I don't even have a race next weekend.  It's very strange.  Halloween is over and the Christmas stuff is coming out.  I'm living in some weird universe where one week we have a devastating hurricane, which of course is a tropical-related incident, and the next week, today, actually, we have to be worried about snow. 

So, it just feels like I'm swimming, biking and running, not so much training for an Ironman next weekend.  I had a taste of some really chilly weather this weekend when I went outside for my bike ride.  I had forgotten what it was like to wear twenty pounds of clothes for a ride.  It was slow!  Running is being decent to me right now, and in a strange twist, swimming is finally getting faster.  For someone who has had the exact same Ironman swim splits since she started doing them 8 years ago, this is a very encouraging thing.  Let's hope it shows through in a week and a half. 

I guess one good thing about training so late in the season is that I get to be a totally lazy slug on Thanksgiving.  Not that that's the kind of holiday that requires much attention from me.  But while many of my friends are enjoying their breaks currently, they'll have started up again by then, and I'll just be getting started on my rest.  So that's a good thing. 

For now I've got a few more days of training to deal with, then it's time to get on a plane yet again and fly out to Arizona for the race.  My mom is coming with me this time.  She hasn't seen me finish an Ironman since 2010 since she didn't come to Texas.  It will also be a much smaller group of people I know there, which will be interesting.  I really have no idea how the race is going to go, I'm just hoping to race well based on where my fitness is right now. 

I'm definitely looking forward to a little break though.  And of course then getting right back into training for 2013.  But mostly taking a break I finally deserve and to truly be able to revel in it as opposed to coming off an abruptly ended season due to being injured or a death in the family. 

Because this is turning out to be one of the top three most boring blog posts ever, I'll stop now.  Although that is actually a tough list to be at the top of.