here we are now

literally T minus 1 day to the triathlon.
i haven't said much about these past few days and weeks because there honestly hasn't been much worth saying.
i've continued the slow slide towards less and less diligent training, and i pretty much have proof that i'll finish last in my group of friends. this isn't a bad thing; i've always known that i'm a slower than many of my more talented friends, even if they were always too polite to say anything.
i do feel pretty shocked at just how aware i finally am that this is the end of a long road. maybe i wasn't aware that i was giving up as much of my life as really was to training; or maybe i just plain didn't think about it at all. either way, the corollary to there being an end to all this is that there must be the beginning to something else. i do feel at this moment that i'm not quite ready to move on from this period of athletic "achievements," even if the achievements are crawling across the finish line in something other than last place.
i'm annoyed at the IM organization. they don't let us set up our own TAs; they make us sign waivers that say they are not responsible for any loss of equipment and the inform us after we've signed the waivers that we're to hand over our bikes to attendants and that we're to pack our TA stuff in designated-color bags...it's ridiculous.
if something happens to my bike, i'm going to be pissed.
the bike is a whole nother story. it's entirely possible that i'll have to pick a bone with the guys who built it, because it's more than likely they did a slap-dash job on it, which caused lara to have to fiddle with it endlessly, which is something she, in her limited time, did most certainly not have to do. ugh.
we went out on a very short five mile spin today just to run the thing through its gearing, and it's still not 100%. i didn't have all of my gears for the first one, either--why should this be any different? :P
while i don't feel i'm going to crush this race, or even do what i was really looking to do, i can only try.
i suppose you could insert some other platitude there and it might actually ring true. perhaps after this race, i'll have a better handle on my racing menatlity. i'm not promising anything.

cheers! and good luck to emily and lara!