Thursday November 5, 2009

6am wake up – begin IM Focus . . . . . . . . . . NOW!

I spent most of my morning hanging around the hotel and making a list of the items I’d forgotten! I knew this would happen so I didn’t stress about it at all, just made a list.

After a couple hours I headed down to the race site for a little open water swim in the gulf on the racecourse. I wanted to get a little feel for the water before race day and test my ocean water swimming skillzzzzz.

After slipping into my wetsuit and slapping on the goggles I headed off the beach and into the gulf. It were a wee bit BRRRRRR cold, but not too bad.

I headed out easy does it and tried to focus on my sighting. This can prove fatal for me. I am either SPOT on when sighting or I can be way off. Spotting is when you have to check ahead for the buoys’ to make sure you’re on course and not swimming all over the place wasting time.

First 1500 or so meters was great then I saw a sting ray about 4 feet from me and it was not small. I think it was about 40 feet wide!!!!! OK, in reality it was more like 4 feet wide, but it was crazy and freaked me out when I saw it out of the corner of my eye. I waded and looked around to see if there was any other marine life near me and after I saw it was all clear I headed back.

Heading back was much rougher in the water. I took in a couple mouths full of salt water – YUM – and lost my sighting a bit . . . Then I had a DUH moment. Sighting on the way back was simple after that. There are these big things called hotels and condos that line the beach, I’m sure you’ve heard of them . . . I don’t know why it took so long for me to figure out that spotting the hotel was WAY more easy that trying to spot a 3 foot orange buoy! Life was good after that and I headed back.

I did the full loop (half of what I would swim Saturday) in 46 minutes and I was taking it really easy. REALLY EASY. So my guess was 1:35 on swim come race day.

Next – MASSAGE! Woo Hoo!

The dude that massaged me was awesome and after one hour on the table I was ready to rock and roll. I felt great and told him I hoped to see him again soon.

Lunch.

BW3s! I know. 5 Guys hamburgers for dinner followed by Wings for lunch?? Maybe sabotage was in the back of my mind??

After a healthy lunch it was time to head out and drive the bike course. I am glad I did because it gave me a great idea of areas of the course I wasn’t aware of before. There are a couple little hills on the backside of the course. Nothing bad, but I am glad I saw them before hand to mentally prep for them.

After we almost ran out of gas, my DadJ, Roddy, Scott and I headed back to PCB (Panama City Beach).

Dinner

Fancy Schmancey! Great little Italian restaurant in Grayton Beach FL call Borago. Good stuff. We had all my family there (including Roddy) My Dad picked up a majority of the bill, which was not expected but, super cool! Thanks Dad! I had pasta with shrimp, but the ravioli appetizer was my favorite thing.

It was a long drive back to PCB after the dinner. It was good to spend that time with everyone since I know I won’t really see them again until Sunday after the race.

Amanda is at a condo located directly ON the race site thanks to my friend Lance. He had an open room and kindly asked if we wanted to stay. LIFESAVER – since it will be great for Amanda on race day with the baby.

I arrive back to my condo and begin the laborious job of finalizing and packing all my race gear bags . . . This might have been the most stressful part of my week. Packing and re packing and un packing (because I didn’t know if I had packed IT) just a bunch of stress all balled up into this gear bag thing BUT – I did it and I was ready to turn everything and my bike in for Saturday.

Bed

I am thankful for soft beds and fluffy pillows. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

Count down – less than 36 hours till GO TIME!