Friday, Nov 4th, 2005

It's 1:14AM. I'm up. I went to bed at about 7:30PM. But now I have a headache. Whether it was the pillow, dehydration or whatever, I've taken some ibuprofen and eaten some Triscuit crackers. Hopefully this thing will subside soon. Headaches suck, but have been part of the fabric of my life forever.

Weather.com has lowered the high on Saturday to 82 degrees. Accuweather has a high of 81. They're both becoming my friends now. They're also reporting some wind.

I'm heading back to sleep until about 4AM local, 5AM Atlanta.

It's 4AM: I'm up, with headache.

It's 5AM: Went out to grab an energy bar and some propel flavored water. Headache sucks. Took some more ibuprofen.

It's 6:23AM: Headache waning a bit. Likely the ibuprofen, food combo. Like Colt 45, it works evvvvry time. Getting a little work done. Driving a kind woman named Cynthia Parr absolutely nuts with Reger.com intricacies... which sucks, but helps me move things forward from a user perspective.

My inbox Flagged For Reply list is above 80 again... may need to invest a day getting it back down.

Update 9:52AM: Against the structure of my sleep plan, I got a couple more hours of sleep. Beep and Ball cooked us some eggs and bacon. Now I'm getting ready to pack up my transition bags and bike to check them in today. After that, maybe the hot tub/pool and a quick light run.

Still have this mofo headache. Horrible. Getting a little better, but not gone yet.

Update 2:52PM: Got my bike checked in.

Met a nice guy from San Fran who works on bikes. He took about an hour working my bike over, checking the gears, etc. Very cool. Paid him, of course, but he still went above and beyond the call.

Transition area is a little different this year.

Lots of fit people around this year. Not sure why, but I didn't see anybody I thought I'd be able to beat. Maybe I'm just a lot less cocky this year. Last year I thought that even though I knew it'd be difficult, maybe, just maybe I'd be able to turn out a good time. This year I know that pain is on the horizon... a run explosion. I appreciate the work required to race one of these things. I'm not there this year.

This year I seem to appreciate the people more than the gear. Bikes are cool, but I enjoy watching the people more. It seems that I've learned that the gear is fairly irrelevant... a commodity in a certain sense... what's important is the training, motivation, mindset, etc.

Lots of people riding around and running around. Which is cool... I'll probably go for a quick run this afternoon just to get the blood flowing a bit.

My parents are here. Keith is on his way. Mark and the girls are on their way.

Update 4:50PM: Went to the pool with Heather. Got in the rather hot hottub. Then some BillDay drills in the round pool. Then a quick 20 minute run. Now we're getting ready to head out to dinner.