A random disorganized mess of emotion and thought

My favorite card ever! I think this might be a future tattoo :) love it. thanks kellie!

Is it possible to have the opposite of writer's block? I've had SO many blogs in my head I want to write I haven't even figured out where to start.

How am I feeling about Hawaii? Stunned. Am I really leaving on Saturday? Holy crap I have a lot to do. I'm having the urge to stop time and savor these last moments before I experience this dream but I would also gladly pay the big guy in the sky a handsome sum to fastforward to Saturday when we are on the plane to paradise. Anxiety. Gotta love it.

Since I'm so scatterbrained right now, here's my random flow of consciousness less than one week before leaving for Kona....

1. I started my mental training yesterday reading a book Blain and Julie gave me called "mind gym." So far its a great mental exercise to find the right mental state for success. For me, that always starts with staying focused on myself (and not other athletes...) and reconnecting with my joy and passion for the sport and for the human connection triathlon brings me. I'm in the process of revisiting lots of good stuff that I read before St. George and starting to work on exorcising out the negative self talk and doubts that start to creep in around this time before a race.

2. Speaking of negative self talk, I have to be honest. Training for Kona has been tough. I've been more tired than usual this summer. Maybe the doc was right about the long lasting fatigue from the pneumonia.... BUT to me that's not an excuse. And I'm not looking for an excuse! It is what it is but training has not been that solid smooth progression of fitness that I enjoyed before St. George and it affects my confidence. I'm working on not focusing on the "negative space." The negative space I've defined as those holes in my training that weren't supposed to be there. Those missed workouts that I perseverate on in my training log. I wouldn't classify myself as type A, but on the other hand, I tend to not like missing workouts and I've had to do it quite a bit this summer. I'm working on my mind's ability to focus on the POSITIVE space. Like, holy crap Libby, you've done a completely epic amount of training and had some huge breakthroughs so how on earth can you not be totally stoked about that?!!? (I'm envisioning myself shaking myself into reality while saying this to myself.....)

3. The next thought that comes after that is my reasoning that I have done plenty of work to ENJOY Kona. I've been thinking of it as a celebration, a party, the culmination of a dream and a journey. I've been reminding myself that 20 years from now it won't matter if I got 20th or 40th in my age group. What matters is that I soaked up the heart and soul of long distance triathlon in its birthplace. I think that's something I can't quite come to terms with until I'm actually on the big island (this weekend!)

4. I'm stressing about the underwear run. Not really, but really! I'm waiting on one more pair in the mail and debating on how conservative and/or crazy to go with it!!

5. Project gratitude has been going along well. I had a little shindig on Saturday night to thank all my friends for making this journey as powerful and fun as it has been. I certainly could have never achieved this dream without the many amazing friends that I have here and it was really great to get to tell so many people thank you all at once. I guess this is the true source of my writer's block- I've got so many stories to tell of all the amazing people in my life and all the wonderful things we've enjoyed on this journey to Ali'i drive. I could write 10 blogs just on Saturday night alone. I was so humbled to have so many friends come to send me off to Kona and I wanted to spend so much more time with everyone than I was able to. I am so so blessed. So here are a few more quick bits of gratitude to just a few of my awesome friends....

To Bill and Bryan to whom I owe every bit of my cycling legs. I have spent MANY hours staring hard at their seat stays just praying to not let them get away. If it weren't for them looking out for me on the roads and bridging me back up to the group all the time I would never be where I am today.

Thanks to all my amazing girls who are the most positive women I've ever met and who would drop their lives at a moments notice for each other in any time of need or joy. Each of you are such an inspiration to me and I would be lost without your love!!!

To Barbara for being the woman I look up to in finding such fulfillment peace and balance in her life. She made this beautiful lei by hand!! I WILL learn this from you when I get home and we have that glass (bottle) of wine!

To Roberta and especially Rob who has been my career, life and ironman mentor. There aren't enough thank you's for being taught the heart and soul of the sport. Everything I've learned about ironman, I've learned from Rob :) And he just finished climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro like two weeks ago. How cool is that?!

Ok... back to random other thoughts.... So many more people to thank.....

6. I'm breaking my habit of staying up packing all night before I leave and despite the fact that it was really mentally, physically and emotionally difficult to begin packing this early, I started piling up stuff last night. This week is going to be crazy wrapping things up at work, getting wko's in and getting set to go and I'm having visions of actually being able to enjoy Friday and Saturday without enormous loads of stress (we'll see how that one goes!)

7. The hay is officially in the barn and now its time to get everything ready to burn it down. Just a few more days until I hop on that plane.

8. I have a lot of reading to do and at the top of the list is this gem from Rob:

The preface reads: "To my wife and children and to the ghosts of all the Iron men and women past, present and to come, who will haunt the highway forever, searching for the perfect race they have already run."

And what made me cry when I read the inscription from Rob who's life dream is to do Kona. After 14 qualifiers and coming within minutes several times (oh and entering every.single.lottery since the lottery's inception) he still hasn't gotten his chance yet. But I know that its only a matter of time. But until then, Rob, this race is for you buddy :)