Race Day Morning: Luke Prepares for Death Star Invasion

Since I qualified for Kona my ultimate goal was to be on the podium (top 5) for my age group. Based on my previous race experience and training if everything went amazing I was guessing a swim time 1:00-1:05, bike 5:15-5:30 and run 3:15-20. Which would put me right in the ballpark of 9:30, and I would have a shot at being in the top 5 (last year 5^th was 9:36).

October 9^th 3:30am. I woke up in part to my bladder and in part to my parents, who had to be at transition at 4 as they volunteered for body marking. I got up a peed and then tried to go back to sleep. There have been few times in my life when sleep has eluded me and this was one of those times. I listened to my ipod and tried to fall back asleep for a half hour, eventually conceding it wasn’t going to happen. I lay in bed for another 20 minutes thinking about the race and a million different details about it running through my head. The original plan was to pick up Dave Anderson (family friend and IMCDA race crew) at 5:30 and get to transition a little before 6 for body marking and be good to go for the 7am start. I am one who would rather be slightly rushed prior to race than to show up early and have tons of extra time to get yourself thinking about this and that and get more paranoid about things. Anyway I got up and did my morning routine, including my traditional pre-race breakfast of strawberry pop tarts and Ensure plus. Mom and Dad left me some motivational words in lipstick (I think) on my bathroom mirror and I had to put my contacts in in the space between, “have the ride of your life” and “swim and run well too.”

I left the house with my things and was down to transition with Dave a little before 6 as planned. I went through body marking, where I got my number (1870) stamped on my Dad. Hugs and “good lucks” were distributed and I was on my way to my bike to pump up the tires and get my things set up. After that was in order my next challenge (as with any race) was to find the bathroom/porta potty with the shortest line. I succeeded and only had to wait about 5 minutes. As many runners and other competitors will understand, it was the third time I’d cut some additional weight that morning.  It was almost 6:30 and the pros were about to start, which I wanted to watch. I found Dave and gave him my bike pump and morning clothes bag. After a good luck and a hug I was headed back toward the swim start. 

I feel like this is also how dad would pose after successfully harvesting a whitetail on "the farm".

This picture was taken second. Notice attitude change in my face.