THANK YOU! I am thrilled to be an Ironman but without question, much more pleased by all of the well wishes and congratulatroy inspires. Again, thank you. I'm satisfied with my time out there. Something is off, however. I am emotioanally reflective; like I need to reconsider what is important in life. I don't know... lots of time to think about it on the drive home. I'm pretty sore too. My knee and Calf aren't working properly right now... Race report soon. Swim: 1:24, Bike 5:29, RUN 3:40 or so... Not quite sure yet. Total time 10:43 I think I'm all messed up because I lost my Finsher's Hat already : (

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...