Karen writes: To be or not to be

Sleep was a bit of a problem last night.  I tossed and turned for a variety of reasons, the biggest reason was totally unexpected, more on that later.  Anyway, we are finally in Taupo, home of NZ Ironman after a year of hard (and not so hard) work.  The accommodation is lovely, big daughter has figured out the TV, I haven’t figured out the washing machine. Kate took me for a quick ride on the only real hill on the cycle course, I asked her when we got the to the top, "was that the hill?".   The fridge is full of pasta and bread.

The buzz at registration was amazing, we went from here to there, filling things in, signing a disclaimer (if ANYTHING goes wrong its not the organisers fault), signing a huge flag which had all the signatures of all the competitors on it, and getting weighed (end of the day, carrying handbag).  As I type, I am wearing a wrist band with ‘athlete’ written on it, obviously in case I forget!  I couldn’t resist buying a cute little bright yellow neoprene ankle band for the transponder, the official version is just a Velcro loop and I can imagine it will be uncomfortable after 16 hours.

We went to the briefing last night, rocked up at about 7pm, and stood fascinated in a huge room with 1600 other triathlete looking people.   We listened to Mr Ironman who promised us in that distinctive voice of his, “you will be Ironmen, I promise”.  We hung on the words of Ironmen greats, Cameron Brown, Jo Lawn and some others from round the world.  Jo Lawn said “you will face challenges, but no matter what keep going, and you will get there”.  There were people in the room who had done 10, 20, 25 events, and we listened as a man in his 70’s announced his retirement after finishing 27.  A man from Christchurch talked about how 'over' everything he was with the December aftershocks and how much difference the support from the IM community had made to him and his family.   All very inspiring, wow, what a thing to be part of!

Then the serious stuff started, the medical director was worried about hypothermia (that should have been a hint), and talked about wearing the plastic cape if requested to and she trotted out the ubiquitous rectal thermometer joke to reinforce it.  An official reminded us about ‘drafting’ and ‘blocking’ and rubbish.   The man in charge of the aid stations listed in detail what and when and noted that he had 400 volunteers manning these stations.

Then...the weather.  News reader-like the weather forecast was read out.  Heavy rain, strong winds gusting up to 45km/hour, temperatures to plummet.  The upshot of this was to warn us that the swim was likely to be modified or cancelled, and the possibility of the whole event being cancelled was raised!  There was disbelieving laughter in the room.   I couldn’t process it last night, I think I was in a mild state of shock.

Anyway, this morning its dull and grey and windy outside and I'm not sure if I want to cry or have a fit of hysterical laughter.  I feel like a feed of comforting greasies and a large bar of chocolate, but figure pre-emptive grieving isn’t going to help if there is even the smallest chance we may still be Ironmen (even Iron-duathletes) tomorrow.  Briefing at 4pm today, wish us (or the weather?) luck!