Wednesday 4 November 2009

Logging in

It’s been an odd week so far. Firstly because we’re on our 3rd day here and we haven’t seen the beach yet, normally the first thing we do. Then there’s the Ironman, it just doesn’t seem the same. Maybe it’s because we’ve been here three times before, maybe it’s something to do with the WTC taking over the organisation from NA Sports, maybe it’s something totally different.

Today was the first day of the expo, registration day and it was all ‘different’. There’s a new site for the village seemingly because of construction work taking place opposite the normal race HQ. The new site is smaller which may account for there being far less there than normal but it doesn’t account for the lack of new IMFl merchandise on sale.

Normally I’m straight into the village to buy a bundle of branded mugs which I give out to various folks who’ve helped me along the way, plus a couple for myself of course. This year they’re just more of last year’s supply rolled out onto the shelves again. That seems to be the same for a lot of the smaller souvenir stuff which is good for my wallet, but a pity all the same. Of course there are new suppliers that are Ironman sponsors, Ceepo are there along with Cervelo which is nice bike porn and K-Swiss are there in force but I’d never heard of them in a sporting sense before this year, is there gear any good or have they just thrown a load of money at the WTC? I’ve no way of knowing. It also seems that this year the local churches Pancake Breakfast has been dispensed with which was one of my race week highlights.

Tomorrow is the first big pre race swim session and hopefully this will give me some of my race week mojo back. How I feel about the whole thing won’t make any difference on race day of course, it’s just a pity that for whatever reason things seem a bit low key this year.

This morning I chugged out a 4.5mile run and a 20mile bike before starting all of the Ironman Village Gubbins. Tomorrow I’m planning something similar plus my first visit to the sea for a swim and then that will be it until I line up with 2000 others on race morning. Bring it on!!!

1 comment:

Rich said...

Just stay away from the all day breakfasts and burgers. Start sipping at energy drink and stay off those feet !