Friday, October 7, 2011

Kona Pre Race Blog

7 Oct 11-

Well it is the night before the race and just got done with a great meal.  The great thing about triathlon is the amount of people that you meet throughout the years.  Tonight I invited some friends over, new and old for a little feast.  We had about 13 people over, from as far as the UK and as close as our same condo village.  Germany, Wisconsin, UK, California, Canada all came together and had a great meal.  So that was awesome!

Now onto a quick pre race blog:

People have been asking how I am feeling about the race and how my nerves are doing.  Honestly this is just another race, another course, but the only difference is just a bunch of FAST athletes, it is the world champs and all.  I am not nervous, just going out there to soak in the experience and take it all end.

Here are the splits that I want to hit:

Swim: 1hour to 1h05m
Bike: 5h10m-5h15m
Run: 3h25m-3h40m
T1/T2 Total-6m
Finish Time: 9:41-10:06

Honestly my biggest goal is finishing, but beyond that I want sub-10.  This will be my last IM for at least 5-6 years.  There is one other way I would race next year, but it would be here and it is a complete long shot.  As for placing, like I said this is the World Champs, I am not shooting for an overall or AG placing.  It is just me and the clock out there.

I always race for a purpose, tomorrow I already had planned to race for all our service members currently deployed.  I currently have a few friends over there that are actually triathletes.  General Brad Becker and Major Eric Reid (Eric is actually headed back home right now), this one is for you guys!  Also to everyone else out there that is serving our great nation and all of those that have not returned home (POW/MIA) and all of those that we have lost.  It is going to be an emotional day out there, and racing for all of those that don't have the great opportunity to take place in this great event, this ones for you!  I will also be racing as fast as I can, but it is going to be a hard day emotionally not knowing if my dad and step mom will be making it here in time.  Their flight was canceled today so they are now not due in till 1330, which is right around the time I should be headed out on the run.  Hopefully the traffic isn't horrible and they can make it down to the finish line.  Please keep them in your prayers so they get on their flight and make it here on time.

For everyone wanting to follow the race, luckily Amy and Ryan are both here and will be posting updates on twitter which should feed into my FB.  The race starts at 7am Hawaii time, 10am California time, and 1pm East Coast Time,  2am Sunday Korea Time.  IRONMAN Live should be sending time splits to my twitter, and you can get mid race splits from (www.ironman.com) and then look for athlete tracker.

News Article (Click Link)

 From Left to Right (Amy, Jana, Julie, Julia)
 Left to Right (Edward, Sarah, Ryan)
The bags laid out for transition bags and special needs
 
Everything laid out, somewhat organized ;)
 The race bike in race setup



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good luck Brad, pray for a safe race an give em heck buddy! Be watchen

Chris Spratt said...

Good luck Brad!!! I will certainly be following your progress on facebook and the time splits on the website. Also will be watching the coverage on ABC and maybe we'll get lucky and catch a glimpse of you. You have lots of people behind you for tomorrow. Enjoy the experience. Good luck.