Famous Last Words

So tomorrows the big day. Im nervous as hell, it would be a lie to say otherwise. Its unfortunate that it took till my final year of my undergraduate career to participate in this event, but better late than never right?

The drive was very long. Like 13 hours long. Thankfully my teamate, Evan Fulton's parents drove us while we got to chill out in the back of the roomie Chevy Tahoe. I owe them huge. We left yesterday at about 2 and drove till a little after 11, stopping at a hotel in Tennessee over night. We got here pretty early this morning, a little before 10, just in time for the open water swim. We walked down to the water and congregated with the masses, putting on their wetsuits and joking with one another before giving their wetsuits a try. JESUS CHRIST that water was cold. As soon as I jumped in I tried to swim a few strokes but I realized I couldn't breathe deep enough to get in a full stroke with my head underwater. Finally after paddling around and attempting to get warm I was able to begin to swim. The temperature will, without a doubt, serve as intense motivation to swim fast to get out of the water.

The transition area is a huge plus for runners. After exiting the swim its probably about a 400m run to the transition area. Time to dig back into the days of the track and pull out some quarter speed. This will definitely be a good place for me to make up some time on the faster swimmers.

After the swim Evan and I rode around a bit before going for a quick, and separate shake-out jog. The bike course seems like it will be pretty fast. There are some rolling hills that go on for maybe a mile or so. They appear fairly gradual but Im still banking on them working to my benefit to slow down the bigger, stronger riders on tt bikes (assholes and rich-boys =p). Not that im jealous because I can run and will look forward to smanging them in the run.

The beginning of the run looks brutal. The first 1.5 miles go uphill. It will be extremely important to drink on the bike, which I neglected to do last week, because the weather is really hot and humid here, especially compared to Williamsburg. The rest of the run is really flat though and goes out a bike path and then back down the road.

If you had told me back when I was 12 years old, that in 10 years I would be competing among some of the most fit college athletes in the country I would have called bullshit. I was the kid who would hide behind the fence and eat dominos during pre-season soccer runs. How much I have changed. Over the past couple of weeks alot of people have asked me what my goal is...to be honest, I dont know. Would I like to win? Sure. Do I have a chance to win? You bet. But none of that matters now. What does matter, is that in 12 hours I plan on laying it all on the line. Punishing my body and asking it to dig deeper than I ever have before. If I do this, then I will have succeeded. Then i will be satisfied.