I'm in Utah

We made it to Utah without any trouble. Actually, thanks to the continually awesome airline Southwest, our flight from Manchester to Las Vegas landed 55 minutes early. How often does that happen? Not that Southwest had much to do with what was probably just the result of some favorable winds, but it was still nice. Even nicer, Kevin, Trent and I - who are traveling together - were meeting our teammate Pat who was flying in from Providence and due to land at the exact same time. Fortunately, his flight also landed early, and Kevin and Trent actually met him in the bathroom right after we landed, so we were set to get the rental car.

Four people, four bikes, four sets of luggage and we were ready to drive up to St. George. After a rater round-about route out of Las Vegas, but eventually we found our way onto route 15 north. Pat and I missed out on what we were told was a beautiful drive, but the sleep was worth it, I think. Our condo is pretty nice and off all by itself, it's just very weird to be in a different Ironman race venue like this. I've done Lake Placid 6 times, so it's been a while since that was new to me, Hawaii 4 times, and then when I did Arizona I had been living there for a few months, so that wasn't new to me, either. Very strange.

I went to bed at about 7 last night. My body was all confused. I had gotten up at an hour so early I might have been better off not going to bed at all, then flew from east coast time to Pacific time, then drove to mountain time, so really I have no idea where I am or what time it is.

This morning I was awake pretty early as you can imagine, and eventually we made our way down to Sand Hollow State park for a little swim on the course. We drove for what seemed like forever down into the middle of nowhere, all the while wondering where the heck this water was we were supposed to be swimming in. Eventually what looked like a black mass of nothing was revealed to be a black wall that sealed in the lake.

The water was the kind of cold where you think to yourself in the first couple of minutes, "There is no way I'm going to survive swimming 2.4 miles in water this cold." My face was frozen and just about ready to give me an ice cream headache. It was, however, the first time I was wearing a brand new wetsuit, and I would like to thank the good people at Blue Seventy because my wetsuit rocks and kept my body toasty warm. If only they could come up with some sort of face shield I'd be golden. The up side is that water that cold always feels super clean because no bacteria could possibly survive.

After that I headed over to the expo, which was amazingly empty, both of people and exhibitors. I don't know if I missed a room or something, but there wasn't much going on there. The merchandise store was huge and continues to offer an astounding number of options for people looking for either a hat or visor with the word "Ironman" on it.

Currently it is about 75 degrees and windy, and the temperature is supposed to drop quite a bit tomorrow. I have to say, I'm expecting this race to achieve legendary status. I haven't been out on much of the course yet, but it is going to be a tough one. Just this morning I was second-guessing my usual stance on never, ever wanting to do Ironman Florida because it's too flat. Would that really be such a bad thing?

Ok, yeah, it probably would. But don't ask me that again on Sunday.