Tonite is the pasta party where we carb up with pasta of all sorts. We wear an ID bracelet which gets us into the dinner (but also identifies us if we pass out mid-race):

Ken took me out to Radio Shack to get some batteries for my Powertap Disc and hopefully my mobile. We pass a hot tourist spot, Ripley’s Believe It or Not, along the way:

Look at the Titanic sinking there, into Ripley’s museum! Wow, do I believe it…or not?
Unfortunately, I did not find a new mobile battery. My mobile is dead for this trip. I did get some batteries to try for my Powertap though. After Radio Shack I get to the pasta party:

Mike Reilly hosted it, and Paula Newby-Fraser, Ironman legend, spoke.
Mike Reilly is the guy who always shouts, “ You’re an Ironman!!!!” at the finish line. However, I still have not forgiven him for NOT announcing I’m an Ironman at my first Ironman in New Zealand. Grrrr…

These two ladies are amazing. The one on the left is 18 years old and doing her first Ironman. The one on the right raced Kona a few years back at age 61 and set a new world record: 12 hours and 34 minutes. Simply inspirational.

This guy LOST 127 POUNDS training for this Ironman. He is only 5’7″ tall! Geez.

This woman won the Ford Everyday Hero award. She weighed 380 POUNDS before she started training and now is devoted to raising money to fight cancer. Obviously she does not weigh 380 lbs any more.

Big Dan and me at the pasta dinner, both of us getting pumped to race:

I head home and wash up to go the sleep, with the memory of this vision to take me to bed: that of the Slingshot across the street from my condo in bright neon, soaring majestically into the sky:

And to all, a good night…

Oh by the way, I forgot to mention that Ken finished his 25th Kona race this last October. He raced a 9:44 on about 6 weeks of training. What a stud!

I just went out and bought some more dishwashing liquid. Amazingly, there are no 7-11s here but there is this Camper’s Inn which is basically a 7-11 for Panama City Beach. On the walk back, on a whim, I stop into that Oriental Market.

Surprisingly, there were actual Oriental foods in there! Instant noodles, bags of rice…soy sauce! Even jade statues of buddhas and dragons! Wow. The ambiance was complete with country music playing on the speakers. Nice.
Then, while sitting here in my condo, I realize that I scheduled all of my afternoon’s conference calls ONE HOUR WRONG. UGH! Missed one call, but got him back on the phone. Moved all my others to the correct times on my calendar. This little sliver of Florida is NOT in Eastern time, but in Central time. How confusing.
One more hit to my gut: my mobile just died. The battery refuses to charge; I think it’s just too old of a battery, but unfortunately decided to die RIGHT NOW, right as I need it for my conference calls. So many electronic problems: forgot my digital camera, my Powertap hub is generating wrong wattages, and now my mobile dies. Great. It’s not been a positive electronics moment for me. Are there too many sunspots this week?

This morning our host Ken Glah showed us his culinary skills by cooking breakfast again:

We all then went for a swim. Definitely warmer today even though I brought all my woolens just in case I would freeze coming out of the water:

After the swim, I went for a short run. Legs felt pretty light and good. First time they felt like that week before Ironman! I hope it’s a good sign.
I also found a mechanic to take apart my ZIPP disc. We took apart as far as we could and then put it back together again. No dice. Still had overly high wattage readings.
A (silly) shot of me with my new Ironman Florida beanie:

I usually never wear these, but it was cool looking and in this near freezing weather, it’s been a godsend to keep my head warm.

At 1pm I went over to get my bike from TriBike Transport. It was a slow moving line:

TriBike Transort was very impressive. It’s such a great operation to help with transporting bikes and your extra bags of stuff to races all around the US. I picked up my bike and wheel bag and got a free cap to boot!
Rushing back to my condo, I threw on my Ironman Florida kit and got ready to go ride the run course with Ken Glah and some others:

I put on my brand new spankin’ ZIPP Disc with Powertap installed. I was eager to try it out and also ride with my disc and make sure everything was working properly.
Once I got out into the parking lot, I saw my watts readings jumping into the 200-300s at only 10 MPH. I kind of felt fresh and thought maybe I was putting out more power due to the fact that I was tapering and conserving energy. I rode with the group out on the run course and saw my watts jumping to 300-500 watts now! Wow! I can’t believe I was putting out that much watts. We rode around for a while and I sprinted a few times, putting out an amazing peak of 993 watts! Wow! I am doing some serious Lance Armstrong riding now. In fact, I could be easily a CAT 1 racer or even make the Tour De France team! Unbelievable that my training has gotten me this far and only in a year – amazing! My wattage readings make me potentially even better than Lance!
…yeah right…
My wattage readings are IMPOSSIBLE. I was putting out 993 watts and only going about 12 MPH. I should be doing 30+ MPH! Dang. Obviously something wrong with my Powertap ZIPP Disc! Too bad I didn’t bring my Powertap download rig; I could have had a pretty funny power profile to download, showing my superman cycling power…!
I got back to my condo and called Cycleops. We tried a few things, but couldn’t get it fixed! Sucks. I also tried to call RaceDayWheels.com who had a booth at the expo. They have ZIPP Disc Powertaps for rent, but didn’t have any available for me. Ugh.
Two last things to try: replace the batteries and/or tighten up the axle per my coach’s last suggestion. I hope we can fix it tomorrow.
I then took a shower and we went to eat at an awesome Brazilian barbecue:

Superbly cooked meats Brazilian style. Nice ending to a day where I almost became a Lance Armstrong clone…

Last night I went through my things and found I forgot even more stuff this time! The official scorecard is:
Digital camera
Contact lenses
Fleece pullover
What a pain! At least I’ve got my contacts being fedexed over to me. Hope they get here ok tomorrow.
In the morning off my balcony, the sun is bright and not a cloud in the sky:

I get up and shower, and head up to Ken’s condo where he cooks us some breakfast. I meet another family whose father and mother are doing Ironman for the first time. Lots of Ironman beginners here at this race. Probably owing to the fact that the course is relatively flat, but little do they know that flat does not equal easy…
The transition area has been setup, but very empty of course. There is an ART tent, which I happily go for treatment after registration. Unfortunately they do not possess the kung-fu grip of Dr. Steve!

The shopping tent was huge and well stocked, unlike many international races where everything gets sold out so quickly. Look at those racks of IM FL stuff!

Registration went quickly when the line started moving. I got all my stuff and proceeded home to check it all out.

Ford was in full force, being the largest sponsor. I saw the TriBike Transport guys unloading bikes and equipment, but I could not pick it up then – ugh! I even saw my wheel bag there…gotta go back at 1pm.

Thank god there is an Oriental Market there. I was getting lonely…

A daylight shot of the stupendous Slingshot across the street from my condo complex. You ride in that little blue thing waaaaaayyyy up there between the two cranes and get shot into the sky…for fun.

My condo complex entrance and also the front of the complex.

My condo comes complete with a coffee maker that has retro flames on it. How fast it must be, in making coffee!

As a Community Fund athlete, we got a bag, a T-shirt, and a nice windbreaker and visor. Cool! My shopping loot is in the other shot. Full kit, keychains, coasters, mouse pad, hat, beanie, polo shirt, wool shirt, and awesome arm warmers.

Here’s the bag with all our race stuff. They gave us a license plate frame; were we supposed to be put the frame on my bike?

What a pain. I can’t seem to get to Ironman without travel troubles.
I wake up at 3am to get picked up at 4am to get to SFO. My flight is at 6am on Delta; way early, but it gets me in at 330p at Panama City Beach airport. That hopefully means that I won’t be too late there, but little did I know….
Flying coach really stinks. I have no status whatsoever on Delta so I sit packed in with a whole other bunch people going to Atlanta. A few others I notice have triathlon looking clothes or obvious badges of racing like a Vineman hat, or just have that fast, gaunt look about them and wear athletic clothes. I sleep pretty much the whole way and we land in Atlanta.
Then the fun begins.
Our flight from Atlanta to Panama City Beach is delayed. And delayed. And delayed some more. I hang with a bunch of other Ironman racers as we chat and figure out what to do. Then they tell us to go to another gate because they are waiting for an aircraft to arrive from somewhere else and it ain’t getting there in time. The only problem is…the new plane is smaller by 13 seats. Guess who is in the unlucky 13…ME! We trade in our old boarding passes and I get a SEAT REQUESTED stamp on mine. Ack! I stress for about 1.5 hours there. They tell me there are no more flights to PFN until Thursday. Or I have to go to Fort Walton Beach. Ugh!
Side note: In Atlanta airport, they have these mechanical garbage cans. Every 10 minutes or so, they start rumbling and a red light starts flashing on top, and it compacts the garbage in it down. How weird. But useful.

So they finally call for volunteers and offer $400 Delta dollars for switching to another flight. I ask myself, “why would I want $400 on an airline I never fly? Duh!” A few people volunteer. The rest of my newfound Ironman racer buddies all wave goodbye and wish me luck on getting to the race, and board the aircraft. I think this whole thing sucks. I sit. Then they call my name. They ask me if I want to get on the plane or go to Fort Walton and get $400. I pray, and tell them I want to get on now and go to PFN. Miraculously, they let me on.
I get on the plane and my newfound Ironman buddies see me and congratulate me on making it on the plane.
We land about 2.5 hours late. Ken Glah comes to pick me up, and sets me up with my condo.
The condo is pretty huge. Full kitchen, washer/dryer in unit, fantastic view out the porch of the beach. Very nice. Better than I thought.
But the condo complex sits in a part of America I thought was almost mythical; Panama City Beach is a heaven of cheap tourism; the strip is lined with fast food chains of nice, greasy food; the Titanic is sinking in a huge mockup of it at Ripley’s Believe It or Not; two huge neon cranes sit across our parking lot with a big sign that says SLINGSHOT where they launch you into the sky attached only by bungee cords. Being off season, the place is totally dead. By the way, it’s totally FREEZING here. Last night, it dropped into the high 30s. As the sun was setting, the temps were dipping into the 40s. Good thing I brought some wool clothes; still I felt chilled and I was reminded of Ironman Brazil where the weather was similar and I never could feel totally warm. Same here at Panama City Beach.
Ken and I head to Walmart and get lots of groceries. I also go buy something I totally forgot: a digital camera! Sucks. I gotta take pics and upload them for my training blog fans. So I plunk down $280 and get another one. What I do for my adoring readers….(sigh).
Later, my buddy Dan arrives and we go have dinner at Hooters. How nice to be served by women wearing low cut tank tops…except that most of them were…well…hefty. Guess all the hot women left Panama City Beach when summer was over…
Tomorrow, I hit the expo and get my bike from TriBike Transport. More later.

Check out the Panama City Beach weather report.
It’s forecast to be a high of 74 and low of 54, mostly sunny. Thank god. Two years ago, apparently it was cold and rainy the whole day. That would definitely make for a miserable race. I have yet to race in the rain and know that someday I will, but I hope that day is far far FAR in the future (or better yet, never).
Here I sit Sunday morning, gathering all my things in preparation for the race. I’m stuffing all this stuff into ziploc bags and hope I don’t forget anything (like my aero helmet last year DUH!). Also, I do hope my bike arrives in one piece via TriBike Transport. Seeing it leave my sight last weekend was tough!
After 4 Ironmans, I don’t have much anticipation any more, but rather the stoicism of having done a few of these before. I’m sure I’ll get more amped when I get to Panama City Beach.