Look Both Ways Before You Cross The Sidewalk

It's Thursday night in Lake Placid (T minus 3 days) and this Ironman thingy seems to be comin' on pretty quickly. The body is feeling pretty good and the mind, well, the mind is on its own little rollercoaster ride: excited and confident at one moment, scared and doubtful the next. So mostly I really try to stay in a state of avoidance. It works so much better for me. As long as I don't think too much about the race, I'm doing fine. I'll have enough time to think about it on Sunday.

So here I am,only three days before the race and, in a complete first for me, I've so far survived the taper. No serious back pain, no twisted ankle, no broken bones. All seems to be going fairly well. Until today's life threatening scare, that is.

Cat and Iw ent for a bike ride this afternoon followed by a swim on the race course. No problem, right? Right...

I finished the swim a mere 10 minutes before my massage was supposed to begin. Needless to say, once I got out of the water, I stripped off my wetsuit and started briskly walking the 200 feet back to the car to change clothes. I was looking straight ahead at the car as I walked, my mind focused on my tight timetable, when I caught a sight out of the corner of my eye. I glanced to my left only to see a Port-a-Potty moving very quickly towards me with no clear intention of slowing down. You can imagine my surprise as the Port-a-Potty closed in like a speeding train while I stood there, deer in the headlights-esque. In a more klutzy reenactment of some random scene out of Die Hard, I sprinted out of the way, just a foot or two short of being completely Port-a-leveled. I breathed a sight of relief as I turned around to see the toilet brush passed me, blindly driven by the tractor and driver whose sole purpose was to make a Port-a-line by the lakeside for the pending Ironpee.

I tried to regain my composure and casually walk the rest of the way to the car as if nothing had happened. I looked up and two athletes were walking towards me with a snicker on their face and an "I'm SO gonna tell this story to my friends" look in their eyes.

Guess that woulda been a pretty sad way to DNF, I said as I walked by them.

Yeah, they replied with a smirk. You gotta watch out for those killer Port-A-Potties.