Ironman Pre-Race Report

I had friends and family coming in for my Ironman from all over the place!  Karin's parents came from Minnesota and Wisconsin, my parents and Karin's sister and her fiance from California, and my friend Kristin from Nevada.  Plus Karin had arranged essentially a giant party of all my friends and family who live here in Phoenix!  She planned to set up a canopy tent as a base camp, she had ordered matching tee-shirts for all my Ironfans, and I had gotten beer, soda, snacks and water for all my Ironfans to help them enjoy what was sure to be a very long day.

The front said: YOU CAN HAVE THIS IN 140.6 MILES
with a picture of a slice of pizza.

The back said: KARI'S IRONFANS

Karin's sister, Megan, and her fiance, Tyler arrived Friday night, and the rest of my out of town fans came in Saturday.  There were a lot of trips to the airport, and a lot of details to attend to.  I did the practice swim at 10 am and got my bike and gear checked in quickly with no issues.

The practice swim went great!  Granted, there were only a few hundred in the water at a time, rather than a few thousand, but the water was not as shockingly cold as I had been led to expect, and I was able to just focus on myself and my technique and stay calm.

We got Papa Murphy's take-n-bake pizza for pre-race dinner, because I love pizza and it was what I wanted.  But I had been carb loading for 2 days and by dinner on Saturday night I only had about 2 small pieces of pizza before I was completely full.

I made copies of a hand-drawn map of the race transition area so people would know where to go to see me, and I also made copies of the "Optimistic/Realistic" time frame schedule for my finish times, so people would have an idea when to look for me.

The plan was to be in bed by 8 pm, and I made it into bed by about 8:10.  During the course of the evening Megan and Tyler decided to go the spectator area really early, like 3:30 am, to set up the tent and snag a prime spectating spot!

Megan camping out to guarantee my awesome Ironfans a great viewing spot.

Before I went to bed I made sure I had everything ready, and a last-minute checklist so I wouldn't forget anything.