Ironman Cairns - Getting Ready

The days are suddenly rushing by and I am staring down the barrel of my second (third) ironman.  And it's getting exciting!

Three months ago I was dealing with the disappointment of not being able to complete Ironman New Zealand.  Fast forward to today and St Pete and I are now looking forward to heading up to Cairns so that I can put the 2012 season to bed once and for all.

And it has been a long season.  But I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

Over the last couple of weeks it seemed the extended training was starting to get the better of me.  I was tired, cranky, and the world seemed to be conspiring to make life far more difficult than it needed to be...

• The chamois in my tri shorts fell to bits and so I felt compelled to point out the design flaw to the manufacturer, while believing I was going to have to resort to my old shorts for race day.  
• My bike shop decided they wouldn't have time to service my bike because they had a sale on.  
• And then my aero bottle mount fell to bits on my last ride, the day before I was due to pack the bike ready for the trip

However the stars are aligning and all is calm and good with the world again.  St Pete once again came to my rescue and was my even keel during my short-lived but rough ride... 

• 2XU happily replaced the shorts (and surprise, surprise, the new shorts have a redesigned chamois!)
• Big ups to Clarence St Cyclery who immediately relented and arranged to service my bike after I emailed them expressing my disappointment in their priorities.  
• And they also had replacement aero bottle mounts in stock, so that final problem turned out to be a non-event also.

And I had a great final bike ride on Sunday morning.  I was unusually apprehensive about it as the race wheels were on from the service and I had somehow convinced myself that the tyres would get shredded riding through the CBD to get to Centennial Park.

Yes, just a wee bit of pre-race paranoia going on...

However 5 minutes into the ride I had forgotten all my concerns and was instead enjoying the hum of the wheels.  They just feel fast and they sound like they are cutting through the air with no effort at all.  Even the sound of a gear change is amazing.  A satisfying, no-nonsense clunk as they shift up and you just know you're operating on a different level to the training wheels.

I guess you have to experience them to understand what I'm talking about...

Needless to say, the tyres survived.  And of course if the logical me had been in charge I would have known they would - I've never gotten a puncture riding through the CBD or in Centennial Park, unlike out at Kurnell. 

So all is good.  I'm feeling fit.  I'm feeling rested.  I'm feeling confident.  I don't know what the day will bring but whatever happens I'll deal with it and I'll do the best that I am capable of.

I'm ready to channel Nemo and Just Keep Swimming, and then Embrace the Suck on the run.  Inbetween the two, I'll just be having an all-out good time on the bike.

We fly to Cairns on Thursday morning.  Before then, it's going to be full on, but exciting as well! The next two nights will be spent packing the rest of our gear and ticking off the final two light training sessions - swim tonight and 15min run tomorrow morning.  On top of that is the food - most important!  Because we are travelling domestically, we can take some pre-prepared food with us instead of having to buy everything up there.  So for that I'll be whipping up a dish of lasagne (Thursday night's dinner), a couple of batches of pikelets (pre-race day snacky carbo-loading food) and a bacon and egg pie (race day sustenance for St Pete).

And somewhere amongst all that will be rest, rest and more rest.

Look out Cairns, we're coming.   :)