The Lead Up...

Sometime prior to the race I rented a house for friends, family and us to stay in and I lined up the dog sitter. I didn't pay attention to the fact that October 1st (race day) was a Saturday (instead of Sunday). I was thinking we could leave early evening Friday, check in for the race on Saturday, race on Sunday, hang out on Monday then go home Tuesday. It wasn't until I saw a post on the Memphis 70.3 page saying check in was closing at 4 on Friday that I was jarred into reality! I'm "sure" I would have realized it at some point, but maybe not! The main thing that had to change was when the dog sitter was getting to the house, so we could leave earlier.

Dwayne and I ended up driving separately because my brother-in-law was flying into Memphis (from a work trip to Arizonan) and needed to drive from Memphis home. We ended up talking on the phone most of the way there. It reminded me of when we were dating. We talked on the phone A LOT...especially after he would leave my house (or I would leave his) to go home.

Dwayne drove to pick up by BIL while I drove to Shelby Farms to Ironman Village. After finding a place to park (NOT in a "DO NOT PARK" spot as many people did) I headed over to check in. On the way over I ran into Rick-a local triathlon legend, coach, and friend. Just as I got to the bike rack outside of check in I ran into the crew I run with! One was there to do the whole thing (just 2 weeks after a PR performance at IM Maryland), three others were doing the relay. It was good because checking in together meant we got to rack our bikes together. We shopped a bit (HOLY MOLY-$78 for a Finisher shirt!? Yes, it was LuLu, but $78?! No thanks!) and then we headed over to bike check-in. When we left there we went over to the swim start...that's when I started to doubt that I had made a sound decision in signing up for this race. The swim looked LONG. Like REALLY REALLY REALLY LONG. It was set to be in a little lake with different in and out points. 

I didn't have a lot of time to panic because we had to get over to the athlete briefing.

At the briefing they asked how many had been doing IM for 10 years or more and I realized that was ME!! I did my first 70.3 (NOLA) in the spring of 2012....well the swim was canceled for that race so it ended up being a 67.1 duathlon instead, but it counts. It's crazy to think it's been that long! 

When the briefing was over we headed over to the house to meet up with friends that came into town to cheer me on! We got settled in just a bit and then headed to dinner. Somewhat by "chance" we met up with the other crew (I say "somewhat" because I knew they were headed to that same location-but there were multiple places to choose from at that location...); we ended up eating with them which was nice.

Then it was time to get all my stuff lined up for the next day.

I had planned to wear my favorite tri kit but looking at the weather I thought it might be cold at the start of the bike so I also packed a jacket and arm warmers. I packed both my floaty pants and my sleeveless wetsuit. (NO idea why I thought I would opt for the floaty pants over the wetsuit, but Friday night as I was getting ready it seemed like a perfectly reasonable option!) 

For my bike nutrition, I decided to use Tailwind. I made up one bottle of caffeinated that I would put in my aero bar bullet for the first hour. Then I made up a concentrated bottle with non-caffeinated for an additional 3 hours (just in case I had an issue on the bike). The plan was to have a bottle of water, and the concentrated bottle on the wing behind my seat with the aero bottle between my bars. I would drink the aero bottle in an hour, and squeeze out 1/3 of the concentrated bottle with a bottle of water in my aero bottle for each hour after that (getting additional water bottles on the course). That could have worked...(more on that later.)

I got everything else packed up-race issued swim cap, goggles, bike helmet, bike shoes, running shoes, socks, race belt with my bib attached, sunglasses, Body Glide, Skin Sake, Butt Butter, Desitin (in case of chafing)...and then I remembered that I had forgotten sunscreen! No worries...they ALWAYS have sunscreen at races... And I put my watch on the charger. I got to bed around 9 which would have been fine, if I had stayed asleep...I didn't! I woke up about 12:30 for a couple of hours...I did eventually go back to sleep just in time to wake up!

I had my pre-race oatmeal (brown sugar and cinnamon, with some protein powder, blueberries, and trail mix (walnuts, pumpkin seeds, and cranberries). Before I knew it, it was time to head out...

We had to park about a mile (or more) away from transition but it was an easy walk over with the other thousands of triathletes. I got my tires pumped, my aero bottle filled and attached, my other bottles in place, and then got my spot all set up....bike shoes, sunglasses, helmet, running shoes, jacket and arm warmers (just in case), Butt Butter, and race bib... then I gathered my other stuff and headed to find a toilet.

It was a strange thing-they had A LOT of toilets in transition but they were all "closed" until after the start of the race. I get that they wanted to make sure we had "clean" toilets for the run, but the more important time to have ALL the toilets open was pre-race! It ended up being a good thing because I found a real bathroom that didn't take any time at all to get in....and it was a VERY good thing I had a real toilet...

Before I knew it, it was time to don my wetsuit and head over to the swim start...