Hi,

I'm leaving tomorrow AM for the Island of Elba, Italy: SFO, then Washington, then Zurich, and finally the Island.

I'm quite excited about this (so much so that I'm writing this, which I never do!). It's my first time flying to a race. I have also organized a bit of a family reunion there, with my parents, sister, in laws, and of course wife and daughter. They all will be travelling to the Island the day before the race and we will stay together at a villa for a week.

You know how they say to never try something new on race day. Well I think I've turned that one up side down:

1. I found that shipping my bike to the Island would have cost me about $750 (I have a big bike, I'm 6'6"), which is about the price of an entry bike. So I bought a new bike and had it delivered to my hotel. It's already there waiting for me. It's a Pepino: http://www.good-bikes.net/index.php?method=section&action=zoom&id=624 .

2. I had enough of my old wet suit so I bought a new one and I have not tried it in the water: http://www.xterrawetsuits.com/products/mens/wetsuits/vector-pro-x2-fullsuit/  .

3. I thought it would be nice to have race shoes for the run part. So I got some light Adidas on sale, which I did try a few times at home: http://www.roadrunnersports.com/rrs/products/ADI1594/ .

We'll see.

Yes this is going to be my most expensive race, although all of these things are investments in the future. I do plan to do more races in Europe and organize family reunions around those. Maybe IronMan Nice next year, if I can handle the training that is.

Yesterday I saw this video and it got me all pumped up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJNWu4wwbho

This is going to be my first race start without the age group being split. I'm a bit anxious about that of course. They split gender though. It won't be 2500 participants, maybe 400.

Funny thing: my race number is ... 1234!

A while back I looked up the number of participants coming from the US and they were only 4 participants with US nationality, of which I'm not one since I'm Belgian.

It's going to be a bit hilly on the bike ride with 4000 feet of elevation gain. At 200lbs this is not exactly what I enjoy most but I think I'll handle.

I've never had family on the race course in the past so I think that's going to be fun!

All right ... packing ,eating, sleeping and then it's a go ... good luck to all of you racing and training.

Philippe