What I will be watching

The count down to race day is getting awfully short now for all the athletes getting ready for Busselton Ironman. Tomorrow is race eve and for most athletes the nerves will be kicking into overdrive. Nothing quite gets the butterflies fluttering like racking the bike. Hard not to be thinking about race day when you are walking around transition right in the heart of it all. Exciting stuff.

For me Busselton Ironman really kicks off tomorrow. I am heading down there in the morning and so should be there sometime around lunch. Just in time to check out the expo and soak up some of the race atmosphere. Really though tomorrow is all about getting down and settling in.

Sunday is where all the excitement is going to be, Race Day, that is what it is all about.

As I said yesterday, I am not sure how I will feel on race day, but I sure know what I will be doing. Spectating, spectating hard. In fact there are so many to watch and cheer for down there that I suspect my day will be pretty full just doing that. Some of the people I am most keen to see are:

Gary Couanis. Gary is my Doctor and also a mate. I have trained with and around Gary for a few years now and he is yet to do an Ironman that he is satisfied with. Gary's ultimate goal is Kona and really until he gets that I think he will remain unsatisfied. I have no doubt that Gary has the ability to qualify for Kona, he just needs to put together a race where he races to his full potential. I am really hoping that this race on Sunday is such a race and I can be there to see it. Watching Gary's race unfold is one of my highest priorities for Sunday.

As well as Gary there is a whole plethora of Front Runner athletes who are racing either the Ironman or 70.3, many of them first timers. I am keen to see all of these guys do their thing and chase their goals, but in particular I am keen to watch Helen Sharman who is the one athlete I have who is racing. This will be Helen's first 70.3 and it is fair to say she has not had the smoothest build up. She has done a whole bucket load of work though and I just hope it is enough to see her through the day on Sunday. If nothing else she has the heart of a lion and I suspect that will be enough to see her through when the going gets tough.

Similarly to the Front Runner crew is the mob from Darwin. I don't really know a lot of the Darwin folks racing this year, but I always have a soft spot for the Darwin athletes and this year it looks like there will be a heap of them. Always fun to see them roll around.

Besides the Front Runner crew and the Darwin mob, I will also be cheering loudly for all the Break Your Limits crowd. There are a bunch of the usual suspects from BYL racing, plus a bunch of newer folks and it will be a pleasure to watch all of them. In particular I am really looking forward to watching Johan Borg. Johan raced as a pro for several years and for the last couple had a pretty tough time of it, really struggling to find his rhythm and his motivation. Since dropping his pro license and taking a bit of time away from the sport is sounds like Johan has found his spark again and so I am really looking forward to seeing that. Johan really wants a Kona slot and I think if he is on song there isn't a single thing that anyone on the course is going to be able to do about it. When running sweet Joey is a sight to behold and one that I can't wait to see.

Besides all that, there will also be a quite a compelling Pro battle going on I am sure. There is a big field full of solid names heading around the course on Sunday and so it will be interesting to see what they can do. Will the course record go again? My guess is that it won't as the conditions don't look as nice as when Terenzo broke the record last year, however, the field is smoking hot this year (though it was last year too) and so you never quite know what will happen. The pro race isn't a priority to me as I think it holds a few to many recent memories, but I will certainly be interesting in seeing how it ends up.

And with that I think it might be time for me to call it a day. Yesterday I was apprehensive about going down and now I am just plain excited. I can't wait to get down there and see how the day unfolds.