Well, I packed all my gear last night and we left for Madison around 7 AM this morning. Here’s a (very sloppy) picture of all my gear before it went into my bag:

And a picture of my bike sitting here at the hotel. I got her all cleaned up yesterday… It probably took me close to two hours to get all the dirt off her and to get her all dialed in (and why am I referring to my bike as a “her”?), so she’d better treat me well come Sunday!

We got to Madison around noon and went straight to Monona Terrace to check-in for the race. The place was bustling with folks, but they run a pretty tight ship here and the lines moved fast. There was a good mix of veterans and first timers, but the atmosphere was fairly relaxed. I’m guessing there will be a lot more nerves come tomorrow evening.

I do have Internet access in my room, but probably won’t be checking things too much while I’m here. A apologize in advance for not checking all your guys/gals blogs, but I promise I’ll get caught up when I get back.

More later…

In true Ironman Wisconsin fashion, it looks like things are going to heat up just in time for the race on Sunday. As you can see from the forecast below, the average temperature this time of year is 75 degrees. It’s going to substantially hotter than that. And I’m guessing all that heat acclimation that I did months ago is well gone. Oh well! Now where did those salt tablets go…?

Otherwise, things are going OK. Thank you all for your comments and support in my last post. You don’t know how much it all means to me! I’ll be leaving tomorrow for Madison. I should have Internet access while I’m there and will try to keep in touch throughout the weekend.

And thanks for the memories! It hit me while I was on my bike today (yes, mother nature was good to me!) that today’s ride could likely be my last full ride through Elm Creek Park this year. It was quite sad in a way. Pretty much all my rides this year had me going through the park at least once. My normal 30 mile route was from my home, around the park, and back. My long rides always had me starting and ending with a loop around the park. As much as I am looking forward to some downtime, I can’t help but feel a little sad. Like I’m ditching someone who’s always been there for me in the past… Weird. :P

Anyway, my final hard workout was a pretty good one. My legs were in rare form today where I cranked out an average speed of 20.3 MPH for 30 miles. Maybe I was happy that this would be my last real ride before Wisconsin? Or maybe I’ve been sitting still for a little too long. But the ride and the pace really felt effortless. I’ve been sitting here worrying that I’m not doing enough and trying to tell myself to stick to the plan. Today’s ride was a nice reassurance that the legs still have something left in them.

I finished up with a 30 minute transition run. My first mile split was 7:40 and I started slowing down after that. For whatever reason, I always like taking my first mile out hard on my transition runs. I coasted my last mile in at a nice cruising 8:40 pace which felt effortless and like I could hold that pace all day. I know better than to think that I’m going to hold 8:40s at Ironman, but I remember starting this season back in March or so and having to work to run 10 minute miles. Compared to that, I’ve come a long way.

I’ve thought about sharing my goals for this IM using the Ironman Wisconsin Online Tool, but the more I think about it the more scared I get of disappointing folks if I don’t meet my goals. Heh. The whole thing may seem silly. But I’ve never had a blogging audience before and certainly not an audience of triathletes who know me and what my strengths and weaknesses are. And while I think it’s totally cool that folks are going to be cheering for me, in person and via Ironmanlive.com, I can’t help but feel a little more pressure this year and I hope not to disappoint you all. I obviously want to do well to see the fruits of my labors. But I also want to do well as a thank you to everyone that’s supported me throughout my journey this summer. For my fianceé who has been so understanding with my training schedule and who has put up with me when I get overly tired and inevitably cranky. For my local friends whom I’ve ridden and trained with. For my family who is always behind me in everything that I do. And for all of you who have followed me on my journey this summer and have taken the time out of your own busy schedules to read and comment on here and show your support. I feel like I owe it to you all to put down a good time as sort of my way to say thank you. And while I’m sure that everyone above will like me the same weather I qualify for Kona (hah!) or if I end up in a medical tent with IVs being flushed into my veins, it’d still be nice to have a good day and a good race for you all. Hopefully it goes down like that. Still, Ironman is like a box of chocolates… I’ll just have to wait and see what I get.

OK… so much for it being a “nice” long weekend this weekend. I don’t know what happened. Friday, the weather folks said it was going to be a nice weekend albeit a little on the warm side. So yesterday morning, I decided that I was going to wait a little bit to do my workout so I could have one last hard session in the summer heat just in case… Well, it didn’t get much hotter, but it did get much more cloudy… and then it started to rain. That was probably around 1 PM yesterday and I’m not sure it’s stopped raining since. I was awoken this morning at 5:30 or so to the sounds of hard rain and hail hitting my roof and windows.

Stupid mother nature. I just have two hours left of this season until race day! C’mon… just two hours today of sunny dry weather please?! I suppose if it she really feels the need to throw down rain and hail, it’s better this weekend than next though.

Sorry for my lack of posts and updates lately. For the last couple of weeks, I’ve just felt like I’m on here on and say the same thing. “The race is getting close… blah blah blah… tapering is nice, but it’s difficult to drop the volume so much… blah blah blah!” But with the race on the horizon, there hasn’t been much else that I’ve been focused on as of late.

My workouts this week have been ok. My first break through workout was a 2:15 ride and a fast (for me) 4.25 mile run - I was able to average under 8 minute (!) pace. Not fast for you gazelles, but fast for me post ride. :) My swim workout this morning started off slow and a little too leisurely for my liking, but I did get to end the workout with 6×200 on the 2:45 pace. And I still managed to get around 10-15 seconds rest on that send off, so I’m pretty happy with where my swimming is at. I have a minor nagging pain in my shoulder, but I think (or I hope) it’ll hold up come race day.

They’ve just assigned race numbers and I’ve been given lucky #400. Why it’s lucky, I have no idea. But it’s what I have so it had better be! If any of you are planning to be at Wisconsin, please let me know where you’ll be so I can at least try to spot you and say hi (assuming I’m coherent and/or able to recognize you). As many of you are well aware, it means so much to us to have all you volunteers and spectators out there helping us along when the going gets tough. At the very least, I’d like to smile/wave/say hi to some of you all personally.

The 10 day Madison forecast tells me that it’s going to be 76 degrees come race day. I’d be so thrilled with that. That’s a good 10 degrees cooler than it was last year, I think? A lot can change weather wise in 10 days, though. We’ll see!