Obligatory Race Number Post

Some of my lucky things I bring to Ironman races: happy shoes (they flash when I move), lucky panties (from Shelley), lucky lobsters (*NEW* for 2008 since Triple T) and lucky tiara













Testing out the run gear...new Fuel Belt with streamers attached, new race belt (to be worn on bike as well). Not sure whether I'll wear the hologram swimsuit, though :)












Back view (you KNOW you wanted to see it)












Back view without all the race crap. Yeah, yeah, my ass is white and HUGE!












Front view without all the race crap. I feel fat :(

I am dangerous now. I got a tripod. I suppose I could have managed with just duct tape like Blink, but I like a certain amount of gadgetry.

Anyhoo, guess what? I'm TAPERING. Lots of time to play with a new tripod and start to get the race gear organized. The most important thing was to work out the setup of the new Fuel Belt and race belt. So I've got that covered. I won't know exactly what I'll be wearing on race day until maybe the day before, because the weather in Lake Plastered is pretty changeable. But it never hurts to pack a hologram thong swimsuit, right?

After my little meltdown yesterday (which was totally necessary, by the way), I got a good night's sleep only to waken to thunderstorms. In looking at the radar, I decided it probably didn't make sense to drive 55 miles to go swim in a lake if there was going to be lightning, not to mention the E. coli counts have been high up there lately, and a lot of rain doesn't help that. So I felt good and actually happy about just going to the Y to swim my 2-mile TT in a wetsuit. I wanted to try out my Desoto T1, and I haven't worn it in over a year. I soaked it in the laundry tub yesterday:









although it was difficult to keep the thing down in the water, which is good, no?

I started my swim at 6:40AM (one hour before the race would have started, so I'm ahead of schedule). I swam 3500 yards comfortably in 1:05 on the nose. Not bad considering that has brought me to almost 17,000 yards for the week (about 500 to go tomorrow!). The wetsuit felt great, and since someone else will be ripping it off of me, I don't need to worry about how long it takes to get off! Wait...read that last sentence back out loud. Oh well, too late, I typed it.

Happy with my swim, I thought it might be good to go hang on some bars to stretch out my back, and I spotted Tony, one of the trainers, in the personal training area. I had seen him yesterday when I was one mile into my run--he was in his car, and I asked how he recognized me, and a big smile came over his face, and I knew, and said, "My ass, right?" He shook his head in agreement. Anyway, we chatted and he was training a woman who wanted to know about what I'm up to and she seemed pretty impressed, but the first words out of her mouth (I was wearing a T-shirt and baggy shorts) were, "You don't look very muscular." Well, you know what I had to do--I rolled up my T-shirt sleeve and flexed a biceps for her, and then I showed her my thighs! I mean they are HUGE right about now (21" as compared to my waist which is 23.5"). That was pretty funny. Tony was kind enough to gift me another stretch cord that I will now use to do some rhomboid isolation exercises.

I came home and putzed around a bit and decided to do my strength workout which I just hadn't gotten around to earlier in the week. This might fuck me up for my sprint tomorrow, but I don't care. The sprint is for fun, and I'll go as fast as I can, laughing at all the people who are all "tapering" for it. I mean, yeah I'm tapering for an Ironman, but I'll still hit 14 hours of training on the week! The weights and core stuff felt good, and then I thought it was time to try out the tripod, and well, you see what happened!

I'm about to go ride CF to the bank to deposit a check and that will be the essence of my working out for the day. Even though I've done a lot this week already, not having a long ride looming over my head is HUGE! Those basically blow your entire day, so I feel like a slacker now, but I'm enjoying it.

Oh yeah, my race number is

2538

in case you didn't already stalk the participant list and notice that my occupation is

CRACKHEAD