Enough enough...Fast forward many months, training really ramped up after Irongirl Pleasant Prairie. Long rides were now 50 miles and runs were 8-10. I felt ready. So ready in fact that I signed up for my first full Ironman before I had even completed my first half Ironman! What kind of lunatic does that? I do, I am a certifiable lunatic! But more about IMWI 2016 later :)
We left for Augusta, Georgia on Friday morning at 3am. OMG, so early. I drove the first 3-4 hours and let the hubbie sleep. We stopped in Nashville at Arnold's for lunch. SO GOOD! Highly recommend. He drove until we were just outside of Atlanta. We arrived in Augusta at 10pm. That took so much longer than I imagined...
We unpacked all our stuff (my goodness I had a ton of stuff) and went to bed. I got up in the morning around 8am and decided my legs needed a short run. I dressed and headed out on the Riverwalk. It is beautiful and the weather was so much better than anticipated. It was in the mid-seventies with a bit of humidity but it could have been so much worse. I ran a mile and decided that was enough. I am not a fast runner but I am also not super slow runner either. People were running past me left and right and my thoughts turned to finishing and all I could think was "I am in over my head"... I guess I would find out the next day.
The hubbie and I met up with two of our friends (one of which was doing the race with me) and we went down to registration. It took a little while to get through the line. We signed in, got our wrist bands, signed the waivers, picked up our swag and headed to the race expo. SO MUCH STUFF! I wanted it all! But since I'm not made of money I picked up just one race t-shirt that had all of the participants name on the back. I love that shirt.
(Our race bracelets, without these you are screwed!)
After the expo we headed out to the bike course. We wanted to see the course first hand and get an idea of how to attack it the next day. Everyone warns you that IM Augusta 70.3 is hilly. I did not think it was too horrible. Granted we live on the IMWI bike course so I am accustomed to hills. There were 3 hills of note on the course and I was pleasantly surprised to see they were nothing worse than I had trained on.
We headed back to the hotel, met up with the SwimBikeMom Facebook group at the finish line, took our bikes to transition and then off to dinner at Carrabas. They had our reservation wrong but they managed to get our group of 20 in anyway. It was great to talk with others doing the race and Meredith Atwood, SwimBikeMom herself. If you are at all interested in Triathlon and don't think you can do it I highly recommend her book "Triathlon for the Every Woman".
(The Fab SwimBikeMom Group)
Back to the hotel and into bed. It would be an early morning. I brought my own coffee maker and made sure to stop by Walgreens for cream the night before. I was not leaving my one necessity to chance. I am a coffee addict. I love coffee with cream and sugar and I do NOT function well without it.
Wake up early, I drank a cup of coffee, got my race kit on, double and triple checked my transition bag, grabbed one more cup of coffee and a protein bar and we were off. My hubbie and friend drove us to transition and then it was real. The body markers put on our race numbers and I set up transition. I failed to bring my bike pump but the lovely and generous woman next to me let me borrow hers. Finally it was off to the swim start!
Part II to come!
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