Friday, October 12, 2007

Ironman Hawaii:Day 7 and 8 pre race

Yesterday was a day of rest for me. We had breakfast with Dave LaTourette and some representatives from Alcis and Fuel Belt at the Royal Kona Hotel. We got some schwag from those guys. There is so much give away stuff here. Next time I don’t think I am going to pack any T-Shirts. I have picked up five cool free ones here.



Later in the day, I packed up my transition bags and got my bike ready then kicked back and watched a movie. Scott Ostrem and an old buddy Tim Streb gave me a call. It was good to hear from them.

Glenn Turquand from Xterra wetsuits had a party at his house on Alii and we spent 3 hours there enjoying the company. I will be racing in the Xterra Velocity .02 this year. It is the fastest legal speed suit on the planet. It has a Yamamoto rubber coating and the drag coefficient is less than the Blue Seventy.

When I first swam in the suit two weeks ago, I swam a 5:45 500 at a 6:20 effort. I called Glenn right away and told him” You are going to sell a lot of these suits”. Everybody has speed suits this year. After Normann had his breakthrough swim last year speed suit technology has taken off. It used to be illegal to have anything below the knee. This year I believe they are allowing the pros to have their suits extend below the knee.

After the Party we had dinner at Jameson’s with Mark Van Akkeren and his parents and Brandon Del Campo and his mother. Both those guys are going to have good races. Look for Mark to be in the amateur lead after the swim and possibly the bike.


This morning Dana went out on a ride to Waikoloa with Kevin Purcell and Dave LaTourette, while I went to the Kona Aquatic center for a short 20 min workout with Mitch Gold, Denny Meeker, Brandon, and Mark. Following the swim we took a short 20 min ride out on the Queen K. Boy, I felt really good with the race wheels on. I was hitting monster wattage very easily. I had to hold myself back. After the ride, it was a quick 15 min easy run followed by some strides on the grass.

That was it…. my last workout before the Ironman. I checked in my bike and bags at 1:30 and then went back to relax and prepare my body for what it is about to go through. At about 4:30 I realized that I had forgotten to put my run gels in my bag. I had to drive back to the transition and they let me put them in. Whew…



I am ready. I feel so good and rested right now. It’s hard to believe two days from now I will be so sore I’ll hardly be able to walk.



Thanks for tuning in. If you would like to follow my progress online you can go to www.ironmanlive.com and click on track an athlete. I am number 658. If you would like to program the cell phone to give you splits and text alerts on an athlete you can go to www.IronmanWireless.com.

I will post a race report later with all the details of the race no matter how it turns out.

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