Plans to swim this mornin fell through as strong winds, rain and crazy waves made it pretty impossible and dangerous. I walked to the pier anyway with all my gear, knowing how unpredictable and fickle the weather has been. There were three people swimming, two not progressing far and one attacking the water like it were as calm as a swimming pool. Not before long the two gave up on their bobbing and walked back up to shore, as fate would have it, one of them turned out to be my friend Kelly. We were both going to contact each other, but didn’t have each other’s numbers. So there, always have faith that God will sort out everything for you!
We decided to go for a run instead. Not surprisingly, the rain and wind died down and the sun came out! We ran for about 35 minutes, then she headed to assemble her bike and I went to chill out at the pier while waiting to collect my race pack at 10.
About 30min later, it started to drizzle again and the wind picked up and I was freezing my ass off! Ah, fickle Florida weather.
The expo was nice, as usual on offer were a variety of ultra overpriced Ironman, or M dot, branded gear, and a bevy of willing buyers wanting to cement their world champs experience in drifit cotton threads and lycra. I never believe in splashing my hard earned money on memorabilia, trusting instead the memories in my brain will last longer than the material on the skin thin race suits, stay shinier than that M dot silver pendant, make me happier than wearing that temptingly soft China-made Ironman hoodie.
I did however part with my money for a Clearwater 70.3 headsweats visor ($21) and a cappucino mug ($7.95) and a shopping bag ($4). And bought other non-ironman branded things, like recovery socks, elastic laces, co2 canisters and a couple of gifts for friends.
Anyway, the best things can’t be bought. Like the race drawstring bag and race tee, which came in the race kit that also had all the essentials like transition bags, number tags, timing chip, etc.
We had to get out body composition measured too. I’m 106 pounds and 16.5% fat. The lady measuring me said the lowest body fat percentage she had measured was 2% for a man, the highest about 25% for a woman. Next in line for measurements was racer number 519, a 73 year old guy who looked more like 55. Amazing.
And that’s the beauty of triathlon. Anyone can do the sport, young, old, fat or lean. Even at a world championships event, the variance is high. But you can bet everyone’s pretty fast. How else would they have earned their place there?