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Apr 21 - Marty and I are trying out the blogging world and seeing if we like it enough to ditch our old way of blogging. It's still a work in progress, but you can check it out here.
Apr 19 - We got home around 12:45am on Thursday morning and then I proceeded to work a full day. By the time I met up with Brooke, Nicolai, Marty and Alysia for our Thursday night ride I was VERY tired! But they pulled me around I even was able to muster some form of tempo even though my legs were absolutely screaming at me. Great ride, though. I had big plans of going home and getting right into bed but that 3 hour time difference we had been in really messed me up, so I ended up laying exhausted in bed with sleep escaping me. I couldn't ditch the morning swim because I hadn't swum in a week now, so I got myself up and over to the pool. My lanemates asked if I was okay :) This morning I unfortunately missed Tassie win her first race, because Alysia and I rode out in Hillsborough where the Maple View Farm store is. They have incredible chocolate milk and ice cream and it was the perfect end to a brick workout in beautiful weather. My legs are still pretty tired, I guess from the travel and all that, because I certainly didn't do a whole lot of training out in Arizona. Hopefully, they come around so I can try and make a respectable showing at St. Anthony's next weekend.
Apr 16 - Marty and I are sitting in a Starbucks at the Nashville airport right now. Although we both had direct flights out to Phoenix, we have a long layover here and won't get back to RDU until midnight. So I thought I would take this time to write a nice long trip report :)
First, Shana, I did put up a bunch of pictures on our picture page. This took most of our flight from Phoenix to Nashville. I don't know how the new blogs work, but putting up pictures on our sight is NOT easy and it's very time consuming. Hence the reason why I haven't put any up recently. But it gave me something to do on that 3 hour flight.
The past 5 days made me feel like we were traveling like we did in 2006. Just me and Marty, doing our thing and having fun. I made it out to Phoenix around 3pm on Saturday and we immediately went to see some of Marty’s athletes one last time before their Big Day. Several of them have been coached by Marty for a long time and I've gotten to know them so well. It is great to watch an Ironman and have so many people to cheer for.
We got to the race site the next morning with plenty of time for me to go get some breakfast. There was no way I was going to be able to make it much longer without food, stat! Luckily, I got an egg and cheese bagel sandwich and still had time to meet back up with Marty and watch the swim start. I absolutely couldn’t believe some of the back of the pack swimmers! This one guy was doing the double arm backstroke the entire time! (see picture page for evidence). I watched another guy floating on his back and just simply kicking (and no, he was not handicap). And then there was the guy who was doing a whole lot of breaststroke – this is not so unusual as I know people will do this to get their bearings or whatever, but when he almost ran into the boat ramp and had to start swimming for real, I realized he really didn't know how when he could not put his head in the water. What were these people thinking?
We made our way over to the start of the bike and got to watch everyone coming out. It was fun to watch the pros and see how quickly they get on their bikes. Very different than me ;) And I was able to pick out several of our athletes and we got to yell right in their faces. After watching everyone get out of T1 – I went for a run with Lee Z and we yelled for more people on the bike course. It was windy and already very, very warm. After the run we met back up with Marty and Lee's wife Erinne and we had a nice brunch. I had the most yummy banana's foster French toast which was followed by a very bad stomach ache that caused me to have to lay down for a few minutes in a local coffee shop.
Next we staked out some shade under an overpass where the first aid station was (and roughly the 8 mile and 17 mile stations since it was a 3 loop course). Our friends had bought a cooler on wheels and had it filled with Fat Tire so Marty was in heaven. We also caught up with some our Florida friends who had moved out west, Martha and Taylor Dudley. It is funny, but watching an ironman is exhausting! We were all hot, tired, achy - you name it and we complained about it. But not too loud lest we upset the competitors ;) It was a really tough day out there for many people. The conditions were hard. An Ironman is already difficult, but add in super wind and HEAT, and you’ve got a recipe for lots of DNF's. Even a lot of the pro's already looked spent coming off the bike and usually they make everything look so easy!
The rest of the day and night was spent cheering and yelling for everyone. It's nice that people's names are on their numbers so we could literally yell at everyone we wanted to. Especially Stefano (heehee – again, see pictures). Marty and I ducked out for a bit to get some dinner and then went back for as long as we could stand before we had to pack it in and go to bed.
The next morning we got up early in an attempt to get a run in back at the race headquarters. Of course we ran into everyone and had to cut our run short, but it was great to see some of the racers post race and talk about how they felt. I was so proud of our friend, Kathy Gagnier who won her age group (in her first Ironman) and is heading to Kona in October. After our run and breakfast at US Egg, we started our drive to Sedona. Everyone says it beautiful but I guess you really need to take one of their tours because we felt like we were missing something. Anyways, we did walk around the touristy area a bit and bought a few souvenirs. On to the Grand Canyon!
After a very scenic drive from Sedona to Flagstaff and then to the Grand Canyon we made it to our hotel (which happened to be right on the rim – AWESOME!). First things – it was cold and windy! We have video of how windy it got so when I have some time I'll put that up. We walked part of the rim, oohed and awed and then got some dinner. It was an early night to bed as we were both exhausted (again).
The next morning we got up for a run that was originally planned to be an hour, but turned out to be only about half that – did I say holy altitude yet? I realized later when I looked at my training schedule that I was supposed to do some zone 4 efforts. Yeah right! My coach didn't think that one through ;) Incidentally, it was my coach who said in a little girl's voice about 10min into the run, “Uh, could we walk, Bri?”
After breakfast and internet time, we took a long bus tour to some really awesome spots all along the canyon. Our lovable tour guide had all the weird quirks you would come to expect from someone who lives in the canyon. We had originally wanted to take a mule ride but they were all booked. They had some openings the next day but that wasn't going to work for us. Bummer. But the tour we took was still a lot of fun and we learned a great deal of history and got to take in even more spectacular views.
So that's our trip in a nutshell. We left the Grand Canyon this morning at 6am and drove to Phoenix to catch our flight. It's definitely a long travel day, but I don't really mind them at all, especially when they're because of something fun. If you've made it this far, congratulations. Don't expect my blog entries to be this long anytime soon.
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