Ironman Louisville: Pre-race

A morning that was very much the result of weeks of visualization started, predictably, 45 minutes before my alarm went off. Having slept about 4.5 hours by the time I woke up at 2:45 to pee, my first logical thought of the day was “that was easy;” I think I’m getting the hang of this whole actually getting some sleep before big races thing.

The next hour and a half was the predictable slog of eating my two sweet potatoes, filling my Rudy Project bag’s bladder with water & NUUN, putting on sunscreen and getting dressed. I missed out on an offer from another racer to hitch a ride up to transition when I went down to pay for another day’s worth of parking, but I was not ready to head up yet, so I had to let her go. Besides that, I was looking forward to the walk. I paid, went back up to the room to grab my bags and flipped on my Ironman Louisville! playlist just as I left the Brown Hotel, bound for transition.

It was dark and pretty sleepy leaving the hotel, becoming less so as I got closer to The Great Lawn. The walk was a nice chance to let my mind wander into a blither place, but it took far more time to cover the distance than I had budgeted for it. In due time, I made it to my bike, slapped on my bottle of Infinit and started to pump up my tires. I’d never tried to pump up my rear tire with my new “crack pipe” adapter for a disc wheel, and quickly tired myself out trying to do so. I gave up and walked my bike over to the bike techs, who were inflating tires with pressurized air guns. That done, I had two more stops: bike-to-run transition bag to pour water in my energy powder and to the porto-potty line. By this time, my playlist is about to finish and my phone is blowing up with messages from various friends and family members wondering where the f*ck I am.

I meet up with Marian and Denise and we walk to swim start. It’s a sea of lemmings, everyone simply following the person in front of him, and still hours before sunrise. Denise shoots some video of the walk and I give minimal effort to entertain the camera, while trying to maintain a sense of tranquility that has yet to really leave me.

We arrive at Tumbleweed about 6:00am, agree on a location to drop my bags and lawn chair and part ways. I find my friend and fellow racer Jonathan and his wife waiting in line and park up next to them. The next hour consisted of uneventful conversation and more laughter than I expected, which in turn made the wait more bearable. Besides that, a bathroom break apiece ate up about half of that hour. In due time, we heard (largely out of context) a 5 minute warning air horn, a gunshot to start the pros, intermittent screaming and a percussive cannon to officially start the race. By then volunteers had amassed and were taking charge, encouraging all family members to step out of line and allow the athletes to tighten up.

Within 10 minutes, Jonathan and I approached the dock, high fived and selected our line. Quickly reaching the end of it and crossing over the timing mat, I punched my Garmin to record the official start of Ironman 2010 and dove into the murky waters of the Ohio.