Hello from Wilmington!

Jenni and I had an easy drive down last night. We were checked in, fed and made the multiple trips to bring our bikes and 500 bags to the room by 8:30, just in time to settle in before Grey’s Anatomy.

Although we could have slept as late as we wanted, we were up by 7:15. We relaxed in the room, organizing our stuff and watching TV until it stopped raining and we could head out on a quick 20 minute shake-out ride.

After the ride, we got our bikes cleaned up (wet roads + sand = DIRTY bikes) before going  to the expo and pre-race meeting.

Yay! Expo!

Registration was quick and smooth. The expo was pretty small, so we walked around it in less than 10 minutes. I bought a (way too expensive) B2B jersey and chatted with Tonia, who is here working the Touch Chik booth!

The pre-race meeting was PACKED, but pretty quick and well-organized. The meeting was mandatory because the logistics are crazy with the race being point-to-point and T1 & T2 in different locations.

After the meeting, we headed back to the hotel…I HIGHLY recommend staying at the Best Western Coastline Inn to anyone doing this race. Not only is it significantly cheaper than the host hotel (Hilton), but it is literally next door to the convention center and the Hilton. We ended up walking back and forth between the hotel and the convention center a few times and is was super easy and convenient.

Finally it was time to grab a quick lunch and drop off our bikes at T1. We made a quick stop at Try Sports in Wrightsville Beach so Jenni could get her bike tuned up. They did a great job and were very friendly.

After we dropped our bikes at T1 and scoped out the swim finish and transition area, we went to check out the swim start and hop in the water for a few minutes.

Full Iron Distance Start Area

All we heard about was how strong the currents would be due to the tide coming in during the race. I figured it would be something like Augusta or even a little less…I was WRONG. This current is CRAZY. Just swimming for a few minutes, as the tide was going out this afternoon, we could feel it sweeping us down the beach! It should make for a really, really fast swim tomorrow!

Can you tell that’s my favorite Nuun swim cap?!

We got back to the hotel in time to take showers and relax for a little bit before heading to dinner. We met Tonia at Fat Tony’s Italian Pub and had a great time. The food was excellent, although they were slammed because of the race, so it took a little while to get our food. It was great catching up with T and talking all things triathlon.

Now it is almost 9 p.m. and we are settled in for the night. The day was so busy that I really didn’t have much time to be stressed or nervous about the race tomorrow. I am just excited and very anxious to get in the water and start.

Good night, friends! I can’t wait to wake up and do a little swimming, biking and running!