The day before race day!

We started off today the same way as yesterday; with our alarms set for 4am huddled around a TV that was full of infomercials - no fun!

The intention for today was to do a swim/bike/run, however each session was to be 10 or 15mins and with a break between them.  So our plan was to head down to the water at 7am again.

As we were sitting around whiling away the time we decided that we would do our run before the swim - I don't know why that didn't occur to us before!  So, away we went.  The morning was beautiful; it was still dark but it was light enough for us to see where we were headed with the moonlight and the street lights.  I felt good, I felt as though I could run for ages and I felt so much more comfortable running than sitting around in our unit waiting!

After our run we went back to relaxing in the unit until it was time to head down to the swim.  The swim was beautiful, it was much calmer than yesterday and the water was really beautiful.  I was out at one of the buoys chatting to a couple of girls and I looked around and wished I had a camera.  The sun was rising behind the snow capped mountains with the lake looking still and beautiful.  It really was tranquil and serene.  I imagined the chaos that it would turn in to just this time tomorrow!

After our swim we went for an easy ride to make sure everything was OK with our bikes prior to checking them in to transition.  Thankfully our bikes were all good.

Putting the bikes in to transition was exciting - we had our transition bags all packed up and dropped them off and then we were given an escort - a kind volunteer showed us where we racked our bikes and went through the whole process of where we were going to run in from the swim and where we would get changed and where there would be food and sunscreen and then to the bike and then out on to the bike course.  They were really good and thoroughly organised.

Once we had racked our bikes and deposited our transition bags we had nothing left to do but relax and hydrate and carbo load!  It also meant that my parents were released from their fantastic "Ironman support crew" duties and could actually go and do some exploring.  Their help over the last couple of days was brilliant - to running to the shops and getting last minute 'essentials' to fixing up bikes, to giving us a lift here and there, to Mum cleaning up the unit - they were always on hand to offer any assistance to all of us.  I didn't mean for them to come over and wait on us hand and foot so it was nice that they got this afternoon to go and do a bit of exploring!

Craig and I had a large bowl of arrabiata pasta for dinner with some fresh herbs and parmesan - this is a meal that we ate a fair bit prior to a long ride or run so it was appropriate for us to eat it before the big day.

Mum and Dad picked up Vanessa from the airport in the evening and then Keith, a friend of Faye's came over and we hung out a bit.  Craig, Keith and Faye even managed to have an alcoholic beverage!  I wasn't game to start drinking the night before the biggest race of my life!  Here is a photo of Keith, Faye, Craig and Vanessa - relaxing with a drink!

last training in AUS!!!

Today is the last training session before we head out to the airport early in the morning to Taupo.  Home of Ironman NZ!!!

The session was a 45min easy spin.  It was wet and ugly outside so I opted for a wind trainer session whilst watching the Today show.  Very civilised.

My pre-race reflections are to try and enjoy the race, take in the scenery, know that I have done the work and that I have had a good preparation with no illness or injury.  I want to wake up on the morning and say that "I am strong, I deserve this success as I have worked hard for it!"

I just hope that my feet and legs don't give me too much curry on the rain.  I expect to get pain, I probably won't feel as though I have earnt the medal without the pain, but I just hope that it is not really, really awful...

Wish me luck.

Pre-race ride

The BTS crew met at Loo with a View at 6:30 for a pre-race ride.

It didn't start well... Jacque came down from an apartment opposite our BTS tent and said that she didn't notice it there. It's a pretty whopping big tent so there's no way that she could miss it! Darren flew up there to see if it was really missing and returned a short time later to confirm that yes the tent is definitely missing! Mark was furious! So he headed off to the Police, etc to go and report it as missing.

We all continued on our ride and did 60minutes of pretty easy spinning, which was nice. John came along too which was good. Unfortunately we had 2 flat tyres, Suzanne and Paul, so hopefully that's our 3 things!

I felt good afterwards and Mum met us for breakfast and it was a beautiful morning.

We took it pretty easy on the Saturday just relaxing and eating well and hydrating. I had a spinach and cheese omellette for breakfast, a vegie burger at Raw Energy that was absolutely massive for lunch, I followed this up later with a large fruit salad and then only had a light dinner of breakfast cereal. So, I will see if this is a good pre race day food intake!

We could rack our bikes at 11:30 because we registered on the Friday, so we lined up at 11:15 ready to rack up! I managed to get the best position ever, I was right on the cycle exit which was great.

It was great wandering around Mooloolaba, so many fit people and everyone drinking water and looking healthy.

Ocean Swim

We left home just after 8am with Dad and our 3 bikes all set for our big weekend of Mooloolaba Triathlon.

We had a good run and called in and saw Gran on the way, then headed up to Mooloolaba and helped Mark put the tent up.

We then went for an Ocean swim. We walked down the beach to the next set of flags and had a chat to the lifeguard and told him what we were about. He told us that there were a pod of dolphins out swimming, so that was neat, I was quite excited about swimming with dolphins until we were just about in the water and the realisation set in that if there were dolphins this side of the shark net what is to stop sharks being inside the shark net!

Those thoughts aside, it was a beautiful swim. It was the nicest water I have swum in at Mooloolaba, it was absolutely magnificent. We just wanted to get a feel for the water and Dad was swimming with us so we took it pretty easy and stopped a few times along the way for Dad to catch up. It was definitely the most enjoyable Mooloolaba swim I had ever encountered! I just hope that conditions are the same on Sunday! There wasn't even any waves to slow me down on my way into shore, just beautiful.

After our swim, we checked in to the hotel and spent a fair bit of time cleaning and going over our bikes to ensure that they are shining and beautiful.

We then went and registered and got our goody bag which was full of junk mainly. Another 2 drink bottles and a shirt that will never fit any human that I know!

Mum came up a bit later after work and we met up with all the BTS crew for a bit of socialising and then we left to go and get a pasta dinner and a fairly early night.