Checking in from Birmingham

Well, we made it to Alabama shortly after 8 this morning. I managed to get good sleep last night as we had to be at the airport by 530ish. I've never been to AL and have to say it's really pretty- green everywhere and some nice rolling hills.
Check in at the hotel isn't until 2pm so we dropped off the lugagge and grabbed a bite to eat a a health store & deli that I frantically googled this morning before leaving the house (I hate being stuck in a strange city surrounded by fast food and wondering depserately for a healthy place to eat...especially before a race). Then we headed off to drive the course which I'm very excited about- it's fairly flat with 2-3 rollers. The run we didn't get a good look at but from the map it seems flat too. The swim is in a scenic narrow river with a nice little uphill/stairs run to T1.
From there I grabbed my packet...thankfully no one was in line except for maybe 3 people as all the others were getting in their ESSENTIAL training the day before the race. Haha, I'll never get over seeing athletes hammering the bike, or running an obvious race pace effort the day before an event, much less in the hot sun. But, hey, better for me :)
I'm bib 946, in the second to last women's wave (yellow caps) hehe...the seeding procedure was quite interesting: some sort of placing at a previous Collegiate Nationals, this will be my first so that didn't count, and/or a sub 2:20 Oly and the only Oly in the books last year for me was AG National's where I fell short by 4mins. So, that's that. It won't be an issue at all so long as there is at least ONE good swimmer in my wave to push the pace. Then the bike will probably work out in my favor as most of the fast guys and girls from the previous waves will be nearing the end of their second loop and will be great draft (legal draft of course). On the run, the plan is as always to run like hell ;)
Anyway, right now we're at the UofA campus in the comp lab before checking in. It's good to have everything done and all that's left is assembling the bike (less than 15min), dinner, and bed.
'Till tomorrow!!