Florida Ironman Day 1

I was up at the bright hour of Dark:30 on Wednesday. Did my usual SSS and was out the door to Manchester Airport to catch a 7 AM flight to Panama City Fl. No traffic at that hour so everything went smooth. Had to connect through Atlanta, boy was that airport busy. Landed in Panama City Airport right on time at 11:11 AM CDT. Panama city is right on the edge of the EDT but is on Central time. So the race will start on Saturday at 8 AM EDT.

I gathered my bags. OH BTW, never fly Delta. My one bag I checked weighted 66 pounds. Which was 16 pounds over weight. $90 thank you very much!!!! WTF!!!! I asked if I get a discount because I only weight 150 pounds and most males clock in at 200+ pounds...no dice.

I went out to the taxi stand. Yeah right...This airport is to small for one of those. However I asked one of the Panama Cities finest and she told me to go and stand "over there and something might come along". GREAT!!!! Did I mention it was pouring. OK, but low and behold and transport service car did show up in 2 minutes and I was on my way.

Holy cow is this area flat. The driver got me to my hotel in no time. I checked in and was off looking for my bike. I used TriBike Transport. I found them and everything was out in the rain, including my gear bag. I found my bike and bag. Next up is to go get my bike set up with a set of Zipp wheels.

I show up at the Wheel tent and give them my name. I'm not on the list...WTF!!! There was a mix up and they had me on the list for Kona. I had received a call the day before Kona. "Scott where are you, we have your wheels and we don't want you to miss the race". I had explained to them that I was doing FL, not Kona.
The good news is the guy I spoke with remembered the mistake and the guys had me set up in no time with a 808 front and a 1080 back. Nice.



Back to my hotel room to add all the pieces back onto my bike that I took off for shipping (back bottle cage, bike computer, and peddles). In no time my bike was complete. Nice.

Time to check in and go to the IM shop. Check in was the worst race check in I've ever seen. I had to go to 5 different tables to get fully checked in. What a cluster "F". It didn't help that none of the volunteers had ever done any kind of a race in their life. Off the the IM store. You could spend a lot here but I held back. I don't want this stuff if I don't complete the race.

Now it was time to round up some provisions. I knew there was a Super Walmart about .7 miles away but it was raining very hard. Oh well, looks like I'm getting wet. The good news was that I packed my rain jacket at the last minute so it wasn't to bad. You know jeans weight a lot when they are soaking wet. I bought some bread, eggs, bagels, milk, gatorade, water, bananas, and raspberries. Made the walk back to the hotel.

Time to hook up some dinner. There is a place about 1/3 of a mile down the road that I walked to in the pouring rain. I got some buffalo chicken wings then a chicken meal. That hit the spot.

After all the travel and walking I turned in early. Today is a new day and I hope to get a run and ride in. Hopefully the rain will stop.