A Lot of Running

Last night was the worst night I had ever had before any race. I was running to the bathroom and back the whole night. If I can run this fast tomorrow I will have a PB on the run. Luckily the bathroom is only 1.5meters from the bedroom in our super small hotel room. At one stage I thought I can maybe sit on the toilet and my head can lay down on the bed. OK, that is a bit far stretch but that is just how small the room is.

The bad thing about the whole night was that because of the limited space Kim was awake every time I would get up. Sorry, Kim. Kim did not get sick as she had her own small pizza and did not have any of mine.

The only thing that could have upset my stomach must be the Pizza. Shows you that one can never be to sure when you are in the hands of someone else. We ordered Pizza from a very popular and well know Pizza franchise chain in South Africa. I don't know if it was the pizza that was off or if my stomach can't handle these rich junk food ingredients anymore.



I was still a bit weak this morning but because I was already up and had to do a pre race session in each discipline I decided to go early and do my 500m swim before it gets to crowded.

We were down at the beach just after seven and it took some time to get use to the cold water. The temperature was 17c and because I haven't swam in such cold water lately it took me some time to adapt. As I walked down to the water a man with a English/American accent asked me if it is always this windy here. I had to burst his bubble and said that it is not that windy at this stage.

He must be careful as it can get very windy or he must visit Port Elizabeth where the Ironman is held, now that city can get windy. He said to me he only had a disc rear and a very deep section front wheel. I hope he will survive.

After the swim we had a quick coffee and then I went to pick up my bike. The bike was 100% and we headed back to the hotel. After fitting all the cadgets onto the bike I went for my ride and then did my pre race run.

By 12 o'clock I was done with all the training and packing my transition bags. I left for transition just after 2pm as our wave had until 2:30 to rack our bikes. When I got there there were hardly any bikes in transition. I racked my bike and stored my bags to attend race briefing at 2:30.

I thought race briefing and the deadline for racking bikes was 2:30 but it was 3:30, damn I just didn't feel like driving back to the hotel so I sat there and watch all the people racking there bikes. Boy do you get some characters and people with this air around them. Not even the Pros act that way. I had to laugh at one guy who had to put his helmet on before entering transition but couldn't get it on. Someone had to remind him to take his cap of his head before putting his helmet on.

Race briefing was like any other briefing, same old same but good to hear it again. I was back at the hotel just before 5pm and had this dilemma of what to have for pre race dinner.

I took the bold decision to go for McDonald's as my stomach is still not 100% and I was just not feeling ready for pasta. Not the best pre race meal but I have never become sick of McDonald's.

Will only know tomorrow if it has been a good or bad idea. Tomorrow it is the usual 4am wake up and having breakfast and finalizing all the last minute stuff before heading down to the beach at 6am for my 7am race start.

I had a look on http://www.ironman.com/ website to see if they will have race tracking but it seems that they won't have as no tracking links have been loaded. In case it comes available and you feel like tracking my progress my race number is 1214.