I promise I will get to the actual race eventually!

But a big part of being successful in Ironman is very careful race prep.

After riding and running we headed to Ironman village, it was HUGE and the line for athlete check in was already really long. Luckily they made it up to us with some great race swag.

After check in we went to lunch with Randi, who offered great advice (this is her second ironman and she is an awesome athlete). On Friday we went back to town to try swimming where the race would actually start. On Thursday we tried swimming at our cabin and the lake was so cold that I couldn’t hold my hands in the water.

It shook my confidence so I wasn’t looking forward to trying to swim again at the swim beach.

It was still really cold but warmer than it was near our cabin so the swim was manageable and I felt better about race morning. After swimming we cleaned up and headed back to the cabin to pack our “gear bags”. Ironman gives you five bags for you to pack things you may need during the day.

I spread out all my gear and checked my list three times to make sure I had everything I needed.

There are a few things I learned during the race but I had packed everything I needed. After packing up we headed back to town for the athlete banquet, the food was bland but that’s just fine with me and it was fun to hang out with friends and listen to Mike Rilley’s presentation.

It was really nice to have so many athletes from RMTC there to share the fun!

On Saturday morning we headed down to drop off our bikes and bags.

I think it’s really nice dropping off your bike early so you don’t have to worry about it race morning.

 We then checked out transition to make sure we would know what we were doing on race day, holy confusing!!

After dropping off our gear we headed back to the cabin. I wanted to spend the rest of the day relaxing with my pups. On the agenda was eating an early dinner and heading to bed because our 3:30 wake up call was coming up fast!