Saturday, April 19, 2008

A very brief race report.

Here is my six word "mime":

Harder than hard, the hardest ever..
(this includes Ironman Florida)

I will post more tomorrow but in short, this took the cake. I finished DFL..

That would be "Dead f&*&^*king last! But I finished, got the bling, got the finisher's T-shirt and did not get pulled from the course. I took 2nd in my AG despite adversity, hills, wind, falls on the bike and run, ice cold lake, hot conditions.. and lived to tell about it..

I experienced a new meaning for the term "endurance" today..

Friday, April 18, 2008

Pre-race jitters..

They vary from:
1) I really don't want to do this-why am I doing this?
2) I am surely going to forget something..what the hell is it?
3) Why the hell didn't I sign up for the Olympic?
4) Gee, I sure would like to be gambling like those people in the Casino are instead of going to bed at 8:00 tonite and getting up at 3:45 AM for this stupid race!
5) I don't care how I do. Screw it. I don't care..
6) I wish this was over..

On and on with the rambling thoughts of nervousness. I have a really hard time staying positive the night before a race, ever..I get excited after the race begins-that would be 6:10 AM for this one. I think this is the earliest race I have ever done! H & I scoped out the course, swam in the insanely cold lake which wasn't bad thanks to my second new best friend, the neoprene hood. OMG-who ever invented this deserves an award right up there with my new Tom-Tom. Speaking of which, she did get us lost last night for a bit on our way into Boulder City, Nevada. So this device is not perfect but I still LOVE it! This was after a day at Disneyland with little Lane, my grand-daughter, where we spent her 4th birthday. I am definitely in the older zone of NOT being able to spend 8 hours in Disneyland, then drive 5 hours to a destination which was unfamiliar. All I can say is yes, H and I did have words out of tiredom last night. This morning, after the best sleep I have had in a week, I finally felt good again. My stomach has been hurting for a week, since the tooth incident and antibiotics, but after bagging those, I finally have my digestive system back. Just in the nick of time! And of course H & I are still in love and all is well.

Tomorrow's weather report calls for wind of course. That's OK-we have been training in wind for 3 months now. I am use to dust in the wind--I feel a song coming on...Anyway, the course is absolutely beautiful, Lake Mead clear as day-you can see the bottom and the fish while you are swimming. Someone told us last year they cancelled the swim because of wind. I guess if it is too windy there is a strong undercurrent and water skiers have drowned because of this. Wow that was some happy news but I guess the RD is cautious so that is a good thing. The bike course is hilly, which I knew. This will prepare me for the hills of Coeur d' Alene. The run I didn't see. I like some element of surprise. It seems like it has taken all day to train, see the course, go to registration (where a bike god fixed the gearing on my bike finally), get ready for the morning, go over our lists and checking them twice, going over things again. Then it was time for dinner! Casino pasta isn't that bad, really. It is pretty strange to see gamblers amongst athletes sprinkled throughout the Casino. I am planning to ride my bike to the race start since my race is so early and H doesn't go off until 7:00-lucky him.. This will be a 3 mile ride and a first for me. We'll see if the warm up does me good at 5:00 AM!

Ran into S. Baboo and Mighty Mike earlier today. We will have a celebration dinner tomorrow night with some other bloggers and Outlaws..

I really can't wait for this race to be over!! Now back to random nervous thoughts..

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

My new best friend..

I am in heaven..

This is probably one of the best $150.00 I have ever spent. H & I decided last minute to get this most wonderful gadget on Sunday right before we left for California. Now you have to have experienced SoCal traffic to really appreciate this profoundly wonderful invention! This thing tells us where we are going, where to turn, has a touch screen, practically tells you when to go to the bathroom. Now if it only did windows!!