Macca's here

Tuesday 7th October

Went for an early morning swim at 7am and tried out the new Xterra race suit, it’s very, very tight ! Swam out to ½ way of the swim course and back to shore, water is still warm and still salty. It’s much busier today as lots of the IM competitors arrived yesterday, the place is really buzzing now. There is now an IM bag drop for the swim and when you collect it they give you a water bottle and a bottle of Gatorade – free. After getting changed suddenly who should appear...you guessed it MACCA! And this time Nick asked him if he could get a picture, so I finally have a photo of Macca & me...ahhhh!
We went for breakfast with the Endurance guys at a place called ‘Uncle Bills’ then got a ride to the local supermarket to get some nosh. The whole town is absolutely full of IM stuff now, all of the local stores are selling merchandise and literally all over are big banners hanging up, it’s like an Ironman town !
Had a few hours out on the balcony chilling out, reading my book and listening to some music, then got ready to go for our run in the ‘Energy Lab’ – PJ (one of Ken’s guys) drove us out to the place, dropped us off and we ran for about 40 minutes. It’s hot, hot, hot! There is nothing much there it is just a big lava field by the ocean and it gets really hot because of the lava.
Got back to the condo at 3pm had a quick shower and walked into town to meet up with all the other GB athletes for the ‘Parade Of Nations’. As we were approaching the swim start all these little kids were running down the street, it was the ‘Dip ‘n’ Dash’ race – it was so cute. Went to meet Chris from TRI UK as he had arranged for all of the GB guys to wear a specially designed t-shirt for the parade, it’s really cool – we also got a bag, hat, whistle and GB flags, again all free!
The parade began at 5pm and was great, every nation had a head car and was followed by the flag carrier and all of the athletes, there are 44 brit’s out here competing (USA has 793 !!! but they haven’t got Chrissi !). After the parade which ended at the IM Village, Nick & I had a quick look around the Expo. Dave Scott was doing a Q & A session, Craig Alexander was signing stuff at one of the stands and we managed to get a picture with Ironman legend Mark Allen who still holds the race record for the marathon which he ran in 2:40:04 and that was way back in 1989!
The expo is situated right next to the sea and tonight the sunset was breathtaking.
Stopped off at Lava Java to get a coffee before walking back to the condo, got dinner and watched some TV (86 Channels of pure tosh!) then went to bed completely exhausted.