Ironman Arizona: Pre-Race

I’m breaking this up into multiple segments.  It makes it a little easier to read, I think.  Plus I just don’t have the energy to write it all at once!

I was up at 4am on race morning after a pretty solid night of sleep.  [Only exception to this was when Jeff rolled over to cuddle and asked, “Are you getting any sleep at all?”  Uh, yeah, right until you woke me up with that!]  We gave the dogs a quick walk around the neighborhood and I worked on loading nutrition bottles into my bags and eating breakfast while Jeff, Chris and Melissa got ready.

Once down to transition, I finally met Brandy, who was racked right next to me.

Got body-marked in the cold and dark.

I said my last goodbyes to Jeff, who would be coordinating all my other spectators when they arrived, and started putting on my wetsuit.

From there it was time to wander down to the swim arch and cross the mat with everyone else.  Then we all stood around on the boat dock putting off jumping into the cold water as long as possible.  Thankfully just a few minutes before I had to get in, I found Barbara and we hugged and shared our nerves.

Then we hopped off the dock together and swam up to the swim start.  The excitement was contagious and we both floated and shivered at the swim start and screamed a bunch of “WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!”s together.  The next thing we knew, Mike Reilly said, “We’ll see you all at the finish line!” and BOOM! the cannon went off.  Ironman Arizona 2009 had begun.