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| "I want to wake up in that city That doesn't sleep And find I'm king of the hill Top of the heap" |
Most of the tabs on the race web page were mere placeholders until more information was available. Okay... what do we know about the race? Takes place on 11 August 2012. And it’s almost $900. Hmm. Being Captain Decisive, I tabled the idea for a day or so to think about dropping some serious cash on this. After a little thinking, it was decided, and with luck, I was one of the many who squeezed in during the 11 minute window it was actually open for general registration.
In the early spring season, I had a few good races and some close friends of mine recommended that I start thinking about getting a coach to help me. For anyone who knows me, I’ve always just made up my training willy-nilly and hope for the best. While I’ve had success using that method, it seemed like it would be a pretty smart choice to bring on someone who knew much more about an Ironman and how to train for it. I certainly didn’t know where to start other than to just go out in train for it by volume.
Four months of solid preparation (save, a few weeks off for a revisit from an injury earlier this year) might seem to some as too much training, especially when the hours varied from 12-20 hours. To me, it almost didn’t seem like nearly enough. Back in June of 2011 when I signed up for the race I told my friend Tuan how excited I was to have gotten into the sold out race and he gave me one very wise piece of advice which I really didn’t pay much attention to at the time: Budget for food. Lots of it. I’d soon come to realise just how true Tuan was that once it came time to get down to real training business that I’d have to seriously budget for a staggering food bill every week. I was eating more and more every day and felt completely unsatiated after each more, craving snacks, extra helpings, and even supplemental meals throughout the day. I was burning through more and more calories and more and more cash with each week that came closer to the race itself. Wow! I need to write to Chipotle to sponsor my after training meals, and to Harris Teeter and Wawa to help me with the 2-3 gallons of chocolate (and some white) milk I drank every week. My survival depended on several cases of Honey Stinger waffles and gels every other day, and almost entirely every Saturday on my long rides. I was sick of the pool. Sick of running. Sick of biking. Sick of waiting.
Before I knew it, the realization that I was doing an IM started to sink in when someone asked me when the race was and I answered without thinking first, "oh hey, it's next weekend.... oh shit..."
Having arrived a few days early, I had some downtime and spent it relaxing and keeping trying stressing out. Well, trying to, until I got an email alerting me of recent developments in a massive sewage spill upriver. Oh, and then there were 70% chances of rain and thunderstorms. It literally came down to 4:30 Friday afternoon before we got official confirmation that the swim portion of the race would even be held. Whew. I didn't want to have to make my own "138.2" sticker. It was on.
Racking my bike was scary. The skies didn't look friendly at all.
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| The storm before the quiet? |
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| Ferries taking us to Ross docks for bike racking. |
A downpour greeted us at transition and gave a cold introduction to Ross Docks. Amazingly, the sun popped out within minutes of putting my bike to bed and gave me a slight sunburn as I waited for the return ferry. The rest of the day was fairly low key, dinner with friends and a few hours of wondering if everything was in the right place. You reach a point where you just stop caring and just go with it. To bed.
Morning
My first alarm went off at 0256. I’m hating life at this point. Get up, Trevor! I wasn't going to hit the snooze button. Not even once, no matter how much I wanted to. There were three more alarms set in case that one didn’t get me up, as I’ve slept through a few before. Surprisingly, there wasn’t much to do before I was out the door. I slipped into my race kit, made my peanut butter and banana sandwich and coffee for breakfast, and headed out the door by 0318. In the lobby was a gaggle of people gently scurrying about to be sure they made it in time to the shuttle that departed from the host hotel. We were all zombies loading into the bus that would convey us across Manhattan to the Docks where our ferry to transition waited. I was a bit surprised, yet not surprised, how alive New York City was at quarter to four in the morning. New York is a living beast, only slowing down for a few hours between dusk and dawn, but never coming to a stop.
