My Race Weekend started on Friday when we had a team meeting with Coach Troy. Troy had a number of athletes doing that race and we all got together at a hotel for a pre-race briefing and strategy session. There was a huge variation in ages, abilities and experience in the room. Some of the folks looked pretty hard core and others looked a little nervous. Troy ran us through each aspect of the race and gave advice for pacing and nutrition. Then he opened the floor up to questions. At that stage we slipped into a discussion of all the things that could go wrong on race day and there are a lot of them. I started the meeting feeling hardcore and left feeling nervous.

At the end of the meeting, Troy gave us sheet of paper with a number of words to stick on our stems. I just used the "physical" part of the list, the "mental" part of the list I have in my head. The physical part was (I think): drink, eat, stand, pace, conserve, prepare for the run. This is excellent advice, especially for a first timer. Of course, I had zero intention of "pacing" or "preparing" I was going to hammer. Oh how wrong I was!

Troy also gave us race morning checklist. It covered everything that we needed to remember on race morning. The list even covered basic things like bring toilet paper and water bottles. Nothing was left to chance.

Friday night was the Carboload dinner and I mentioned that above. Saturday morning I went for a short swim followed by a short run. I was swimming very strongly and loving my new Ironman VO2 Max wetsuit. This is a kick ass product and fits me much better than my QR. I have to say that everything that they say about not being squeezed by the suit is true, it is very comfortable for me. Note: Not a commercial endorsement... I paid full retail.

Turned in at 9PM on Saturday night and actually had a good night's sleep. I woke up before my alarm at 4AM, had a small breakfast, screened up, put my race gear on and headed outside. I had an ugly surprise when I got outside, it was overcast and raining. Oh no! I figured that it would blow over and didn't bother getting my cold weather kit. As fate would have it, this decision didn't matter but if the bad weather had stayed then I would have been screwed. I should have brought my cold weather stuff down to the start.

Before I started the car, I took a minute to chill out and run through the Troy list. Sure enough, I had forgotten my water bottles in the fridge! Thanks, Troy.

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