The Mental Game - 12 days and Counting

I've been told by every Ironman I know - it's the mental game that you have to win on race day.  I've thought through how I'm going to deal with the mental game at Ironman Florida and in fact, I've trained that mental game.  I've ridden most of my long rides alone.  I almost always run alone.  I've rehearsed in my head, while training, exactly what I'm going to think about when my glutes decide to stop firing or my quads seize up, when my big toes feel like they are on fire or when the pinch in the back of my neck just won't ease up.
But what I haven't prepared for was the mental game that is presenting itself in these final days leading up to race day.  The fears, the doubts, the worries - they cloud  my mind.

I worry about my tight right hamstring - I've never had a problem with a hamstring like this ...

I fear blowing out both my CO2 cartridges and not inflating my flat.

I doubt my ability to run.

I worry about hydrating enough, about eating enough without over eating, about sleeping enough.  

I fear this nasty cold virus is going to settled in to my sinuses for one nasty sinus infection.

I doubt my ability to maintain my good form swimming for 2.4 miles.

I worry it's going to be too hot, too cold, too windy, too rough, too rainy, too sunny.

I have to trust in my training - like my training partner and Ironman mentor Christina said the other day " We must think of ourselves as a cooked lasagne and in the next 3 weeks we are letting the cheese bubble- that's it....work is done!!! "  

I still have my taper week ride of 4 hours to do tomorrow then I enter taper week 2.  Let the cheese bubble baby - let the cheese bubble!