The week of Ironman is HERE!

I'm so ready to get this week rolling! I'm excited about everything from registration, the gatorade swim, dinner with my family on Saturday, the RACE (duh!), the FINISH of the RACE, the athlete breakfast afterwards...everything! What a great time in my life. I'm tackling something I never thought I could. AND I'm doing it in the company of so many good friends, training partners, family and my home community. That's some pretty spectacular stuff.

Despite being excited and ready to 'get it on' so to speak, I am nervous as well. I'm not really sure what about, but the nerves are there. I truly felt them for the first time tonight. I got a chance to hang out with a group of friends that's doing an Ironman video together.

My friend Steve Donovan has been recording the training, racing and thoughts of 8 of us friends doing Ironman this year. The video is going to be amazing and the group is GREAT! Steve has put a ton of hard work into this video and it is going to be something that we will each treasure for a very long time.

The stars of this video include:

Becca - 2 time Ironman and the Life of the Party
Jessica - 3 time Ironman (is that right Jessica?)and owner of SBR Coaching
Katie - 1st time and the Collegiate Athlete
Steve - 1st time and Video Extraordinare
Ed - 1st time and SuperDad
Matt - 1st time Gluten-Free Ironman
Jesse - 1st time and our token black guy
Pete - IM WI 2006 finisher with the coolest nickname (the Rocket!)
Andrea - 1st time and author of this blog

It should also be noted that Jim will be recording on Ironman Sunday via motor scooter. Look out for a crazy cameraman on the course. Thanks Jim in advance for doing this. I look forward to seeing you out there!

The point of that whole chunk of information is two fold. One - to address a very important part of my Ironman journey. And Two - to tell you all that my nerves didn't really kick in until we were all together tonight. 6 days out from the big event and asking each other how we are feeling, etc...I also realized though that this is going to be cool. And I mean, REALLY COOL! Not only am I going to be out there working towards something just for me, but I'm also going to be thinking of and supporting all those that I've come to know well over the last few years. I'll be hoping that they are having their best possible days and enjoying the experience as well.

In the coming days, I'll post:
-Final Race Thoughts
-Thank You Message
-Predicted Times/People to Cheer For

Finally, the latest in weather variance:

On 9/1/2007: Temperature: 73 degrees, Precipitation: Partly Sunny
On 9/3/2007: Temperature: 68 degrees, Precipitation: Partly Cloudy

Temperature Variance: -5 degrees
Precipitation Variance: No Rain - thank god!