Ironman is tomorrow!! « adventuresofgreg.blog

June 7, 2002

	Bike	Run	Swim	Total
Today	0	0	0	0
Total to Date	956	117	13.5	1086.5

distances in km.

June 7, 2002

It’s Friday afternoon and in about 19 hours I will throw myself into muddy Lake Utah with 1999 swim buddies.

You know the feeling in your stomach when you are at 8000 feet and your flight instructor says “Greg – you have control now. I want you to put the plane into a spin, then recover after rolling no more than 3 times, and dropping no more than 2000 feet.”

You know that feeling? That’s real similar to how I’m feeling today.

I thought in contrast to the big trip down here, that Ironman for me would be what they always say: “just think of it as just another training day, but catered”. At least, I figured that it would get easier, this being my second go at it. But no, I still feel like I did in November at Ironman Florida. Did I eat enough last night? Am I drinking enough water today? Should I have trained a little more yesterday? Should I swim today? Should my Ironman ID bracelet be on my Left arm rather than my Right? What am I doing here?

When we arrived at the Hotel on Wednesday, I quickly unpacked my bike and assembled it. Two very leaky TIRES!! Argh!! Luckily there is a bike shop directly across the street, so I took the bike there and the mechanic told me my glue job on my tubulars was no good. He basically ripped the tires off the rim just by resting his hand on the edge of the tire. That’s not good. So they replaced the valves with the correct ones and re-glued my tires for me. I don’t want to say what “Bike Store” in Calgary did the work. I’m not going back to the “Bike Store” again. What ever store that might be, and I’m not saying.

This is Provo’s first Ironman and I am really surprised at how friendly and helpful the locals have been so far. This bodes well for Ironman North America’s 5-year commitment to the city of Provo and Ironman Utah. The biggest complaint I’ve been hearing from athletes is the murky Lake Utah. I went for a swim yesterday and couldn’t see my hand in front of my eyes under the water. It’s going to be quite the experience tomorrow morning – an underwater mosh pit with the lights turned out.

The other complaint is that the venue is spread out quite a bit. The swim is about a 15-minute car ride to the main BYU campus where the Ironman expo, finish line and transition areas are. Also there are no hotels within walking distance of any venues and so ground transportation EVERYWHERE is required which has been a bit of a pain – waiting 45 minutes to an hour for the hotel shuttle bus gets a bit frustrating. I’ll definitely rent a vehicle next time.

Lot’s of photos today:

My and my buddy Greg at the airport.

My kids got these really cool stickers at the hotel restaurant, so I stuck them on my bike for something nice to look at during the 180 km bike ride on Saturday.