Stephanie Steelhead 70.3 Race Plan
It starts tonight as my flight to South Bend is at 6:30 tomorrow morning. I get my last ART treatment at 4:30 today and go try on a new wetsuit at 6:00pm. I'm too fat for mine. 
Going to go for short sleeves so I have one of each. Set alarm for 4:00am. Practice makes perfect.
I have most of my stuff ready to go, but last week I found out my series 3 window closed YESTERDAY. So I spent the last 4 days fitting in study time. Happy to report I passed 80/97. BAM!
My friend picks me up in South Bend at 11:00 and I'm guessing we'll have some lunch. I'm going to walk down to the beach and see how cold the water really is. Have a practice swim in new wet suit, for a bit. Water should be 70-73ish degrees. The weather looked perfectly clear on the forecast yesterday, now it shows scattered thunderstorms for Sunday. Hopefully that translates into 74 degrees with a nice cloud cover. I'm armed with sunscreen sticks though, if the sun shines, we are all fried in the land of sand dunes with no cover.
Saturday...get there very early, check in, get bike from tri-bike transport, put on pedals, put bike in transition. Pack transition bag. garbage bags for putting on wet suit, goggles,spit, race cap, body glide. Towel...bike shoes, socks, helmet, gloves, sunglasses, sunscreen. Run shoes, race belt, nuuns, UCAN bottle, water bottle, salt packets, hat. Pack the bike/shirt items in zip-lock. Pack the run belt items in zip-lock. Sunscreen and lip balm in EN-top AND in top tube thingy. Pack flip belt...just in case.
Spend the afternoon with feet up.
Sunday - alarm at 4:15. Coffee, AMBM, grab bag, hit the road 5:30. 20-30 mins to race site. Eat some power bar, drink water. Vespa @6:30. My wave is first (there is a gawd) so I guess I'll start swimming. Try to be smooth and remain calm. FIRST wetsuit swim, FIRST big race (probably get knocked around a bit), FIRST HIM. I'd like to do this in 45 mins or less, we shall see. Course is a big Triangle...out, buoy, across buoy, back to shore. Just keep head down and keep swimming. I think I'll start in the middle again and try follow some feet. I find it's easier to deal with people passing me than to try and swim around people. I'm not fast and not slow.
BIKE - the reward for making it through the swim! I get to ride my bike! I hope to do this bit in less than 4 hours. Eat Vespa & UCAN, drink water for an hour. gatorade and salt for an hour, ucan and water for duration.
RUN - if the knee/hammie feels OK, we put our shoes on, slap a little biofreeze on (take an extra packet in shirt) and run. bring packet of ucan in bottle. Bring salt and NUUN. It's 2 loops. If things go south badly, be done at 6. If I can walk it, biofreeze and walk. If it feels OK, bio freeze and finish. Perfect. I know I can do 6 miles. But it's 14 weeks to IMFL and I'm not going to be stupid. Well, any more stupid than usual...prolly. Going to hang in Michigan with my friend until Tuesday. And her giant smelly yellow lab "Bud". I tolerate Bud, but he LOVES me. 
I'll have my Garmin, I'll watch my HR, but basically this is a long training day. I hope to enjoy it. I'm not ready and I'm not in race shape, but how lucky are we that we get to do this stuff? This gets me one stop closer to IMFL. I have another HIM end of September with an ocean swim. Each race helps build confidence for the next one.
Comments
2) It is a hard call to make when to pull from a race. I'd have it very clearly defined for yourself (only you can do this) what is just normal fatigue/race suck (good to work on that mental toughness) and what is bad pain and where you draw that line.
You are so right. I need to be out the door sooner, and probably up sooner. (damnit)
I hedged myself a bit when I realized I might not be able to finish this one. I signed up for another one end of Sept. That way I can use this one to get over some swim fears, have a nice bike ride (fitness) and run as much as I can without aggravating a slowly healing injury.
Thank you for your comments!
Stephanie, looking forward to racing with you. I too am staying 25 minutes away or so and plan to be on the road no later than 5. There will likely be parking congestion, then a solid walk (.5-1 mile) to TA. There are shuttles, however, or you can do like me and ride to TA - yes, you can rack your bike race morning instead of the day before. I think your ride will be faster than 4 hours, as this is a pretty fast course and the weather looks pretty decent. And I would seriously delete any type of quit from your plan. If you mentally prepare for the various conditions under which you'll pull out, then the odds go way up that you'll make up a new justification Sunday afternoon, and the next thing you know you're turning in your chip just because you no longer want to be racing. Trust me, there will be a point in every IM and almost every HIM where the fun disappears completely and we'd all rather be sitting in the beer tent. That's why we have our One Things - to fight off those instincts. And the fact that we reach such lows on race day, only to overcome them and triumph, is one of the key reasons these races sell out around the globe. So . . . prepare/plan to finish at ALL costs; on race day, your body will let you know loud and clear if you really need to pull. Just my $0.02.