Saturday, June 25, 2011

IMCdA Race Week - Saturday

Please forgive the short post.  It's almost 10pm on race day eve, I'm a twittered bundle of nerves, and I just took an ambien.  I'll try doing this in time format.

4am - Awake but back to sleep
4:30am - Awake but back to sleep
5am - Awake but back to sleep
6am - Okay, I'll get up.  Breakfast of coffee, eggs, strawberries.  Organized gear bags for check-in.
8:30am - Head to the lake with Ken and JoshyPoo for a practice swim, and Joshy's volunteer meeting.  The water was even colder than yesterday.  It seems to be bouncing between 53 and 55 degrees.  After about 5 minutes my face goes numb and I forget about it.  But those first 5 minutes - POW, it takes the breath outta ya!
9:30am - Back to the house to give my bike a make-over and finish getting gear bags ready to be dropped off.
10am - One last practice ride along the lake towards Higgins Point.  The wind was blowing pretty hard out there today!  I think the winds are here to stay for the weekend.
12pm - Bike check-in...
...and gear bag check-in, one last pass through the merchandise tent, and then back home for the day.
1pm - Regroup the troops after everyone's various volunteer meetings, lunch, and board games.
2:30pm - The fabulous Kristin came over for some mellow girl time.  She's the one who drove from PDX to Tempe with me for IMAZ in 2009.  This year she didn't have to drive quite as far, and I'm so happy I'll get to see her out on the course tomorrow!
5:30pm - Board games, dinner, board games, dessert, board games.
8pm - Popped an ambien, finished playing games with the fam, and mosied off to bed.

Up Next: IRONMAN DAY!!!!

IMCdA Race Week - Friday

I drove the bike course today.  Damn.  I spent the rest of the day with my stomach in one gigantic knot.  Major face-palm moment, a short berating of myself for not training more hills, and then I let it go.  A few days ago, an email from Coach Liz contained these words of wisdom:

Go into this race having reconciled with yourself. Have no doubts, be totally confident & trust yourself. Of all the equipment you can buy, training you can do & anything else – TRUST is the most important thing you can have on race day. Trust yourself & trust your training. You are all arriving at this start line as prepared as you can be. Trust it & give yourself permission to have your best race out there.
Friday started with another practice swim.  A short one this time, about 10 minutes, because it was supposed to be a total rest day on the calendar.  Both Mom and my little bro JoshyPoo came down to watch this morning:
The USGS site showed that the water temp had dropped about 5 degrees from Thursday, down to 55 instead of 59/60.  It was noticeably colder.  Still tolerable, but not quite as comfortable.  The chop is still present, but doesn't bother me so much.  As long as there isn't puke in the water from those who ARE bothered by it!

Massive Beginner Triathlete crew this morning:

A quick pose in front of the finish line.  I WILL be here again sometime before midnight on Sunday.
After a drive around the (hilly) course, it was back to Spokane to pick up Ken to complete the sherpa crew.  Quick tip for those planning on staying in Coeur d'Alene and flying people in and out of Spokane - the airport is NOT 20 minutes from town.  It's like 45 minutes, assuming you don't hit the miles of construction on the interstate.

I was able to kick up my legs and take a nap before heading back to the village for the Welcome Dinner.  Here we are in our awesome t-shirts that my Mom created.
The back of mine is special.
More lines.  Ironman week is all about patience and standing in lines.  This one is to get into the dinner tent.  I've never seen so many people so eager for a crappy dinner!
While the food is never anything to write home about, it's worth going to these things to hear Mike Reilly talk and get everyone fired up.  He said something that made me feel just a little bit better: "You can't control the weather.  You can't control the other athletes.  You can't control the course.  But you can control your attitude on race day."  Got it.
Following the dinner was the Athlete Briefing, where we learned that mango-flavored Powerbar Perform will be served on the run course.  Nice, if you like mango.  Which I do.  Not so nice, if you're deathly allergic to mango.  Which I am.  Saturday's mission, aside from practice swim and bike/gear check-in, will be to find out if there is actual mango bits in the mango-flavored Perform.  Ack!
The rest of the day was spent freaking out, napping, freaking out, eating, freaking out, and then finally playing some board games with the family before falling into a (pharmaceutically induced) deep deep sleep.

Next Up: practice swim, bike test ride, bike and gear bag check-in, neurotically go through the rest of the gear and pre-race preparations, early bedtime