The Day Before Ironman Arizona

Usually the, "What the hell was I thinking?" creeps into my mind somewhere toward the end of a race I'm feeling underprepared for. This time, it has been my constant companion since boarding a plane for Arizona. Ok so, I know nerves are normal. And that's when you have prepared. But in my case, the last couple of weeks - heck, the last couple of months the fact that I boarded a plane and even showed up in Tempe in the first place has me really questioning my sanity.

So here's what happened in the last two weeks. For a week I was "couldn't crawl out of bed if I wanted to sick." Yep. Sick. I never get sick. Ever. But there I was in bed without the energy for much besides sleeping which I did averaging about 12-14 hours per day. If that wasn't enough, prior to that I burned out my juicer. When 75% of your daily nutrition comes from one machine and it goes down, your life is affected in a big way. Then finally, once I had a new juicer and had gotten over what ever bug had me down, I went in for a final massage a week before I was scheduled to leave for Tempe. I almost skipped this appointment because, I wasn't really having any physical issues that "needed" addressing for the race. Mind you there are always things you "can" work on if you are a symmetry freak like me and so there was that one thing that I could get looked at with my right IT band. To make a long story short, the massage antagonized the same spot on my knee that the bicycle pump at Longhorn 70.3 had smacked. So great. Now I can't walk, or tie my shoes, or bend my right leg and thus from that point on there was no more cycling or running. Not that there'd been a lot anyway because of being sick.

But. I got on the plane anyway. The human body is really an odd creation. When I tell you that I woke up Thursday morning and couldn't walk down a flight of stairs without pain, I would not be lying. I also would not be lying if I also said that on the flight from Austin to Phoenix, I could almost feel my knee healing. I got off the plane in Arizona without a hint of the prior pain or stiffness. A miracle.

Anyway, so here I am on the eve of my first Ironman. Nervous, doesn't seem to cover what I'm feeling. But what I do know is that no matter what happens out there, I'm going to keep moving forward. See you all on the other side. ;)