Bike test/check-out ride.

Easy Z2 run

Early morning swim in Tempe Town Lake.

Easy run around the resort to stretch the legs after the flight.

Early cup of coffee before heading to the airport.  Everything is packed.....I hope!

Next stop Tempe, Arizona!  :)

EZ swim to stay loose.

OK, so Dale (dalestri) has been giving me a hard time about what he calls my "Deathbed to Ironman" training program, but truth be told, he kinda has a point.  Then again, all of my training has been this way, right?  However, it has gotten me to thinking of what this Ironman journey has been like.  Unfortunately for me, this has just not been the journey of just a few months.  This has been going on for a couple of years.  There was Ironman Florida 2005 that I was training for and got a hamstring injury that prevented me from training, so I withdrew.  Good thing, because Hurricane Katrina and the evacuation out of New Orleans to Ft. Worth would have prevented me from doing it...as it did for my attempt at Ironman Arizona 2006.  Then came the idea to do Ironman Florida again, but then I came down with that still unknown illness that landed me in the hospital and of which the doctors, my family, and Dale still remind me that I almost died from....so Ironman Florida 2006 was scrubbed just a month or so before race day.  Now it is Ironman Arizona 2007, and it looks like it is finally going to happen.  I am finally going to get to the starting line on race day.  It is still a bit of an emotional roller coaster and will be very much so on race morning as not only has this journey taken a lot out of me and that I have poured a lot into it, but also because of the magnitude of the race date itself.  I signed up for Ironman Arizona well before I knew what was going to happen to me last fall in my prep for Ironman Florida, and the reason that I decided to do it was solely for the date of the race itself.  This Sunday, April 15th, is the 5 year anniversary of the day that my good friend Marla Rose Angotti lost her battle with cancer.  Thing is, she is the reason I got into endurance events.  I did my first marathon with Team in Training, raising money in honor/memory of Marla, and have gone on to do a total of three marathons with Team in Training.  So how could I not sign up for this race and on this date???  But it is a bit of scary irony that now this will also be my first Ironman, too.  Even though, this has been a long journey in which I am finally getting myself to the starting line of my first Ironman, this really isn't about me...

But the little bit that has been about me, now deserves the chance for me to say thanks to all of you that have supported me during this long journey.  The friends that have given me inspiration and encouragement at every turn and to the strangers that left "get well" notes in my log while I was in the hospital, I owe a big thanks to all of you.  My training hasn't been what I had hoped and I do wish I was better prepared going into this race, but I did what I could and with what my body would allow me to accomplish.  My endurance has been rebuilt after my hospital stay, but my ability to recover as rapidly has not and it has forced a bit more of reduced training and a few more off days than I would have liked, but I do still feel like I am ready.  I do not worry about completing each of the distances, it is just the question of how much I will have left in the tank during the marathon.  I just need to put my ego aside and keep going forward and the dream will come true....

Thank you!  Thank you!  Thank you!

Last day of work, then it is off to Tempe tomorrow!

Need to get in a little swim during lunch.  Done!

Easy run around the neighborhood.

Holy Shiznit...it is Race Week!!!

As you can see, I did not do the run yesterday as I wanted to give the back another day of rest.  I feel much better today and will get a short run later today after work. (DONE!)  Need to survive two more days of work before I can jump on the airplane and head to Tempe on Wednesday.