I was telling my 13 year old girl the other day, as she was stressing over exams, about my recurring dream where I have to take the final exam for a college class that I had forgotten I had signed up for and had never attended. I thought such stressful times were over for me until last night when I had a variation related to triathlon.
In this dream, I look at my watch, and it is 10 minutes til 7 on the morning of an ironman race and I am completely unprepared. I’m in a strange house with several random friends, dressed in plain clothes running around frantically looking for my race wear. I realize that I have not readied my bike in any way, and it’s still sitting in the house. I run from room to room, unable to find anything as the minutes tick by. I yell at someone to call and check the weather forecast. I wake up… Whew!
You are still a few dreams behind. The next one is, you are in a race, you come out of the water after the swim, and you realize your bike shoes are in the car still, and the tires need pumping, and you haven’t mixed your carbo drinks, and the powder is still in the car. Of course, the car is blocks away, so now you are running out of the TZ to your car to retrieve stuff.
I had a dream the other night that I was in a race and when we all got to T2, all our running shoes were in one big pile and we had to sort though them to find our shoes. I’m in the process of moving and am at that stage where not everything is unpacked and you’re still trying to live your life and you can’t find anything you need. That is probably yhe root of the dream as I don’t have any prerace anxieties going on right now.
I just remembered one I had forgotten. but I think reading everyone’s responses triggered my memory…something about oversleeping, driving as fast as I can go to the race while simultaneously getting into my wetsuit, parking. then hearing the gun go off, but realizing they were all on the other side of the beach, can’t find my cap or goggles, and accidentally left my bike at home. But then I had my cell phone, to call my mom, so she could hopefully drive the bike over while I’m swimming. but then how will she know where my helmet and bike shoes and everything else is? I didn’t even get to the running part. freaky.
I had one recently. I have this fear that it will become a recurring dream as CdA approaches. It scared the crap out of me!
Jodi
Jodi, be glad you only have 1, as I am doing both IMLouisville and IMFL in 2007. Oh, the lions, and tigers, and bears… Oh my… I’ll be having some serious nightmares or maybe I’ll get lucky and have the same nightmare all yr long.
I’ve lived a variant of that dream. At Vineman 70.3, through poor timing on my part, I got caught in a very long porta-potty line. After taking care of business as fast as I could, I emerged from the porta-potty at 6:44 without my wetsuit, goggles, or swimcap for a 6:46 swim start. I had to sprint about 250 - 300 yards (at least it seemed that long) through a sea of humanity to the far end of the transition area to get my stuff, and then sprint back that same 250 - 300 yards and the same sea of humanity to get to the swim start. Of course, the horn went off for my wave while I was putting on my wetsuit at the far end of the transition area. When I finally got to the start, the starter told me I couldn’t go out with the next wave and that I had better start swimming. I wound up spotting the guys in my AG 4 minutes on the swim (and I definitely don’t have that kind of time to spare).
I have one quite often where I complete the swim and bike fast and im very pleased with myself
but just out of T2 and onto the run, my legs wont work! I try to make them run but they just wont… so i have to walk.
Im sure this has actually happened to someone before at Kona
A friend of mine lived that dream. I’m older and in a later wave, so I’m standing to the side of the start. His wave has lined up and he’s no where in sight. The gun goes off and they’re running down the beach to the water. I figured he was a no show. Then, 30 seconds later, I see him come running down to the beach putting his swim cap on and then fuddling with his goggles. He takes a flying, and I mean like off of a swim pool starting block, leap while snapping the goggles to his face. He hit the water in a perfect dive. I’ve never seen anyone swim so fast and he caught and passed everyone in his wave and won the race overall. So, good ending.
He was late getting to the race, ran from his car to rack his bike and pick up his race number, etc. Got back to his bike and realized he left his wetsuit in his car, so he prepped as fast as he could and sprinted back to his car, put on his wetsuit there while he heard the gun fire. He ran from his car to the water while zipping his suit and putting his cap and goggles on.