T minus 12 hours - Iron Girl!

Iron Girl is tomorrow! In 12 hours I will be diving into Lake Las Vegas, hoping to beat my previous time or at least keep the same time as I had at Rage.

We had packet pick-up today, and we had to have our bikes in by tonight at 9pm. Honestly... I didn't like that much. I finally got a road bike!! It's a "he" and his name is Cinco. I bought him on Cinco De Mayo, so it was fitting. He is a 47cm Trek 1220 with shimano shifters. I'm not sure of the year. I got it for such a GREAT price that it didn't even matter what year. Do you know Joe the bike buy from Vegas? If not, you're missing out! He is such a marvelous help, he's taught this newbie so many tips and tricks already, and he's the one who I bought the bike from. You ever need a bike, go to Joe. Period.

So as you can imagine, having to leave my precious new baby boy all alone at transition tonight was VERY hard. It's to trust that no one will just walk out with it. Ok, so I realize my bike isn't top notch compared to some others in there, but for someone who has a mountain bike (like I just did until tuesday), ANY road bike is desired! Ok enough of that... I had to do it and so did hundreds of others... it's ok. Right?

What I think about the Iron Girl race so far:
~I didn't like that we had to set up bikes the night before
~It's all very commercialized and branded, which is a huge downer for me as I often root for the small guys.
~The free tech tee is nice. I expected cotton from the pictures I've seen, but it's much nicer.
~LOTS of freebies at the expo.
~Two day packet pick-up option was helpful eventhough I didn't need it.
~They warn you ahead of time that transition is locked down at 6:15am, but I don't swim until 7am... so that's a bit wierd.
~No body markings... disappointing, they dont' help with the race at all but they look cool
~I had to put a number sticker on my helmet. Grrr, it doesn't look like it's going to come off easily.

So far that's all I have to say, except the course looks a bit difficult for beginners. I'm not sure the course suits the target market they are going for, but I'm not a total newbie anymore, so I'll survive.

I'll be heading to bed early and have a race report later tomorrow. The weather forecast predicts that from 7am-10am the temps are between 75-82 degrees with light winds not reaching over 5 mph and some humidity starting at 17% and decreasing to around 12%.