Only 3 sleeps to go

Ready or not, here comes Muskoka - my first Half Ironman. Less than 72 hours from now I will be in the early stages of the most brutal bike course I've ever seen (it's actually also quite beautiful). Of course, my experience is quite limited and I haven't seen all that many tri courses, but still. As of right now, I've practiced pretty much everything that can be practiced. I even did a test inflation using a CO2 cartridge, which I had never done before. A local tri coach, we'll call him A Guy Who Knows Things, thinks I'm ready. Well, that makes one of us! I don't mind admitting that I am a little afraid of this bike course. I rode it once, in late June at a Lisa Bentley Subaru Success Camp, and it didn't go too well. One of the rather large hills near the end got the best of me. My chain actually came off, forcing me to stop... but at that moment there wasn't a whole lot of forward progress being made, and I likely would have been forced to walk anyway. I do have a couple of things going for me now that I didn't have then, I guess. I'm much more informed about nutrition... during that ill-fated ride, I think I consuned half a Powerbar and some Gatorade. Likely not enough for over 3 hours in the saddle. Also, at that time my longest ride ever had been about 2 hours, and my longest race had been a sprint (750m, 20k, 5k). In the 11 weeks or so since then I've done my first Olympic Tri, my first Century ride, and several more rides of 90-100k. I've also put in one hill session per week since that June weekend. My overall fitness level has improved as well... a 20k run on a Sunday doesn't wipe me out... even after a 100k ride the day before. So there have been improvements... but that bike segment still looms large in my head. Am I ready? I only have a few days left before I find out. As usual, time will tell.