I barely slept at all. \u00a0At one point, I thought that I had booked a good block of sleep into the night, only to realize that it was only 13 minutes from when I had last looked at the clock. \u00a0I hate when this happens, though it’s admittedly rare. \u00a0My mind is my worst enemy in these situations as I run through scenario after scenario. \u00a0Most are realistic as I picture what I’ll need to do while in the water, while on the first 12k of the bike, while on the hills of each bike loop, and once on the run. \u00a0But, others are simply fantasy and usually of the negative order, and often without any connection to the Ironman. \u00a0In total, maybe I got 2 hours of sleep but not a minute of it was good quality.<\/p>\n
Alarm went off at 3:15 a.m. and I promptly got up and began the morning prep. \u00a0Got a call from Roya in California where she just got back from the wedding ceremony of her best friend (thus her absence from being here with me), and is now preparing for the reception. \u00a0We chatted for 10 minutes and she offered nothing but positivity and love. \u00a0I am thankful for every second that she is in my life and she’ll be with me today in every way but physically.<\/p>\n
So, it’s now time to head down to an early breakfast, then meet up with Grazi in the lobby at 4:30 to head over to the shuttle buses. \u00a0There’s not a lot that we need to do this morning in terms of race prep once we arrive at the swim area. \u00a0Pumping some air into the tires, preparing our drinks, and ensuring that everything is set up properly won’t take very long. \u00a0Then we’ll put on our anti-chafing lotions and creams, wriggle into our wetsuits, and head down to the water. \u00a0Before we know it, the pros will be sent off (they start at 6:45 am) and we’ll be herded into the water for our 7:00 am start. \u00a0And not long thereafter, we’ll hear the starting gun and begin this adventure.<\/p>\n
I am excited, nervous, anxious, and hungry for success. \u00a0I want this to be over and to be right back in bed tonight, but this Ironman thing is keeping from achieving that. \u00a0I want to enjoy the experience, but I’d be lying if I said that this is fun. \u00a0This is actually very hard work in the aggregate. \u00a0The last hour or so may be enjoyable, and I am aware that the price to pay to earn that last hour where the real fun exists is the completion of 2.4 miles of swimming, 112 miles of cycling, and a lot of miles of running, not to mention the 100,000k meters of swimming that led up to this, the 2,000+ miles of cycling that led up to this, and the 600+ miles of running that led up to this. \u00a0Oh, and the money spent on gels, bike tune-ups, sneakers, pool fees, etc. \u00a0All of it… just to hear the greatest four words: \u00a0YOU ARE AN IRONMAN!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I barely slept at all. \u00a0At one point, I thought that I had booked a good block of sleep into the night, only to realize that it was only 13 minutes from when I had last looked at the clock. \u00a0I hate when this happens, though it’s admittedly rare. \u00a0My mind is my worst enemy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-training"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=651"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":652,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651\/revisions\/652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}