The video report live from the wet and wooly bike course:

As we got out further, it just rained even harder. We saw many cyclists out there – that must have really sucked.

When we got home, my wife modeled her new Ironman fleece lined jacket – very important for rainy and cool days watching her husband race!

After swimming, we were hungry and we went to find The Pita Pit, whose headquarters are here in Coeur d’Alene. How nice to find a place that serves a variety of foods all wrapped burrito style in a pita bread. I also met the owner of The Pita Pit, who is also the regional director for The Pita Pits all here in the Western states. I am proud to know this man, as he is brother-in-law to my buddy Lawrence who runs the Trimaven team.

Note the huge mobile home that The Pita Pit parties in. We unfortunately were not able to party in it.

This morning I woke again early to light streaming in the windows at 530a. I got up around 7am and Dan was already up. But as we were sitting there, he reading email and me eating cereal it starts to rain hard. Ugh we think – not good for Sunday if this keeps up. But a few minutes later, it stops. Our hopes rise.
Around 8am we grab our stuff and head out to the swim start to go try out the swim course. There we meet up with the Trimaven boys and the ever-present Ironman racer Keish, who shows up at almost every Ironman.
The waters of Coeur d’Alene Lake were very choppy. We went to get our wetsuits on and jumped into the water. The waves were high and annoying; they battered us head-on so that whenever we sighted, we would get a face full of water. The waves were so severe that when I would take a breath to the right, I would sometimes see a mountain of water crest and fly over my head as I ran into a wave. As we get out and get undressed, we met a lot of SF triathletes who are also racing this coming weekend.

The last picture is of my beautiful photographer wife.

Today we marveled at the fact that the sun rose at 5am! I woke up first at 530a because of it.
We went over to registration to get my registration bag and materials. It was windy out there and the lake was pretty choppy:

Here’s me in my brand new IM CDA kit:

Back to the expo to TriBike Transport to pick up bikes and make some signs:

Preparing my bike for a quick ride with the Trimaven boys:

Love those slow shutter speed shots – I can only wish I could ride so fast to be a blur!

Yesterday’s travel really sucked. Whenever it’s windy and/or foggy at SFO, the air traffic gets delayed by many hours. So we didn’t take off until 4pm (scheduled for 1240p). It was a short hop to Spokane and on/off raining when we got here. A quick 40 minute ride got us to Coeur d’Alene and then to our rental house. Not a bad place, a bit rustic but with all modern furnishings and appliances.
Feeling a bit stuffed up since yesterday. Not sure if it’s allergies or something else. It would really suck if it were something else like a cold. That’s what I don’t need right before the race!
Weather is variable – rainy yesterday, sunny today. Temps are fairly cool which is good. It’s a bit breezy but not so good. Will head over to the expo today and go shopping, also pick up my bike later today. Will probably go for a ride on the bike course and check it out, assuming I feel OK.

Just checked the weather again today at Coeur d’Alene Weather on Yahoo! Weather. Here’s a screenshot:

On Sunday June 21, cool temps 64 degrees high/45 degrees low – BONUS! Isolated T-storms – not so good, but better than thunderstorms and rain all day long.
If the temps stay cool, this could make for a great race for me, as I’m not a great hot weather racer. On the other hand, it could make for a chilly morning so I need to bring arm warmers, maybe even biking gloves so that my fingers don’t get numb. I once fumbled a gel packet on the bike because my fingers were so numb from riding in the cold at IM NZ, so none of that this year (I hope!).

I’m almost packed up and ready to go. Just a few more things I want to throw in my suitcases and hope it all fits. Thankfully, TriBike Transport has my bike and some bike gear so my bags aren’t as full as normal.
I have some anticipation but not as much this year as in years past. Maybe I’m becoming a veteran and I don’t get all worked up anymore? Or maybe I’m just distracted by all this travel I’m going to have in such a short amount of time.
I’ve never been to Coeur d’Alene before. Who knows what I’ll find there, which is why I’m bringing a lot of stuff – you never know once you move to certain parts of the US whether or not they have stuff that you can get in the larger metro areas – brands of suntan lotion, equipment, etc.
Heading out soon….

For some reason, this season my left hip has been extremely sensitive to heavy efforts. This weekend racing Escape from Alcatraz was no exception. I was worried that my hip would tighten up and sure enough it did, although it was less severe than in the past months. It actually stopped tightening up for a while but now it was back.
Having a tight hip doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t hurt, but it feels like my muscles surrounding my leg at the hip area are dragging my whole leg upward, restricting movement and reducing severely its ability to absorb running shock.
When I went out to run with a tight hip, it feels like I’m thumping on the ground with every left step; very bad for shock absorption and I hated knowing that with every step I was transmitting that much more shock into my hip bones and structures. Definitely a possible cause for hip fractures! Thus it was important for me to get that hip loosened up as much as possible.
ART and Graston helped immensely. Self massage with a softball and lacrosse ball also helped, as did foam roller and TP Massage Rollers. But ART really helped loosened up the hip and I wish my ART practictioner would come with me to help loosen it up before the race! But alas, that is not to be.
So some massaging with balls and rollers, and then some self applied scraping with my own Gua Sha and STARR tools, and then some fast cycling on my trainer working through my pedaling efficiency workouts has really loosened it up some. I hope that in the few days to come before the race that it will completely get to normal so that I can be at least start the race loosened up.
Mostly, it’s important to be loose for the race. I need to have zero muscle restriction so that my legs can just move fast. I have practiced this all season during training, which is to use minimal energy to swing or cycle my legs either on the bike or run. I just want to fire my muscles just enough to make it move through the next cycle and no more. Contracting further just wastes energy. I’m glad that it’s starting to relax and hopefully by race morning it will be gone.

Today I raced Escape from Alcatraz as a warmup to IM CDA. I had not intended to race so close to IM CDA, but I made a mistake when I signed up for the Alcatraz lottery as I thought this race was 2 weeks before IM CDA, not one! Well as fate would have it, I actually got in and decided to race.
The race was huge. There were 2000 people signed up! I wasn’t really serious about this race so I told myself I’d take it easy. I almost didn’t manage to get everything together as I was preparing for the race and also packing for IM CDA. In fact, I did forget one crucial thing, which was to take my Sportlegs. This was definitely a mistake as on the bike, I did feel the burn whereas I normally don’t. Likewise on some of the run, I also felt the burn. But thankfully I didn’t cramp – it was the first race I’ve done without salt tablets, although I did put Endurolyte powder in my drinks. So I was very glad to not seize up in pain during the race.
This was the first time I did the swim landing at Yacht Harbor. It seems like such a tiny place to land – the last time I did a similar crossing I landed at Crissy Field for the Alcatraz Challenge, which is a much larger landing spot. So I was worried I would overshoot. Thankfully I did not and landed fine. It was a bit choppy and the current didn’t seem to sweep me as fast as I thought it would. I landed in about :45.
The bike was very challenging. It seemed like I was always climbing through the small mountains of San Francisco. I don’t think I was on my aerobars much at all, maybe three times. There was one small stretch where it was so steep that I was out of my seat and in my second to lowest gear. I was happy to get back to T2. The hills and the fact that I wasn’t trying too hard got me in at 1:05.
The run was very scenic. It took us past the Golden Gate and down the west side of SF. But it was also a mountain climbing exercise. We were going up stretches and stairs where we had no choice but to walk. Then we also went up the famous sand ladder and we had to walk up that as well. By then, I was sick of mountain climbing – first on the bike and then on the run. Geez. I pushed it gently once I got up the sand ladder and got in around 1:15.
I don’t think I’ll do this one again soon. The race is exciting and fun, but it also cost $400 and that’s about as much as for a full Ironman. Also, the mountain climbing all day long wasn’t too much fun.
Now for recovery and get ready for Ironman next weekend!

This is not what we triathletes like to see:

I’ve raced in pretty hot, really windy, and cool weather, but I’ve been real fortunate to never have raced in rain. Many of my friends have, but I have not. Looking at this weather report on my iPhone, I can only hope that the weather past Thursday is going to clear up. Being out there for 12 hours in rain will really suck.