Ok.. so I am freaking out.. and I mean A LOT.
I know that I am ready. But it is still so surreal that it
is here. I mean I signed up for this a year ago. So mentally I have been prepping for a year
while loosely physically training for the first 4 months and then kicking into
gear crazy time after Marc’s wedding.. Mid-April / May I was in it. I cannot believe how time flies.
Monday of this week i squeezed in my last PT session. This time we threw in a little acupuncture. Why Not, right?!?! Any little bit can help. I also had to time check my swim. 2500yards. 300 warm up easy… clock 1000 60sec
break clock the next 1000 then 200 cool down easy. No problem. 50 min total! 18:30 for the 1st 1000 and 19:07
for the second with crazy annoying goggle issues and earache issues. I will
take it!
Tuesday was bananas.
I still am not feeling well overall and now I think I have a slight
earache from the swim on Monday. Work is CRA-CRA, especially since I am out of the office for the next week for
the race and I had to haul it to get to the Orthopedist... hoping and praying he would give me
another cortisone shot for my knee. At
this point, I need all the help I can get and the last shot I felt like it
really didn't do too much. That being said, my knee was also super-duper
inflamed that I probably only reduced the outer swelling and wasn't able to get
into the actual swelling. Anyway, he
checked me out, test after test and concluded it needed another shot. THANK
GOODNESS. And this one, to be honest, I felt go in, so hopefully I will
work.
That being said it was 5:45 by the time I was done. I still had to pack and the thought of going to the gym to do a Swim-Bike brick was not in the cards on many levels, one – timing, two – earache from the night before & 3- still somewhat sick. I feel like I am still fighting that cold/flu, I have that overall yucky run down feel. So I popped a few me DayQuil and EmergenceC and opted out of it. The last thing I want is to get worse and then be on a plane. UGH. So I spent Tuesday night packing and freaking out and packing and repacking and freaking out. I texted Lilias and Steph to make sure I wasn’t insane with all that I was packing and then called my family to check in and probably have them calm me down. :-)
That being said it was 5:45 by the time I was done. I still had to pack and the thought of going to the gym to do a Swim-Bike brick was not in the cards on many levels, one – timing, two – earache from the night before & 3- still somewhat sick. I feel like I am still fighting that cold/flu, I have that overall yucky run down feel. So I popped a few me DayQuil and EmergenceC and opted out of it. The last thing I want is to get worse and then be on a plane. UGH. So I spent Tuesday night packing and freaking out and packing and repacking and freaking out. I texted Lilias and Steph to make sure I wasn’t insane with all that I was packing and then called my family to check in and probably have them calm me down. :-)
Wednesday. Travel
Day. I was able to book this flight, thankfully, with all my miles from traveling for work. So I am in first class on
US Air/AA for this journey. It makes all the difference, especially since I
had to check two bags. One is a hodgepodge of thing, clothes for the week,
bathing suit, post-race clothes, etc.. and who knows what else, LOL. The other
bag is my Tri-life. Food, extra clothes,
celebratory champagne from Tina, and of course my Snorkeling gear. After all, they do say that Cozumel is the
best place for diving and snorkeling.
The other bags I have are my “sanity” bags. My Tri bag as all my race gear – no food- but
my helmet, bike shoes and clips, sneakers, watch, socks, tri kit and speed
suit, etc. I originally had it in the
food bag, but then of course I freaked out wondering what I would do if my bag
was lost, so I repacked! LOL. And my other backpack is my laptop, book, pillow,
all in all good travel bag.
The flights so far have been pretty great. My first flight to Phoenix was only 1hr, so it was breezy and I slept. This second flight is about 4hour and has been great. There is a guy sitting in the row behind me, Guneet, who is doing to the race as well. This will be his 7th race! Crazy. Guneet, the super nice guy that he is, offered me to jump in his private car to the ferry. Thank heavens as I had no clue how i was going to get there.
Now, do you want to know what is hysterical!?! See the difference between a veteran Ironman and a newbie! Me with my FOUR bags and Guneet with ONE medium size suitcase and a briefcase. So funny!
We arrived at the ferry at 8:20pm, missing the boat by 20min. Ugh.. The next one wasn't until 10pm. So Guneet and I grabbed dinner and waited. It was delicious!
That being said, it was not delicious the 30-45 min later coming back up.
That is right. The ferry ride over to Cozumel from Cancun was horrendous. The wave were so rocky and choppy the boat was rocking so hard, I thought it would tip over. I thought I could handle it, but I was a million percent wrong. I tired to run upstairs to get outside and I was denied. No one was allowed outside because of the rough waters, so luckily, I was able to get to a bathroom at the back of the boat where I spent the next 35min throwing up. It was awful. You would have thought I was hit up by the exorcist. It was not pretty.
Thank god we landed and I got my land legs back.
Thursday -- Happy Thanksgiving! I woke up super early and was super excited. I am so close to this race I can taste it. So I spent the morning checking out the town, getting a little lost and soaking it all in. I went to the expo Ironman expo to pick up my BIB number and bag and to check out the store. So much fun stuff in there, but I didn't want to jinx my race, so I only bought a Ironman Cozumel Mug and a longsleeve shirt with the M-Dot on the back with everyone's name on it, including mine!!
After the expo, I met up with Stephen and Guneet to pick up our bikes at TriBike and chatted about doing our training ride. The plan was to meet up in about 1hr, but out of no where, I got extremely light headed and nauseous on the bike ride back to my hotel to drop off my stuff. I think it was remnants from the ferry ride or i was dehydrated or hungry. I have no idea. All I know is that that i was NOT in a good place. So I texted the boys and bailed on the training ride and I forced myself to nap for a couple of hours and then I went out for a 30min run. That felt good. No knee pain. It was great. That night, I had a very chill dinner and went to bed.
The flights so far have been pretty great. My first flight to Phoenix was only 1hr, so it was breezy and I slept. This second flight is about 4hour and has been great. There is a guy sitting in the row behind me, Guneet, who is doing to the race as well. This will be his 7th race! Crazy. Guneet, the super nice guy that he is, offered me to jump in his private car to the ferry. Thank heavens as I had no clue how i was going to get there.
Now, do you want to know what is hysterical!?! See the difference between a veteran Ironman and a newbie! Me with my FOUR bags and Guneet with ONE medium size suitcase and a briefcase. So funny!
We arrived at the ferry at 8:20pm, missing the boat by 20min. Ugh.. The next one wasn't until 10pm. So Guneet and I grabbed dinner and waited. It was delicious!
That being said, it was not delicious the 30-45 min later coming back up.
That is right. The ferry ride over to Cozumel from Cancun was horrendous. The wave were so rocky and choppy the boat was rocking so hard, I thought it would tip over. I thought I could handle it, but I was a million percent wrong. I tired to run upstairs to get outside and I was denied. No one was allowed outside because of the rough waters, so luckily, I was able to get to a bathroom at the back of the boat where I spent the next 35min throwing up. It was awful. You would have thought I was hit up by the exorcist. It was not pretty.
Thank god we landed and I got my land legs back.
After the expo, I met up with Stephen and Guneet to pick up our bikes at TriBike and chatted about doing our training ride. The plan was to meet up in about 1hr, but out of no where, I got extremely light headed and nauseous on the bike ride back to my hotel to drop off my stuff. I think it was remnants from the ferry ride or i was dehydrated or hungry. I have no idea. All I know is that that i was NOT in a good place. So I texted the boys and bailed on the training ride and I forced myself to nap for a couple of hours and then I went out for a 30min run. That felt good. No knee pain. It was great. That night, I had a very chill dinner and went to bed.
Friday, was a busy day. Stephen and I wok up know that our swim start would be canceled. The storms that rocked the ferry so hard and had me puking everywhere was still lingering and the rip tides and waves were so bad the swim was canceled.
But that did not stop Stephen and I. Instead, we rented mopeds to check out the bike course. First stop was Chakannab - T1. We were able to see the set up of the bikes and where our Swim/Bike bags were and where my bike was going to be set up. It was super cool and exciting.
Rack for my Bike Bag for out of the swim
Bike Spot!!
After the tour of T1 -- we headed out on the mopeds to do the bike course. The beauty of this course is indescribable and the pictures will not do it justice. I cannot begin to tell you how amazing it is.
But what I didn't expect to see was how windy it really was. Everyone has said that the course was windy, but holy moly,... it was WINDY!!! So, the scary thing was it took us 2hrs to do the bike course on a moped going at 35mph.. .. how long was it going to take me on a bike??
After the ride, we made our way to the athlete meeting. It was pretty cool. There were a few athletes there that had done 20-30 Ironman races and one guy he, this IM Cozume race would be his 182 race!! It's crazy and what else is crazy is 3/4 of the room also was first time Ironman athletes. Kinda cool!
After the initial meeting, I head up tot the front to reintroduce myself to Mike Lovato. He WON Ironman Cozumel and is currently coaching my friend Lilia for IMAZ. He is awesome. As I say hello, he reminds me that he already knows me.... "Party Rachel" (Vs Burning Rachel, another friend that Lil has... not that she is boring or that I am a party animal, but I think I have a little more personality than her, so when Lil and I first became friends, it was a way for her to distinguish between the two). Needless to say, it was great to get a little last minute advice from him. He joked and said he will make sure to say my name when I crossed the line. I interned joked back and said, if you are still awake! I will be towards the end, given my bum knee, I know I will finish but it will be into he 15th/16th hour. -- he quickly said, doesn't matter your time. If you finish under 17:00 you are an Ironman - don't forget that and don't forget to have fun. GREAT ADVICE!!
Good Luck Video from my nieces and nephews.
