Thursday 5 November 2009

Last training and pasta parties

This started as a quicknote writting session, but you know me..... never have known when to shut up. I’m still not even sure if I’ll dig the internet access out to post it, so I might be wasting my time anyway. Firstly!!! It’s been 80F here today and we head two lads talking about having to buy long sleeved tops to race in on Saturday. WTF!!!!
So to start at the beginning,....................

Still on ‘almost’ UK time I was up and about at 5am so after wasting a couple of hours watching American TV I headed out for my final pre race bike ride of 14miles. It wasn’t too bad out there although it was a bit windy out in places.
With the bike done and dusted I had a stroll down to the beach for the first of the Gatorade swims (no free drinks this year though, there must be a recession on)where I did a nice steady lap of the swim course. The water was gorgeous as always, beautifully clear and warm. There were however a few too many jellyfish floating about for my liking and that wind I’d spotted on the bike made it a bit choppy once you got out of the shallows, no waves, just that bit of chop that meant you swallowed a mouthful of water occasionally when you tried to breath.
After strolling back to the apartment and getting changed I squeezed out my last pre-race run of 4.5miles, it was all nice steady stuff a bit slower than the previous run, but not much. Then there was just time for a quick shower before Shelly dragged me out shopping for the day (resting up!! Fat chance.

Tonight was the Pasta Party and race brief, another one of those things that seems to have dropped off this year. Getting extra tickets for the Pasta Party has always been something you can do either when you enter (12 months ahead) or when you register for the race. This year however you had to get down there early and queue up outside the hotel so that you could buy that extra ticket for your guests. If I was a proper athlete I’d be moaning about it being time spent on your feet that you didn’t need, but for me it’s just a big inconvenience to get this done on the night when it all could have been done and dusted by tonight. The pasta didn’t seem worth $25 but then it never does, we still go though.
Then there was the race briefing............... yes we should know better than to sit at the back, yes there were ample opportunities to move forwards, but a few more speakers would have been nice. As we couldn’t hear anything and it was our 4th Florida race briefing we decided to get back to the car and go before the hoards started to leave. We left at the end of the swim briefing and on the way back to the car we noticed how many people were heading the opposite way, then it clicked..... It was only 7:25!!! They were half way through the race briefing and people were still arriving because it wasn’t actually supposed to start until 7:30, I can imagine there may well have been a few angry athletes rocking up there.

Is all of this bad? I’ve no idea. Maybe it’s just that it’s different to previous years and I’m not good with change (although starting the race brief early probably isn’t the best). I’m sure that it’ll all be forgiven on Saturday afternoon.

I’ve taken a couple of video clips with the new ipod nano while I’ve been out and about. I’ve no idea how to edit or play around with them in any way so you’ll just have to see them as they appear. That of course all depends on if blogspot will accept their mp4 format. If they’ve worked they’ll be at the bottom of the page, if there’s nothing there then I’m sorry but at least it will mean you don’t have to listen to me talking cr@p. There should be - pre swim, after swim, empty transition area and pasta party. Fingers crossed.




1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The boys liked your videos but want to see their Uncle Iain on it as well as hearing him