Last day of rest

It's 8am and raining here in Rio, and 26.5 hours away from race time. Tomorrows weather is looking skeptical with chances of rain throughout the day. Today will remind me of days when I was a kid where I was forced to stay inside because of bad weather, but left me rejuvenated for the next day. I've always been a sunshine guy but have adapted to all kinds of race conditions. This morning I opted to stay in doors instead of go get on my bike or take a jog. I'm usually not used to this race style. I'm either working all day on my feet the day before or having to walk around a race site standing in line for packet pickup. It's very nice to have the opportunity to just lay around all day. And lay around I shall. With the exception of walking about 100 ft to the chow hall and grabbing a meal or two. Maybe even throw in some yoga sometime today. It's going to be sad to leave Rio. It's been a nice home these past couple weeks. I do feel a bit of home sickness come every so often but it's been an amazing trip. I've made some great friends that I'll never forget.

Last Thursday we took another trip to Copacabana Beach for our athlete briefing and to get a first hand look at the course. The swim was perfect water temp hovering around 71 degrees which as of right now is not wetsuit legal. It has to be below 68 for it to be. (ITU rules). But with the recent rain an cooler weather, I think it's going to come down to race morning to make the final determination. Either way I'm comfortable racing in both conditions. The bike course is 8 loops of 4.8k which when it ends will be a little short but because of the turns and intersections around the beach, this was the safest route. The run course is right back on the side road running adjacent to the bike course and will be 4 loops. Its all very flat and very fast. The only challenges i see with the bike course are the many u turns we will be taking and depending on the size of the pack at those times I just have to make sure I stay right side up and not eat some concrete! The great part about this course is the multiple loop format so I will get to see where all my competitors are the whole time.

So far there are a lot of big name pros racing. I've seen a lot of ITU world cup racers as well as the new Ironman world record holder are here. No biggie;) I feel totally calm and relaxed about tomorrow and am just going to race my race and see what happens. I have tactics in my head but come time, anything goes. Just going to go really hard on the swim, really hard on the bike, and really hard on the run and leave everything out there!

Well that's it for now! Thanks again for all the support!