Where do I begin on this entry? So much has happened over the last 3 weeks. I've been waiting to make this post so I could get my pictures together but in doing so my thoughts are very jumbled together in regards to my trip down to Houston and what I was able to achieve. I honestly feel that it is the Greatest Accomplishment of my Life. Even though I don't feel like it has completely sunk in yet, I do know that the experience of crossing that finish line was every bit as special as I had hoped it would be. Going from someone who was not even a runner and could not even run for 10 minutes without stopping to someone who finished a 140.6 mile endurance event just amazes me....and I was along for the entire journey too! Trying to explain how special this weekend was to me and being able to share it with all of my family and a lot of my friends is difficult but here it goes:
I flew down to Houston a week early thinking that I could acclimatize to the high heat and humidity before the race. This was a great thought in theory. Mother nature however had a different plan. I arrived after a week or so of some pretty significant thunderstorms in the area. These storms not only lowered the air temperatures but decreased the humidity to very low levels as well. There were days where I was even wearing pants....yeah PANTS! Even though this was extremely pleasant it made for acclimatizing a little difficult. I continued on with my plan. I went to the local gym for some pool sessions and went for a few runs along the Marathon course as well as a bike ride that took me on the out of town route for the bike course. I only went a few miles though before turning south to ride over to my childhood home in a neighborhood about 4 or 5 miles away (as the crow flies)....I took a longer path to get there than on my way home. It was surreal to be an adult biking in the very neighborhood where I learned how to ride a bike as a kid. Especially
biking down the street that I use to ride to and from school everyday in elementary school. Also there was one section of roads that I was on outside of our neighborhood that I can remember biking on at one point when I was around 10 years old on my 1st ever 10 speed road bike with my brothers (we should never have been biking on these roads at that age and needless to say my parents had no idea we were doing this....but we did it anyway because if I remember correctly we wanted to go try and feed some ducks at this small commuter airport about 5 or so miles away, this does not seem like a lot now but when I was 10 it seemed like we were doing a cross country expedition). Anyways this particular ride always pops into my head at random times when I'm biking. It's a neat memory, mostly because it was something I did with my brothers that I have no memory of fighting with them :-)
At this rate of my story telling I'll write a book before I get to the end. So I'm going to skip over a bunch of stuff. Basically I went out to dinner while there on several occasions with some old family friends and several of my old roommates from graduate school in Hawaii. It was great catching up with all of them.
On Wednesday, the athlete village opened up and I went and picked up my athlete packet that contained my timing chip, all of my transition bags and my numbers to stick on my helmet and bike as well. Most importantly this packet consisted of an IRONMAN TEXAS BACKPACK......it's pretty cool.
On the Thursday before the race I went for that long bike ride I mentioned above and then went to the Athlete Dinner and mandatory meeting. It was a great way to start off the weekend getting into the Ironman Spirit, as if I needed extra motivation to get in the spirit....plus it was free food :-) My parents and older brother Jimmy (along with his family) arrived on Thursday night as well. This was really fantastic because I finally got to meet my newest niece Olivia.
I awoke at 5am on Friday morning for a quick trip out to the airport to pick up one of my IRONsherpas. What's an IRONsherpa you ask? Well, its a term at these races for any friend or family member who takes on the role of helping you with carting all of your gear around both before and after the race. Trust me, the last thing you want to do after this race is go hunt down all your transition bags and your bike and then get them back to you hotel room. When my buddy Jason did Ironman Arizona in November I was his Sherpa. So he came down to Texas to reciprocate the favor. In addition to Jason I also had my Team In Training Co-mentor and friend Louisa there. She was fantastic and she ended up contributing more to the cause than she will ever know. I'll get to that in a second. After picking up Jason at the airport we came back to the hotel, changed and then went for a run over to the swim start for my practice swim in the lake. Good thing I did this because it was good to know that there would be ZERO visibility on race day. After that we ran over to the Ironman village where I did some stretching with a physical therapist and looked at all the booths. I then went back to the hotel to grab my transition bags and bike and headed back to the transition area to drop them off for tomorrows race.
Once that was done, I went back to the hotel just as my younger brother Danny (along with his family) arrived from Mississippi. Their arrival was the first time that we had all been together with all of the grandchildren. My parents obviously loved this. That night we went out to dinner with our old neighbors and then went back to the hotel to try and relax and get to bed early. IronSherpa Louisa flew in from Seattle and came over to the hotel to hang out for a bit. We walked over to the grocery store so I could get some bananas for the morning. These bananas tasted fantastic the next morning :-) Along the way to the store we saw Chrissie Wellington as we left our hotel and listened to the Dave Matthews Band who was playing at the Amphitheater right next to the Transition Area.
RACE DAY
I awoke race morning at 3:45am, did my morning race rituals and then met up with Jason and Louisa to head out to the swim start. Luckily for me, Louisa was willing to drive me to the bike transition area to take care of my last minute stuff and then onto the swim start. The walk was a half a mile to the transition area and probably about a mile from there to the swim start. I really did not feel like walking all that distance with about 2 gallons of water. Anyways, She drove us over to the bike transition area and we were one of the first people there.
Once back in the car we were able to get back to the swim start area fairly quickly. At this point I had a huge sense of relief because I knew that I had plenty of time. I then got body marked before getting in line for the Port-a-Potty to take care of some business.....this would be the 1st of many stops in the Blue Box of Relief!
I waited in line for about ten minutes to get my tires pumped up and then put my water bottles on my bike and then headed back to the car to go over to the swim start. We made it over there easily. As we pulled up I realized though that I forgot to put my sunglasses in my bike bag (they were hanging from the collar of my shirt). Mild panic set in.....I just tried to remain calm and told myself that is why you left yourself so much time before the start. So we had to drive all the way back to the swim start. By this time there was loads of people around and the car traffic was getting worse. So I quickly hoped out and got to my bike transition bag and deposited my sunglasses in my shoe where I knew they would be safe.
Once back in the car we were able to get back to the swim start area fairly quickly. At this point I had a huge sense of relief because I knew that I had plenty of time. I then got body marked before getting in line for the Port-a-Potty to take care of some business.....this would be the 1st of many stops in the Blue Box of Relief! 
I made my way into the water around 6:40am so I could make my way towards the front and not get caught with the masses up on shore at the last minute. The water temperature was 81 degrees with patches of water that felt much colder. I tried to relax while treading water, but it became difficult to do when I had to go pee and couldn't....have you ever tried to pee while treading water? It's kind of difficult. I suppose I should practice that too for future races :-)
