Its the final countdown

It's to late to turn back now- the race starts in less than 21 hours.

Yesterday I drove up to Lake Anna and after 6 hours in the car I finally reached my destination. I forgot how beautiful it was up here. Some of the leaves are starting to change and the park is located in the middle of nowhere. It is so quiet and so peaceful. I am staying in a camp cabin in the state park for the four nights I am up here. Of course I will not be sleeping on Saturday night so make that 3 nights! The campground is completely empty except for the other athletes. I have seen a few of them around their campers and cabins. They all look so focused. Most of them waved and said hello but a few of them just stared at me when I waved to them. This certainly is a different caliber of athletes than I am used to being around. With only four Double Iron distances races in the world the 20 competitors have come from all over the world for this race.

As I sit in a Panera Bread using the free Wi-Fi I have a million emotions and thoughts going through my mind and body. I didn't sleep well last night despite taking a Unisom sleep melt (thanks for the recommendation Scott) and drinking a beer. I kept hearing sounds outside the cabin. It kept waking me up because the state park is so quiet except for these sounds coming from nearby. It sounded like someone was dragging something across the floor of the cabin. I thought something might be underneath the bed and my heart raced. Finally at about 1:00am I got the courage to get out of bed and investigate.

Lesson #1- never leave your cooler outside on the porch. I was robbed by some four legged creature in the night! He passed up the milk, beer, and cottage cheese but did take (and I am thinking consumed) a sandwich, a package of cheese slices, 2 packages of Hormel Canadian bacon, and started molesting the Half-n-Half. Bastard!!! Now I have to drive 40 minutes away from the park to the closest grocery store- hence me finding a place with free Wi-Fi.

Once I got the cooler into the cabin I laid back down but kept tossing and turning. At 1:30am my cell phone started ringing. The number read "Restricted". It rang 3 times between 1:30 and 1:39am so I just shut it off and threw it across the cabin. Forget falling back asleep now! I must have tossed and turned until about 3:00am before falling back asleep only to wake up again at 5:20am and then decided to just stay awake. As soon as the sun rose I was out on the bike riding the course. I have way to much nervous energy.

I have a few more items to pick up at the grocery store this morning, including the items that were taken by my midnight visitor, then I am heading back to the cabin. Tracy and Becky should be there between 2:00 and 3:00 this afternoon and then Melissa and Bob will be up here later this evening. Yesterday I was excited and ready to have fun this weekend...right now I am so sick to my stomach I could barely eat breakfast and have been staring at this blueberry muffin for the past 30 minutes. "What was I thinking" keeps repeating in my head.

Today is sunny and suppose to be close to 80...the weekend...not so much. Let's just hope the 50% chance of rain doesn't mean 24+ hours of rain. There is nothing I can do about it though so I've instructed my crew to constantly remind me that I am having fun.

Time to make my way back to the state park so I can watch the triple iron racers finish their 7.2 mile swim and start their 336 mile bike leg. At least I am not doing the triple iron race (this year at least)!

Tomorrow at 7:00am it begins: Swim 4.8 miles, bike 224 miles, run 52.4 miles. Thanks to everyone for their constant support these past few months. I would not have made it here without you. Here goes nothing...