Final Preparations

With one day to go before the race, I am making my final plans, preparing transition bags and looking over my bike one more time. I have been more calm before this race, and plan to use my nutritional strategy from IM Coeur d'Alene. My blood sugars have settled a little but I am still anxious about the swim. NA Sports has allowed Michelle to set up a table where we can dump our diabetic gear before heading into the swim, and after getting our wetsuits peeled off. This will give me a little extra peace of mind, being able to check my blood sugar closer to the race start. And for some of the athletes, they will be disconnecting from their pumps at this point. Most people will be swimming/treading water for 15 minutes or so before the race, so I will need to take this into account.

The weather was rainy on Thursday, nice yesterday and should be nice today. Tomorrow there is a possibility of thunderstorms but I am hoping for the best. We have found one forecast that calls for decent weather, and that's the one I'm going with. At least, living in the Bay Area has prepared me for cool temperatures. I've been swimming in the lake a couple of times and the temperature is perfect; yesterday at the athlete meeting, they announced that it was 71 degrees. I can't complain about that! The course is beautiful as well and I was happy to see a lot more flat that I had been expecting. Driving it is a different experience than riding, but I was a little reassured after driving around the "lolly" part (vs. the "stick" part) of the "lollypop" course, as people describe it here.

It has been great to be reunited with the team members I had met and to meet those I hadn't, and to also visit with Ray, Nella, and Elisa. And this afternoon, the IronKids will be joining us for a reception after their canoe trip this week. I look forward to meeting up with Marissa and the other IronKids, and to having them on the course tomorrow.

Okay, enough procrastinating. I need to get my stuff ready. I added a twitter feed to this blog that may be updated tomorrow with additional information that you won't see on ironman.com. So if you use twitter, you can follow that feed if you'd like. You can also check triabetes.org or Michelle's blog at triabetesdocumentary.blogspot.com.