I am going to leave the details about race day for when I get back home. I feel like this entry needs to be given ample time to write and develop. But I would like to share with you some very special moments of the day before Ironman Florida.

I woke up and the day seemed like any other day, at least at first. Soon the

realization hit me that my race was the next day. I began thinking about the swim. I had swam in salt water before and I had experience with a beach start. But I have never experienced a mass start of 2,200 people, with a beach start, into the Gulf of Mexico, against the surf and with a broken collarbone! At this moment the swim was my biggest concern.

My family and I went out for breakfast. While at breakfast my coach called me to see how I was doing. I shared with him my concern about the swim. He told me to eat my breakfast, check my bike and bags into transition, and call him later to workout the last details about my race plan.

Time had gotten away from me because I found myself sitting in the van, outside Wal-Mart, just after dinner when Heath called me again. He asked me how I was doing. I said that I was still nervous. He reminded me about how, when I started this journey four years ago, I got on my bike and rode 2 miles down the Provo River Trail, turned around and came home. How when I completed this four mile ride I was so exhausted I had to come home and take a nap.

This image hit me hard. I had been contemplating completing my first Ironman. When this mental image surfaced a flood of feelings and emotions surfaced with it. It was as if I had realized for the first time how far I had come. I became so overcome by the Spirit of the Lord I began sobbing. I must have sobbed for 30 minutes. The pressure, the tension and the stressing all seemed to be erased by this Spirit filled event.

The rest of the evening I kept thinking about this experience and experienced periods of sobbing out of happiness. Before I went to bed I had my family, my nephew, father-in law and brother-in-law all join me in a prayer. I cannot remember all that I prayed for. But I do remember the main thing I prayed for. I asked Heavenly Father to help keep my mind stronger than my body.