Great bike!!

Lousy marathon time but man did I make the best of it!!! It was a blast!!!

Great swim!!

Met up with some BTers down at the lake. Water was absolutely perfect. Smooth as glass!!

12:45 for 1st 1/2
13:19 for 2nd 1/2

This was a nice comfortable pace. It definitely feels good to be tapered!!

7:00 PM

I am borrowing Shaun's confuser to tell everyone thank you for your inspires and support. It means a lot!! I will be thinking of all of you at some point during the race, I promise!!

GOOD LUCK TO ALL THE BT-ERS DOING THE RACE AND THANK YOU TO ALL THE BT-ERS VOLUNTEERING!!!

Got my bike tuned up and went on an easy ride on the beginning of the course. It felt great to be on the bike again.

I ended up putting the 11-23 back on the disc!!

Holy crap what a swim!! 15-20 mph winds and 2-3 foot whitecaps!! I had a blast!! 15:41 for the first 1/2
14:49 for the second 1/2

Nice easy run with CubeFarmGopher. Back felt much better after having the ART therapists work on me.

3:15am

I am off to the airport! I just wanted to thank everyone for all of the support and encouragement. I won't have any access to BT until I get back next week. My back is still hurting but it seems to get better each day. It's done it's job as far as forcing me to rest but I have managed to gain a few lbs in the process. :) Oh well.

 I plan on going out there and having a blast!! I cannot wait to get back together with my bike! Everyone have a great weekend and for those racing.........GOOD LUCK!!!!

What a swim!!! It was 55 degrees and a light rain when I was driving to the lake. I got there and it was dry and the clouds were breaking up. Got in the water at 6:15 before the sunrise and the water was like glass. There was steam coming off the water and when I got about 1/2 way around the sun started coming up and I could see the sun rays gleaming through the clouds. It was inspiring to say the least.

Swimming in heaven!!

Up at 3:30 to get one last ride in with Mike and Jeanie but when I got out of bed my back said no! I slept for another hr and got out around my TT loop.

After 30 min I decided to quit. I could feel my back just a little but didn't want to push it. I am jumping in a hot tub and stretching it.

I didn't have a computer on the bike I was riding and was surprised to see the avg speed over 20. I didn't feel that I was working that hard. This is a good thing!

4:00 PM - Just scheduled a massage for tomorrow morning. I am really looking forward to my back feeling better. I keep taking a few strides running down the halls of the hospital just to "test" it out. I have gotten a few comments to which I reply "tapering, full of energy!".

Got out to Quaker Lake on a spectacular day. I put the wetsuit on just to get a feel for it again before the race. My back felt fine and I built the swim up, starting slow with almost no kick and ending at race pace. (Still pretty easy swimming, IM race pace not 100yd race pace!!)

I did have to dodge a couple of motorboats, that was fun. As I was sighting a cottage I noticed a couple of kayakers ahead of me. I picked up the pace a bit and passed them, swimming right between the kayaks. :) That was a blast to see the looks on their faces.

5:50 am - Back is still not good. The Advil and wine didn't do the trick last night but I did get a good night of sleep! :) Unfortunately the horses knocked down a few fence boards that I am going to have to replace today.

I am going to try to get in a nice relaxing OWS today. Hopefully that will help. I will also try to schedule a massage. Oh yea, I find out about my Polar watch today as well. I have a feeling I will be in small claims court about that.

The stress that comes with tapering!! Ugh!!!

My swimming hole!!

A pic of Matt just before landing his first largemouth bass!