Wow, I can’t believe that I’ll be hopefully well on my second loop of the run in exactly two weeks (9/12/2010 16:14). My wife and I were talking about how it seems like I was just getting out of the hospital this past January after dealing with a ruptured appendix and a slight competition. I haven’t gone back to look at my training log in detail, but I think I averaged between 50 and 60 hours per month of training. I will try to get some firm numbers after Ironman.
Am I excited about Ironman yet? Excited enough to check out the extended 2 week forecast guesstimate on accuweather.com to see a high of 70 with periods of rain. As long as the wind is nil, I’d be fine racing in that. Also, the bib numbers were posted on Friday. If you’re interested in following my progress, keep an eye out for bib number 532.
All my gear is pretty much good to go, after getting one last race day test at Pigman. I finally got around to purchasing a new front wheel, based on demoing several wheels with Rocket Bikes this season. After going back and forth between the Jet 6, 9 and H3, I ended up going with a HED Jet 6 Flamme Rouge. Yeah, I paid a premium for the Flamme Rouge upgrade, but my long term plan is to get a road bike next season and use this for the front on both bikes. I’d like to get a matching rear wheel with power tap, but we’ll see.
I have a set or race tires I’ve been using for my races this year, which I will use for Ironman. And just for good measure, I also have a pair of latex tubes as well. The combination of the tires I will be using and the latex tubes is to help decrease rolling resistance. Although given how crappy the roads are on the IMWI bike course, I don’t know how much of a help it will be. Why not brand new tires for Ironman? Simple, brand new tires are too hard to put on. In the event of a flat, I can’t spend 10 minutes trying to stretch a brand new tire back onto the rim.
I also managed to put a new chain on my bike, and a new cassette. The cassette was easy, as I’ve been pulling the cassette off to get my wheel cover on. However, this was the first time I’d replaced a chain. Turns out, it wasn’t that hard. Using my newly purchased Park chain tool, I broke the old chain off, and then put the new chain on following the included instructions for determining chain length. For the SRAM chain I chose, to determine the length, you put the chain over the largest cog in the back and the biggest chain ring up front without feeding it thru the rear derailleur, and then add one link plus the power connect link. Three weeks later, no problems and everything is running fine. I do want to point out that I made a switch from my usual 12-25 to a 12-27 cassette, specifically for Ironman. I wanted to make sure I had a a little extra low end for some of the hills in order to keep my legs as fresh as possible for the run. As part of my road bike build this winter, I will most likely purchase a new compact crank with shorter crank arms for the tri bike, and then repurpose my current standard crank for the road bike. I would run an 11-23 on both bikes as well.
Spectator Instructions
The spectator instructions have been updated and are available here: IMWI 2010 – Spectator Instructions (Updated).