James Weighs In...

Most of the time, this blog is written from Monica’s perspective. Since the focus is James’s Ironman race and our family’s adventure with it, I thought I would let him weigh in some on how he spent the day before the race…

Friday morning kind of sucked because we woke up and it was raining. But, the rain stopped and I was able to get in a good swim. I met up with the Mark Allen group and we swam out on the race course. Some of the pros were there warming up. There was a “coffee boat” out in the bay. I swam out and got some coffee. I hung out there at the boat for a while. It was really cool!

After the swim, I got the bike and went out for a short ride. My coach said to ride for about 20 minutes, nothing to strenuous. I checked out the bike and ran it through the gears. I was able to stretch my legs a bit. While out on the run, I saw the folks from “Clif Bar”. Chris McCormack was there giving out t-shirts. Since Monica is a big “Macca” fan, I made sure to get her a shirt.

Friday afternoon we took the bike to be checked in for the race. As I passed through security, they put a black and red sticker on it to show it had been cleared. Sabrina, from Australia, walked me through the transition area. She showed me where I would exit the swim and head to the bike. Then, she showed me which way to go to exit on the bike. She then took me to hang my gear bag. To make sure the bags are not tampered with, each athlete must hang their own bag in their assigned spot.

As the evening went on, I was not really nervous. It was strange, in my other races I always got really nervous. For this one, I did not! I just went through everything my coach had said and felt ready to race!