Ironman Arizona: A Really Really Early Morning

I will be posting a mini-series of posts to describe the day of Ironman Arizona.  This is the second installment of this series.

Sunday, November 18, 2012.  This will be the day I become an Ironman.  But before we discuss the morning of November 18, we have to discuss the night of November 17.

The foremost thought in my head as I lay down to sleep in the hotel room on Saturday. November 17 was that hopefully I'd be able to put aside any race-day butterflies and get a good night's rest.  I already put in my time training for months for this one day, and now all I can do is get enough rest to perform as well as I can during the race.

During the few days in Arizona, the plan was to try to keep a normal sleeping schedule, but sleeping in so that I would be able to maximize sleep time.  This meant getting to bed at some time between nine and ten o'clock, with an attempt to sleep a bit earlier since the morning of the race would be an extra, extra early morning.  The race cannon would go off at 7am.  Transition would be open from 5am to 6:30am.  I typically try to get to the transition area soon after it is open, so we were planning on getting to transition by 5:15am at the very latest.  Since my bike was already down there and we knew it was approximately 20 minutes to walk there, we had to be out the door by 4:50am - so we planned to be out the door by 4:30am in case we were a bit slow in the morning.

Morning meant waking up with time to clean up, clear the head, change into swim gear (sans wetsuit), eat breakfast (and prepare something to eat while at transition).  So we settled on a 3:45am alarm time.  That was still approximately 7 hours of sleep.

Surprisingly, I slept like a log that night.  Once my head hit the pillow, I was lights out.  As I woke up, the excitement of race day quietly crept up on me.  Iron Sherpa knew exactly what had to be done and worked her way through the morning as if she has rehearsed it.  All foods and equipment were ready to go (we had set some things up the night before as well), and everything was surprisingly stress-free.  Usually I worry about forgetting one item or another for race day.  Yet with Sherpa on my side, I had little to worry about and only tried to soak in the experience and enjoy the day.

We arrived at transition shortly after 5am, as planned.   We turned in my "Special Needs" bags and then just hung out and tried to relax.  Iron Sherpa posted up near the swim exit to be able to snap pictures and see me as I come off the swim portion.  Approximately 45 minutes before the start, I got into the wetsuit.  The professionals' start is a half hour prior to the age groupers, so they got in the water first to start. Then the age groupers jumped in.  And so I got into the water as well.

The water temperature was 64.1 degrees, so booties were legal, but I did not even bring mine.  I did, however, bring and wear the neoprene cap I wore at Alcatraz for a little extra warmth.

Next time... the swim.

Quick Facts:
Early Breakfast (at the hotel room): Smoothie with muscle milk
Breakfast (an hour prior to race start, at transition): peanut butter + banana sandwich and an apple

Ironman Arizona Series
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