Tomorrow's the day

Tomorrow at this point I will be in the midst of running a marathon. I can't begin to tell you how unbelievable that seems to me right now. It doesn't feel like Ironman to me. Any other time I've done one of these, there has been some central location where all of the athletes are around all of the time. This is not the case here. With two transition areas, a spread out city and the fact that we are staying in a condo near neither of those, it really just doesn't feel like an Ironman town. But apparently I signed up for this thing for some reason, I've got a number, I did a whole bunch of training, so I guess I might as well go out and do this thing.



Yesterday we did the last of the workouts early in the morning, starting with the bike/run. It was chilly but nice and sunny. We wisely opted to swim in our condo pool as opposed to driving all the way down to the reservoir again to freeze just for a 20-minute swim. It is a banana-shaped pool, but it was toasty warm and we did what we needed to do. Eventually it was time to beigin a bit of the carbo-loading with a nice turkey sub. I don't know if the sub was really that good or it was just my lack of turkey subs over the last few months, but it tasted amazing.



After that, I headed down to Zion national park with Trent and Kevin. It was quite pretty, and we rode a shuttle bus down to a nice waterfall, checked out the scenery, took a few pictures and then came back to rest up before dinner. Dinner was a feast of 14 pizzas for I think 14 people. We got through most of them.



This morning we got off to a slow start this morning, not having anything to do but head down to IHOP to eat lots and lots of food. Pancakes are never a bad thing in my book. Unfortunately after that we had to deal with the logistical nightmare that is a race with two separate transition areas. First we went to drop off the bikes, which by itself is about a 15 minute drive. It was incredibly windy down there and since it has been so cold at night the water keeps getting colder, so the word now is that it's about 56 in there. Oh, boy, that's going to be tons of fun.



Next up was the drive to T2 to drop off the other bags. Not really sure why we couldn't drop both off in one spot and they could just truck them over later. I guess just to be an extra pain. Anyway, after that it was back to the expo for some teammates to get some threaded CO2 cartidges and to look and see if there was a neoprene cap to be purchased, which there wasn't. Then finally we made it over to Jimmy John's Gourmet Sandwiches where we got some delicious (though not sure I would call them gourmet) turkey subs which they made so fast that they were ready before I had my change back from the cashier.

Then, after being out for like 3 hours for what in Lake Placid takes me 20 minutes, we were back in the condo with our feet up watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off on AMC. Snacking and being lazy, which is the opposite of what is normally going on when I'm surrounded by my triathlete friends.

While we were relaxed and thinking there was nothing left to worry about, coach Jesse and his wife, Chrissie came in to tell us they were headed to Walmart for some emergency warming supplies because the word is that apparently when we reach the top of the 4600' mountain we have to climb on our bikes it's going to be about 38 degrees. Never in my thinking about this race did I consider that at any point I might nearly freeze to death. So now I will have some gloves to worry about. I also made the mistake of watching one of the videos on ironman.com in which they interviewed a seasoned pro who called the run course "The toughest course I've seen anywhere in the world."

Oh, fun. Actually, to tell you the truth, I kind of like the idea that the course is so tough and the day is going to be pretty epic. It takes the pressure off of any sort of time goals or PR's that might've otherwise been sought after. I'm pretty sure now that tomorrow is going to be far more about survival than anything else. And that, I can assure you, I know how to do. I can't go very fast right now, but I know how to hang in there.

I guess that's about all there is to say right now. Hopefully my next post will be all about how much fun I had, or at least how proud of myself I am for getting through such a tough day. Either way, I'm going to try and have some fun after the race is over. Hopefully some pictures to come as well.

And good luck to all of my teammates here racing, epecially my good friends Kevin and Trent, who are both going their first Ironman. Trent would've been happy for the rest of his life doing olympic distance tris until Kevin and I made him go longer. And Kevin had threatened to sign up for one of these things for years, even went so far as to put his name on the list in Lake Placid a few years ago back when you paid two weeks later or didn't get in, and he opted not to follow through with it. So I'm glad that he's finally out here and I'm sure they will both have great races. Their goal times are incredibly close so there's going to be a great race going on between those two!

And hopefully, the next time I write I will have crossed the finish line at my 11th Ironman. Wow.