Ironman Arizona #2 - Pre-Race (Tempe)

Ironman Weekend started on Thursday. I picked my mom up from the airport and drove directly to Arizona (Thanks mom for traveling all day for me!) We arrived (fairly exhausted) around 9:30 pm, unpacked the car, and went to bed. I had 3 long days ahead of me!

Friday

My crazy week took more out of me than I thought. Getting up at 6:30 am was tough. Granted it was really like 5:30 am for my body since Arizona is an hour ahead of San Diego, but still...I couldn't believe it was that hard to get out of bed!

I went down to the lobby for breakfast, and had my first experience of the Ironman "buzz." 7am and the breakfast area was packed with fellow triathletes! Triathletes are pretty easy to spot. They were all in athletic warm-up gear....oh and the guys were all skinnier than me with smoother legs. :) The Brazilian Mafia was staying at my hotel. There were like 20 of them! There's something about triathletes with accents (Brazilian, European, Australian...all of them). They just sound fast! I'm sure they all kicked my butt on race day. Oh well.

My mom and I drove down to the expo area/transition so I could meet the girls for our morning swim in Tempe Town lake. Friday's schedule called for a 20 minute swim, and 2 mile run. Just enough to get used to the water and to keep the legs warm. As soon as I saw the girls, any nerves I had just vanished. We were in this thing together. Everything would be ok on Sunday.

I was very happy to have gotten a swim in. I hadn't been in open water since late September, and forgot what 63 degree water felt like. Quite a cold shock at first, but actually a good race water temperature for me. Once the water gets near 70, I start overheating in my wetsuit. This was perfect wetsuit/double cap water.

I ran with Tina, Elaine, Mary and Jen after the swim. Despite our frozen feet, for some reason we started running a 7:45 pace. What?!?!? And it felt easy! Must have been the adrenaline from actually running on the race course. I tried my best to slow things down. This would not be even near my Ironman race pace!

The rest of the day consisted of:

• Registration


• Lunch


• Shopping at the Expo (where I let my mom know that the Zoot recovery tights would be a GREAT Christmas present....Thanks Mom!)


• Driving the course


• Dinner at Ra (Honestly, Sushi may be better for triathletes than pasta)


• Pre-race meeting


• Bed (SOOO tired at 9:00 pm. I thought I was supposed to relax the days before an Ironman...Friday was NOT relaxing!)

Saturday

Saturday was another early morning. I met up with Coach Mike at 8am to go over swim strategy. His advice was sight off the wall and keep a constant distance from it (15-20 m or so). Jen, Elaine, Tina and I then did a 30 minute easy ride on the bike course before getting our bikes and gear ready to turn in.



(Side note: My mom was a fantastic Sherpa this weekend! Not only carrying my stuff, but making Target and grocery store runs while I got other things done. Thanks Mom!)

At 12:30 pm we got to pick Pat up from the airport! Yippee! Pat was awesome, and was able to come in for 36 hours to watch me race. It really wouldn't have been the same without him there. I was so happy he was in Tempe to share this experience with me. We spent most of Saturday afternoon relaxing (watching Wall-E on Pat's computer) and eating.

For dinner, we made another trip to Ra for Sushi. I was originally thinking pasta as that is usually my carboload dinner, but the sushi from the night before worked really well. Most importantly, it didn't sit like a rock in my stomach like a big pasta meal sometimes does. Plus, sushi does have all of the important nutrients we needed: Carbs = rice, Protein = tuna, edamamae, Salt = miso soup, soy sauce. I think I may have found a new pre-race meal!

So, I made it! Less than 12 hours until the gun goes off. Was I really doing this? Yes I was! I was ready!