The Jurere Beach Hotel in the morning at sunrise:

The EST course tour with Ken Glah narrating:

Me about to head out for a bike ride. Do I look like something out of X-files?:

A few today, definitely more tomorrow:

Standing in line for 30 freakin minutes	Check out my new IM Brazil 07 Kit!
EST bike mechanics at work.	My rejiggered bike – love it!

Today I rolled into Florianopolis this morning around 9am, after yet another crazy check-in line adventure. I swear, every business, every person in Brazil or working for a Brazilian company moves in slow motion. There is no urgency or sense of customer service anywhere in the place. Even at the line to pick up our Ironman registration bag, I spent 30 minutes waiting in a line with only 4 people in it.
Thankfully, Ken Glah’s triathlon travel company, Endurance Sports Travel, made it all worthwhile. They had this huge bus waiting for us and drove us to our hotels. One unfortunate thing: probably 70% of the athletes didn’t get their bikes and/or luggage. How nice. TAM is SO efficient.
Thankfully, my dear readers, I have my bike and luggage. Many thanks for my Ritchey Breakaway which, when disassembled and packed into its case, masquerades as a normal piece of luggage and not some big ass bike box to be thrown about and left behind.
I went to grab lunch and then put my bike together. Before dropping off my bike with the nice EST bike mechanics, I went for a swim under a beautiful sun. I threw on my wetsuit and found the water to be cool but not so cool to freeze my toes, and not so warm to be uncomfortable in my wetsuit. Perfect water baby yeah!
I walk my bike over to the mechanics. I tell them to do 3 things and WHOA they rejigger everything on the bike making it sing. BONUS!
I make it out to expo to pick up my Ironman registration bag where I wait a ridiculous 30 minutes in a line with only 4 people in it. Before I get my bag, I spend some serious dough buying some great Ironman Brazil wear. They have some pretty cool stuff here this year and I gotta look cool when I get back home.
A bit of dinner when I get back and I meet up with my lone buddy from the Bay Area who comes out, except that he crashed his bike and probably can’t race. Go figure.

I reach Miami airport around 3pm local time. Negotiating the airport and the airline became a test of my Ironman endurance.
The first phase of my workout here at the airport was getting off the plane and proceeding to hike approximately 1 mile from one end of the airport from Concourse D to the other in order to get to where my connecting airline, the Brazilian airline TAM, has its gates. I huff through the terminal’s construction areas and proceed to negotiate its steep uphills carrying my transition bag plus normal computer bag.
I make it to the Admiral’s Club in Concourse A only to find out they cannot check me in to TAM through their terminals. I call TAM and they can’t even find my reservation on their computers. Wonderful. This means I need to go back outside security to the check-in counters to get this done.
Well I have about 4 hours before my flight now, so I think I have time to do this even if it means the extra hassle of going through security again. So I reluctantly go back out to the check-in counters to get this straightened out. I hike back through Concourse A, out through the doors, down some stairs and into what seems to be a relatively short line at the TAM counters. I get in line and now my first test of Ironman endurance begins.
I wait.
And wait.
And wait.
I swear there must not be 30 people in line, most of them grouped by family.
I wait.
And wait.
And wait.
At times, I am forced to stand for 20 minutes at a time with the line not moving at all. I have no idea what is going on. There are four people running counters and the people they are helping are just standing there in front of them. I see virtually no movement at all.
The line moves. It inches.
I wait some more.
And more.
And more.
It inches forward.
I wait some more.
And more.
OK Broken record. Very boring. And my legs are quivering from standing there for over an hour. I contemplate taking salt tablets so I don’t cramp. My back starts to hurt from shouldering my transition bag.
After TWO F**KEN HOURS I finally make it to the counter. It takes a FULL 5 MINUTES to check me in. And I don’t even have luggage to check in! Their computer systems must run on Intel 8080 processors (OK OK a GEEK joke) because I have never seen a computer run so slow in my life.
I get checked in, and then run upstairs only to step into the slowest security line I’ve ever seen. Inch by inch I move forward as all these travelers unaccustomed to security procedures try to get through the screening. My legs are starting to get sore from standing around all day when I should be sitting and saving up energy.
I finally get up there and, of course, MY LINE IS THE SLOWEST OF THEM ALL. The TSA person insists on halting the conveyor belt for at least 2 minutes on each bag to stare at it. What a pain.
I get through security and see the finish line in sight. Back to the Admirals Club for a stiff drink, probably the last drink I’ll have before the race on Sunday.
I plop down gratefully next to the bar and post this unbelievable experience I’m having at Miami Airport. I am constantly reminded that despite the fact that we are in the 21st century, it is obvious that much of the world is still in the 19th century and shows no signs of catching up.
My dear readers, pray for me and my bike to arrive safely in Florianopolis tomorrow…

I’m one week away from the race and have been tapering for about 2 weeks now. I was elated to have done a mega triple brick 3 weeks ago and felt really ready for this race.
But then, I got this weird pain around my right ankle bone, because of which I stopped running for about a week to give it time to recover and heal. I definitely did not want to run the race with a sore ankle! I got Graston and ART on it, and it got better after about a week, and now I make sure to roller my peroneals a lot to keep them not so tight. Apparently they got stressed and started pulling on my ankle tendons and caused some pain there.
So I biked a little more on days where I would have ran, using my Powercranks to simulate some of the movement of running and taking the heat off my ankle.
Better to arrive fully healthy than to push it with workouts especially during the taper period when it’s really not needed and it’s time for energy conservation!
Always during taper, I get these little tweaks and pains. Basically in the absence of heavy workouts, knots spontaneously form in my muscles and it’s sometimes unnerving and frustrating to have them appear when I’m barely doing anything! Apparently, there is a natural knot/adhesion removing action when you work out and when you stop working out, the absence of this natural action can result in formation of knots and adhesions seemingly out of nowhere.
Having seen this happen time and time again, it bugs me less now but not completely un-bugged. I grab my TPMassage Roller and foam roller and work on them until they are somewhat pliable and so far, they have not affected me on race day.
As I enter into the week prior to race day, I will keep the intensity up but time length down, so as to not lose the neuromuscular feelings of power generation and moving fast. I leave for Brazil on Wednesday which will give me almost two days of rest; getting there takes a freakin’ long time and I’m sure hanging out on planes and in airports will cause the spontaneous formation of MORE knots. For that, I bring with me a lacrosse ball, which is much firmer than the TPMassageBall but just as portable, and I can just drive into my muscles while watching videos on my iPod in the airport lounge.

As I come down to the wire for Ironman Brazil, I once again reflect on my training and what I’ve learned over these last few months preparing for the event. Some notables:
1. I noted a definite need for strength building in my training, so I dramatically raised the number of hilly courses that I would run and bike on. I would do hill repeats and try to accelerate on them towards the end. I am hoping that this will make a difference in my ability to maintain speed on hills. I did these hill repeats to the exclusion of doing more tempo rides to cement high intensity for long periods of time. I feel that preventing strength loss, which ultimately leads to cramping towards the end of the race, is more important than tempo training at this point.
2. My recovery period following long, intense sessions has lengthened. I have trained myself to listen to my body and not fight the longer recovery period, or feel anxiety because of it. As a result, I believe that I have made improvements despite not needing to train hard every day. It’s just a realization that as I grow older, my body responds differently to stress and its recovery needs are much different than either younger athletes or those that are more highly trained.
3. I discovered SportLegs pills as a supplement. Not believing they would work, I now take them regularly and they seem to definitely help in mitigating the burning sensation in my legs during hard training sessions. I believe that the lack of burning, and hence the production of anaerobic by-products is also helping with my cramping problems.
4. I bought a Louis Garneau aero helmet, and am slowly accounting for those things on my bike which reduce aerodynamics. It was a pleasant surprise to feel a definite lowering of effort in windy conditions.
5. I will be racing on Roval aero wheels, whose unique spoke assembly creates a narrower spoke profile without the need for carbon fiber wheels. Originally I bought them for simply their narrow spoke profile, which I hope will pack nicer in my Ritchey Breakaway suitcase. Previously, I have bent the spokes on my Zipp 404s because their spoke profile was so much wider than the normal wheels that Ritchey designed their suitcase for. Now I hope that the Roval narrow spoke profile will allow for lower stacking, which should reduce the chance of damage to the wheels. But I also hope that their claims of aerodynamics are true, and that they are really as aero as Hed carbon 3 spoke wheels.
I am optimistic for a great race on May 27. More later, as I enter the taper period.