Calm is what I’m feeling…..I’m at peace with myself and the island. In 12 hours I will be at war. I will be at war with the currents, the winds, the heat and humidity and 1800 others. I will battle 1800 others although the battle is mostly with myself; my body, my mind and emotions. I’ve been through this a couple times now and I know what to expect. It’s odd though you forget or the memory quickly dulls after the race but I know it will come tomorrow, most likely on the run. I will question my sanity and my ability to continue forward, but I will.
The last few days have been good. Wednesday I swam at the Pier with my friend Paul from San Diego we stopped by the coffee boat anchored about 1000 yards off the beach where we hung onto the side of the boat and sipped Kona coffee and chatted with other athletes. It was a fun swim as the water was oil slick smooth once we got a few hundred yards from the beach, crystal clear and full of turtles. We’d stop and spend a minute looking into the eyes of the sea turtles. Odd thing with all the swimmers in the water they seem to have no fear I think they’re becoming conditioned to all the swimmers and realize we mean them no harm.
After the swim we headed to register and I was in and out in 10 minutes. We spent a few minutes at the Expo before heading home for nap. In the afternoon Paul and I did a short ride out the Queen K.
Wednesday night I had the honor of attending a dinner/party hosted by Specialized bicycles. Good food and lots of fun chatting with friends and meeting some new folks. Chris McCormack, TJ Tollakson, Terrenzo Bozzone, Sam McGlone, Cliff English and Peter Reid where all there and fun to chat and joke around with. Those of us racing and those who are training were all gone early but I imagine the rest of them kept the party going for quite a while.
Yesterday I did absolutely nothing except get my gear bags laid out and attend the welcome banquet. The banquet was about an hour too long and about $28 dollars too expensive (cost $48 bucks a person). They did have a cool little montage of footage from the last 30 years as well as a funny video skit about how to be a good Ironman supporter (Roch Frey and Paul Huddle were the actors so if you know of them you can only imagine).
Today I did a very short swim and then headed into town to get a few last minute things for my bike. This evening I dropped my bike at transition, the pier is like Fort Knox and the athletes are already like rock stars with people mulling around watching the athletes come in to rack their gear. All I can say is the transitions are looonnnggg!!
I think the weather is going to be good for tomorrow if anything maybe too still. A little breeze will really help on the run and frankly I don’t care if it’s windy on the bike. In general it’s been voggy lately so it cuts down on the direct sun which would be nice.
I continue to be amazed at all the people out running (and running hard) and swimming. At least two people this morning I heard say they swam the course this morning….? Not sure that’s the best thing the day before the race but oh well to each his own….as I write this Chris McCormack is swimming by our house with a few friends. He swims faster than I when he’s just doing a warm-up stroke...sigh.
I must say the expo is pretty cool, there are a lot more companies here than I expected. The new Cervelo P4 is on display and I was particularly intrigued by the new QR, it looks like a great new bike. The 3T pro aero bars are hot but at $1200 bucks I don’t think I need to dump my Zipp Vulka’s as I don’t know if I’d be trading up that much. The other hot thing on display is the new SRAM Aero trigger shifter. I got to meet a few of the folks that have provide such great support this season from Zoot and GU which was nice as well.
Well I’m signing off as ndinner and then to bed early as the alarm is going to sound really freakin’ early (3:45 or so).
Thanks for all of the well wishes, good vibes and positive thoughts. I’ll need every last one of them.
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