This is Gonna be Great

My race report begins on the Thursday before the race. I had booked a room at the Galt House which is right on the water. It is also where Hugh Hefner stays with his girlfriends for the Derby so it seemed good enough for me.

The issue is that I had forgotten what kind of room had been booked. Due to availability I could only get a suite. So I walked into the room and my first thought was, "Honey, pack up the kids. We're going on vacation." Let me back up. Training for IM is so time consuming that I felt guilty about all of the problems I caused for my family. You can only do early am workouts up to a point. Once you get out to 8-10 hour workouts you are pretty much useless to anyone. So my original plan was to have the family only see some of the bike on Sunday and then head home. But as soon as I saw the room and the excitement in Louisville, I knew they would have fun at the Galt House. Ok, so it was a huge boost to me as well.

We follow the motto, "Semper Gumby" (always flexible), so Gerri got on board and the next day I went back and got the whole crew and got them down for the race. But not before I registered and did the practice swim. The practice swim went great and I really knew that I was going to handle the river without problem. The only issue was that my heartrate felt a little high--omnious forshaddowing of trouble music begins to play.

So the crew came down and had fun generally exploring the giant sized hotel.

On race day we had a decision to make. Should I go to the swim start early or late. Due to a complicated quirk of this race, an early start would actually give me a little longer to finish the race but of course would make me more tired. We decided to go with a later start and more sleep. So I got up with what I thought was enough time, but when I got to transition it was clear that I was late. I then got sent in the wrong direction. The next thing I heard was, "Transition closes in 5 minutes."

Time to get to work. Pump the tires, get the food on the bike, arrange the gear--just done in time. Off for the mile walk to the swim start. When I got to the start, the line was huge but I was able to meet up with David and Jody and we settled in about 2/3 of the wy from the front.

Gross alert---My stomach got really active at that point so lets just say that having porta-johns nearby was a lucky thing. I believe the phrase is , "scared ----less."