Rx: Ironman

Distractions

Am I excited for Ironman? Yes. Am I nervous for Ironman? Of course. It's the way I feel the week of any big race, so I'm doing what I do before every one- I'm ignoring it. I'm choosing to do or think things that keep me from wasting all of my energy on nervous excitement. I'll let myself get excited when we roll into Madison Friday morning. In the meantime, I'm having no trouble focusing my attention elsewhere, especially after Monday night. Apparently they don't call it LABOR Day because it's fun. It started with an early alarm clock and then off to work - day 8 of 11 in a row. It was a whole lotta craziness, and 11 hours later, I was more than happy to be leaving for home. I had hoped to get in one last medium bike ride as per my plan, but it gets so dark so soon now. I guess I'll have to trust my training and know that that last 45 miles isn't going to make that big of a difference on Sunday.

When I got home, I found that my mom, God bless her, had sent back two grocery bags of fruits and veggies. I started in on making some zucchini bread only to get a phone call. "Hey, can you come pick us up? We got into a pile up and our bikes are out of commission." It was my brother Matt. A couple of detours in the ghetto and two phone calls later, we finally found each other in the dark. Matt's bike was a mess. His carbon rear fork had broken into 3 pieces on one side, his tire was missing several spokes, and that's just to start with. He had swerved to miss a toddler on training wheels who had torn out in front of him. The kid wasn't wearing a helmet, so 2 220 pound guys cruising at 20MPH very well could have killed him. Thankfully, Matt and Logan were OK aside from a little road rash.

On the drive home, I joked that my car was making some funny noises and that it was about to die. Matt agreed to look at it when we got home. My car had other ideas. Waiting at a stoplight, we heard a THWUNK, and then the funny noises stopped - not a good sign. We guessed it was the serpentine belt, and the immediate rise in engine temp confirmed it. We made it to a side street before ruining the whole motor, but we weren't getting home. All we could do was laugh sitting there on the curb at 9 PM on a holiday. Matt and Logan vowed to never forget their IDs again since there was a bar 4 blocks away and they couldn't gain admittance.

Long story short: more phone calls, Steve came with backup car #2, Logan called AAA, car got towed to our house (Matt put in a new water pump last night), Matt's bike is in the shop (nobody there had ever seen this happen before. They're evaluating whether they'll replace the whole frame for free), Logan's bike is heading to the shop this weekend. Oh, and our washing machine died last night.