Dazed and Confused.

So now I've come to the part of Ironman training that I refer to as the dazed, stupid part of training - because most of the time, I wander around in a fog. I can't think of the right words to say and most of my conversations involve phrases like, you know, that thing. Everyone has to say stuff to me twice, because the first time they say it, it barely registers that they've even said something.
Oh, they said sometime to me, I think.
I wonder what it was.
And then finally my brain
makes my
mouth fall open and I say, "WHA--?"

And then, remember that there's two of us, wandering around in a fog. So the house is falling apart and our system of doing for each other what we don't do ourselves is falling apart.
A scintillating conversation between me and the Sweet Baboo these days is likely to be something like:

Hey, did you get, you know, the thing? That thing you were gonna get?

Wha--?

Did you get that thing?

What thing?

you were saying something this morning. About a thing. A thing you needed to get. You know. Stuff.

Do you remember what it was?

What?

The thing - do you remember what it was?

What thing? Huh?

What?

Oh, never mind. This is wearing me out.

Oh, Yeah: It's a regular McNeil-Lehrer Hour over here.
Meanwhile, my body is screaming for food!! Now, I don't really feel hunger, and I was raised in the south, so in place of hunger I have inappropriate food impulses. For intance, if my body wants carbs, I crave potato chips. Although sometimes I crave chips if I'm low on sodium, too. It's complicated. If my body screams for fried chicken, which I don't eat because I'm a vegetarian, then I know I need protein. So lately, these days I'm wondering around in a fog, my attention diverted sharply by KFC billboards and Frito-lay trucks.

So in this fog I embarked on my last "long ride" today which was, to say the least, disappointingly slow. I was just whipped. I couldn't get my legs to move and when I did, they hurt like hell. Not injury hurt, but the "leave me the hell alone so I can recover from all this running and cycling" hurt. My ride had over 4800 feet of climbing, and the temperature was in the nineties when I finished.

My overall pace was about 13.7 mph. And the little voice whispered, maybe you just suuuuuuuuck. I tried mightily to ignore it, but as you can imagine when you're kind of kind of in a fog, emotional strength and self-esteem gets the back burner so that things like pedaling and drinking at the same time can be done.

And it was in this fog that I did not wear any sunscreen today. Yeah. 6+ hours in the New Mexico sun. Luckily, only my legs and arms were exposed, but I now have this super charming tan on my legs that Pirate refers to as "Neopolitan legs": brown, red, white.
My feet and torso are white. The rest of me is in various shades of red and brown.

And I'm tired. But now the taper starts, sorta.

Now I'm going to eat a pizza and drink a gallon of Gatorade and
stare at the TV, slack-jawed, until I fall asleep. I'm watching, uh,
that show. With the people. And the stuff.

...