Tomorrow's the day

Well, it is another night before Ironman Lake Placid. Once again, I can't believe how many times I've done this. Who tortures themselves all winter/spring so that they can then have one, long day of torture at the end of July? Me, apparently. And 2999 of my closest friends. That is the number I saw on the Ironman web site for registered athletes. I really, really hope that means assigned numbers and not the number who actually showed up. It seems impossible that it could be the latter, but we shall see.

I got some decent sleep last night and stayed in bed until 7 this morning, which was nice. After that it was off to the QT2 breakfast to get our money's worth at the buffet. Pancakes, french toast, english muffin, cereal, potatoes and eggs. I ate enough to feel full but not sick, which is a good balance, I think. After that I made short work of my gear bags and headed down to drop off my bike and stuff. This is where I was extra glad that I am not in St. George. The whole process was over and done in 10 minutes. In St. George, between driving to two different locations and picking things up, the same task with the same outcome took something like three hours.

After that it was off to a little pre-race meeting with Coach Jesse. He continues to exhibit patience in spite of the fact that I have made his coaching life extra difficult in my case, and it is appreciated. One of these days I'll get myself 100% on track and make things easier for both of us. The day has potential to be pretty decent, but it is going to depend on a lot of factors and much of that is me doing things correctly. So we'll see what happens. It's not going to be my best race here, but it also shouldn't be my worst, so somewhere in that range will probably make me happy.

After that, what else but more eating? Picked up a nice turkey sub and made short work of it. Also had some pretzels. This year I seem to have finally found a way to eat a good amount without going overboard. I think one of the keys is only buying what you plan on eating, instead of big bags of pretzels or other sort of carb "treats" that may sound like a good idea until you start mindlessly munching on them to the point where you are stuffed beyond capacity at the end of the day. And for me, I know I work best when stopping early, so even though it's only 5:00 as I write this, I am done with food until breakfast tomorrow, and I have no problem with that.

The rest of my exciting day has been spent drifting in and out of consciousness to some background TV. Just have to wait and rest some more and maybe get some sleep between now and tomorrow morning and hoping that tomorrow evening I will be in the mood for some post IM celebrating as I cross the line here for the seventh time. And hopefully it will be the last time I show up to one of these things feeling less than 100% prepared, because I'm getting tired of it and let me tell you, it's not a great feeling.