Dancing in the street...I wish I could!

If my legs were up to it, I'd be dancing tonight! I've finally made it to the end of peak training and the end of term! When I started this journey, I clocked that the toughest weeks would coincide with the toughest weeks at work. The end of term is a frantic time and Don Fink's masterplan has an eye-watering number of miles/hours to log over 4-weeks. I remember glancing at those pages, then quickly looking away. How the hell could I do that and stay alive and work? More to the point - was it physically possible to ride my bike for 6-hours, non-stop?
I'm pretty darn chuffed that I can now answer those questions. Yup, I'm still alive; I can ride my bike for 8-hours, never mind 6, and I can get off it after that and run ... well, that's a bit of fabrication, I can propel myself slowly forwards. But I've noted the rules in the athlete information pack, which also arrived this week. "No form of locomotion other than running, walking or crawling is allowed." Spare me from the latter, but if needs must! I'm blocking that marathon out of my head because those runs after the long bike rides haven't got any easier. I really don't know where that marathon is going to come from. I just trust, that somehow, it will come.
I've still got 3-weeks to go and next week is no party in the park. My long sessions include, a 4k swim; 4-hour bike and a 2-hour run. Peak training for the half iron distance, but taper, oh sweet taper, for me. But finally, I'm no longer juggling. No more 5.30am starts; no more 10.30pm jotter marking; no more weekends working on my laptop after a long bike ride! Whoopee. I can train and more importantly  - I can rest. I think I need that more than anything.
As my lovely class and I did the conga around our classroom, at 1-minute to end of term bell. (Yep, wind them up and send them home!) I knew it wasn't quite finished for me. Ten minutes later I was out on an 18-mile run, having waved my colleagues off to the pub! Thank goodness for teachers who run, Laura Johnston saved my day by leaving her school and joining me for the last 8-miles, after a wee dance in the street to celebrate term ending! Several hours later, after an ice bath and protein shake, I managed to join my colleagues for a quick lime & soda before leaving them to party into the night as I crashed into bed for a 6am start and my last long bike ride. Thanks Michael Yeomans and David Wilson for keeping me company on the last big effort.
So tonight, I'm having a lone celebration. Lone because IronPhil is away, about to unleash hell at A Day in the Lakes. A tough half iron-distance race that takes in some hilly Lake District terrain.
I can't believe, really can't believe, I've done all that hard work. I don't intend to sound boastful but I am quite proud of myself for getting this far. It is a cliche to call it a journey, but it really is. Michael, a man who could write a book on endurance, made a comment today as we cycled in the sunshine, that hit home. He pointed out how hardcore long-distance training through a Scottish winter really is and how training is the toughest part, as it's relentless. But the race is finite - you know what you've done and what you've got to do and when it's done - it's done!
How long it will take me until 'it's done?' I don't know. I've got  29 great finishing time predictions from the pupils in my class - loving the 11-hours one ... in my dreams! Hoping, dearly hoping, that the kind gift of glo-sticks from one pupil: "To help me find the finish line if I take 17-hours!" is not going to happen.
A few days before the end of term, I told my class what I was going to do in the summer holidays. Revealing what Mrs Dye does when she's not being a teacher! I chuckled at the gasps of horror as I showed them my bento box (the small box I keep snacks in on my bike) in response to the question of what I would eat all day. I could see them glancing at their lunch boxes and wondering what on earth I was going to fit into that tiny thing that would constitute breakfast, snack, lunch, snack and dinner! I showed them a sachet of carbs energy drink, explaining that it had all the nutrition I needed. Later, a wee boy, who'd obviously been awake during an earlier lesson on nutrition, asked: "Mrs Dye, can I see that packet of potato powder again?"
They made me a lovely card:

With some great comments:

From a 10-year-old .... it brought a tear to my eye.

I certainly won't be first - sorry to disappoint! But I do believe I can finish what I've started. I have put in the work. I've amazed myself by how focussed and committed I can be. I now want a dose of good luck and a happy ending!

 I'm not sure how much it will hurt, how much I will suffer, how slow I will be, but so long as I keeping swallowing that potato powder and making forward motion, with or without glo-sticks, come the 20th of July - there will be some dancing in the street!