up before my wakeup call; 3am... Front desk made me coffee and I'm about ready to take my shower... No real plan. I will swim and hope to get out of the water in 1:25 or better. I have 5 Gu's and 4 packs of shot blocks on the bike plus Gatorade Endurance. I will put a cinnamon and brown sugar pop tart in my special needs bag plus a red bull... just in case. The bike should be good... winds are expected to be in the 5 mph range... I am racing on feel, not HR or Watts, so I could be anywhere between 5 - 5:30 on the bike. I'm expecting a 5:15 The run will be tough for everyone. The weather forcast calls for Sun and 80s. I'm a pretty good runner in the heat so I'm not afraid. I will hydrate on a gatorade bottle for the first 7-8 miles and then just do gu and water... I'm expecting about a 3:20 run... If my math is right that puts me right around 10 hours plus transitions which should get me in KONA range... People around here, the athlete's, keep saying, "It will be what it will be" as they discuss their race. I can't look at it like that. It will be what I decide it will be. And it is going to be an amazing day. A long day. It will be my day! Till later... DD

I went to the Arizona Mills Mall Food Court for dinner... It sucked the life right out of me. I could rant about it, but I won't, besides Not Another Teen Movie is on Comedy Central... Race tomorrow!

What a day... I still haven't found time to rest... luckily there is good wine and cheap beer readily available in the desert! : ) Got up a little hung over this morning... thanks Brett! Dude tried to get me drunk. Suka! Today, I got up early and swam and rode a bit... then I had lunch wiht Mark, Dave and his hottie wife, Meg. After that, I took my bike in for a tune. turns out my chain (11K on it) was dead and neaded to be changed... I also had many other bike issues including my small chain ring was on backwards! What? good thing I never ride the small chain ring... After that we went to dinner and I came home and ripped the tubulars off my wheels so that I can put some Stan's into them and to change the front which had a bid divet in it... I'm ready to do this. I think I'm going to kill this course because I feel that it is time to visit Hawaii... I've never been there. And finally... If anyone is curious about what I've been up to since moving to Vail... The Vail Daily ran a piece about me today: http://www.vaildaily.com/article/20081120/AE/811209912/1064&title=Dick%20Dime%20brings%20big-city%20sensibity%20to%20Vail's%20music%20scene

Things must be really bad at Ford Motor Comapny theses day. My $550 entry fee into Ironman Arizona got me the lamest goody bag of any race that I have attended all year! Lame. Got to the expo area early, checked in and slipped past the weigh in station... what I don't know what hurt me. Looked at the murky water that I will be swimming in. Nasty. But on the positive, there is absolutely no current. I'm kickin' it at the hotel enjoying a Stella and thinking about riding, but the sprawl looks pretty dangerous for riding a bike.

Travel day... no workout - got in at 2:30 AM

tic toc tic toc tic toc... ironman this week! As far as I know, there are no warrants for the arrest of Dick Dime in Arizona so I should be good to go provided we don't get pulled over in Utah. Absolutely no time to train today...

My aero helmet came in today: The LG Rocket Air... Look out Dime will be geeked out in AZ!! Along with my helmet came two more boxes... in one was a sweet Zipp Sub 9 Rear disc wheel and in the other a Zipp 808 front wheel; courtesy of Colorado Multisport. I can't thank them enough - truly a great store to work with! So when I get out of the water, get out of my way cuz I'll be a hummin'! I can't wait to ride them. Still, I am a bit nervous about my cycling fitness since my mileage has tailed off, but shit, nearly 11,000 miles over the last 2 years should be good enough to pull off a fast little century ride. As far as the run goes, I'm ready. I'm very confident in my running fitness although I may have a slight pull in my right quad from yesterday's super hard finish. Nothing a few easy days shouldn't take care of. I think I'm capable of a 5:20 bike ride and a 3:20 run - if somehow I manage a 1:20 swim I'm at 10hrs plus transitions... That should be in the Kona Qualify Zone. If things are going really well for me I could be more like 1:20 swim, 5:10 bike and a 3:10 run which would put me at 9:40 plus transitions and that would be a KQ time for sure... Yeah, yeah... I know. I do have to get through the swim. I'm not afraid. I'm just going to swim, and swim and swim. I'll finish. The number I'm looking for is 1:20! I don't know if I can swim a 1:20 and I've never swam that far in my life, but I'm gonna try. It is really hard to say but I'd be happy with anything under 10:30, thrilled with anything under 10:10 and in my heart of hearts I would love to go sub 10. Who knows, anything is possible including a meltdown or a bike breakdown... the only thing I can really do is just race smart and steady, stay fueled up and hope that I hold up. In the end, I WILL be an Ironman and that is the only thing that I can guarantee. I'm as ready as I can be!