Race week...

Race week has arrived. Tuesday morning I got up intending to do a swim before leaving for the airport. Unfortunately I had a lot of things to do around the house to prepare before leaving so I never got the swim done. It’s ok the weeks training was optional. About midday we packed the car and headed to our friends to collect their bikes before heading to the airport.

Check-in took some time. We had purchased 200kg of luggage for the 6 of us. All up 6 bags and 3 bikes not including any carry on totalling 170kg. Wow we have room for shopping still. The airport was the usual sitting around and waiting. The flight was on what seemed to be the smallest plane that could make the trip. There was not much leg room and the kid behind me was bouncing around and generally being a pain. Lucky it’s only a 3hr flight. In New Zealand we found our bags and bikes had all made it. Woohoo. We dragged our gear through customs. We must have looked funny having so much gear with us. The hotel was a couple of blocks away from the airport. While there was a bus that could have taken us to it we decided the walk would be better as the bus would go to all other hotels before ours so would take a couple of hours. We made it to the hotel about 12am and went straight to bed.

Wednesday morning I was up early. I have not been sleeping well for the last few days and that night was no different. For some reason I am awake at 2am and lay there looking at the back of my eye lids trying to get more sleep. Anyway we could pick up the campervan at 9am. This was good as we had to get to Taupo by before 4pm so we could get my bike back together and down to the Specialized tent to have the recall on the bars fixed. Well at the car hire place we are told that our camper came back damaged so they were getting another ready but it would take a good hour or so. Unfortunately we had to checkout within that time and it was setting us back a little. We decided the best plan was to get a lift back to the hotel. Grab all the gear and check out then come straight back to get the camper.

Back at the car hire place we had time so we found some grass and built my bike. This would save us some time at the other end. Soon the van was ready and we were off. We stopped to get some breakfast / early lunch at butterfly creek. It had some good food and farm attached so can walk around and pet the animals. We also had a quick stop at Tirau. It is a funny place that made a heap of things out of corrugated iron. Apart from that the trip down was not very exciting.

Around 4pm we made it to Taupo and headed directly to our apartment. We unpacked the van and headed to the Specialized tent. I don’t know why I made an appointment as they would not get to it until later that night anyway. It seemed like they had a lot of people just drop their bikes in without a booking. Its ok as long as it was done I did not mind. The rest of the day we did a little shopping and got the apartment sorted out.

Thursday I woke up early again and headed down to collect my bike. Everything looked good. I just needed to test it later in the day. After brining the bike back we all went down to the lake to have a swim. The water was cool but nothing too bad. After about 100m of swimming my body got used to the temperature. The water was very clear. Basically like swimming in a pool but with rocks and sand to look at. We headed out to a buoy to look for a sighting point for the outward leg. Once done we swam to a buoy on the return leg side and looked for a sighting point in that direction as well. Then we swam around a little and headed in.

After breakfast we headed to the expo to have a look around and do some ironman shopping. I collected myself a shirt, jumper and towel as they all had my name on it. While at the expo we had our wetsuit dipped as required before heading into registration. Rego was an easy process. Collect your race bag. This included your numbers, race tattoos, transition bags and other throw away items. Following registration I went and purchased a 3G hotspot from the local phone shop. So I was back online. Yay. At 1pm I went to the first timers seminar. It was good to see. Most of the talk was basic information and a lot of reminding you that if and when something goes wrong to not get upset and just keep going. After the talk I headed back to the apartment and relaxed for a little while. Later I took the bike out for a quick ride to make sure that it was running as it should be. With everything working as normal I checked that off the things to do. Back at the apartment I packed my black, blue and red race bags as well as my special needs bag. The black bag is for gear I will be wearing before the race and anything I want after the race. The blue is for bike riding gear and red is for the run gear. Special needs bags are also blue and red and is for anything you want on the ride or run but you might not get anything in this bag back if you don’t use it. Later that night we had to go to the race briefing. They basically went over everything that was in the race guide and a few important rules.

That night I took a sleeping tablet before heading to bed. It was the best sleep I have had in a week. So far today we have had breakfast and showered. We rechecked and compared our transition bags for the last time before heading down to check-in our bikes, helmets and bags. I got to have a walkthrough of the transition area. Now I am sitting around typing away just trying to not move much. Its not an easy day really. Just sitting here makes you think of the race ahead. You want to get out and get your mind off things but you also want to stay in and relax. The rain is coming down and there is a bit of wind. Lets hope that the wind goes away and the rain eases up.