Weighing in

I swam in Tempe Town Lake today. First open water swim with a wetsuit since Ironman Canada last year in August. It actually felt good although I did not experience the swim nirvana that I attained a while ago. It was slow. The course looked endless, the buoys were too far away and they never really came closer.. Ok, I am exaggerating. But I fear my swim will be very similar, if not worse than last time.

I also registered. It took forever and it was quite disorganized. They started more than 15 minutes late and clearly the volunteers were still confused. I weighed in at 173.5 pounds, shoes and all, and that is pretty good. The woman who handled my application forgot everything she was supposed to do and I nearly walked off without my bags in all the mayhem. Sign of the times: no goodies this year. No free T-shirts, no free socks, no powerbars or anything. Even Gatorade was exceptionally stingy at the swim. But Tyr made up for it by giving me a bottle.

The whole village looks a bit leaner than last time. There are fewer tents and fewer goodies. No big Timex display, no Powerbar, only Ford pulled out all the stops. I guess they have to given how poorly they are doing.

In the afternoon I ran 5.25 miles. From my hotel to the lake and then along the lake to Priest drive (the far end of the course). Then back and at the bridge up Curry to the park (part of the first loop in reverse). Despite the warm weather it did feel a bit chilly at times, especially in the shade.

I also got my race suit with the BAF logos. 2 more days until showtime.

Arizona

I arrived in Tempe around noon today. Turned out it was already 1 PM because of the time difference. Yesterday I left the house at noon and drove to LA. Nice smooth sailing and no problems until I hit Pasadena. Then suddenly I was going with the commute flow and everything slowed to a crawl. That lasted for a hour or more and I called Barbara to see if the Hampton in Colton was available. No luck. Keep driving.

I drove 210 to San Bernadino and got gas in a rather poor neighborhood. Two guys in a pickup were intent on hassling me but some other car pulled up and they left. Lucky me. Then I made a slight detour (210 goes to 10 as one would think, but I was not sure) and made it to 10 by cutting across the city instead. I ended up pulling over in Beaumont when I saw a Hampton Inn by the side of the road. I made a quick 180 and found a bed for the night. I was pretty tired and after dinner I went to bed and slept until my 7 AM wake-up call.

I left Beaumont around 8:30 and had an uneventful trip to the outskirts of Phoenix. There I may have tripped a photo speed trap. That would be a bummer. After that I took it easier and once again I missed the exit and ended up driving through Tempe on city streets to get to my hotel. By then it was 2:30 so I did not have to wait for the room. I ate lunch and slept.

I woke up at 4:15 about one hour before sunset and quickly grabbed my bike and went on a short ride. Tempe is a very bicycle-unfriendly city, especially for a college town. You have to ride on the side-walk in most places and traffic is pretty inconsiderate. Cars try to push you off the road, and the cycle repeats at every traffic light. There are enough of these, spaced closely enough that you can easily keep up with the drivers -although they sprint from one light to the next.

A 30 minute bike ride, about 10 miles, relatively fast. Weather feels good, warm, sunny and the air is pretty clean. Everywhere you look you can see that the lycra has descended on Tempe. What you see the most of are runners looking like triathletes -somehow they look different from other runners?- everywhere.

We passed 100 donors!! Way to go!!

Ironman week

The home stretch. Next Sunday is the big day. Tomorrow I leave for IM Arizona and hopefully I will get through the LA area without any major glitches. I will take two days to get there so there will be plenty of time to rest and get my brain in the right mood for the race. It has been more than one year since I last did a triathlon (2007 Ironman Canada). My only competitive event this year was the Boston Marathon in April.

Today I swam 1,000 yards or about a 1/4 of the IM distance. It went fine. Not the kind of "hyper" swim I did earlier but I did not feel like I was plodding either. Just an average day in the pool I guess. The weather is very nice but it is definitely getting cooler. 

I do have to take it easy now. I am also running on empty due to my low carb diet. I can't wait for Friday so I can start eating carbs again. Two more short runs and short ride should be enough to wrap it all up.