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| Danny, Ryan and Matty |
So the Ironman 70.3 World Championships, yeah I’ve heard of
them. Ironman, one of my friends did a sprint one of those. Oh 70.3 has a half-marathon?
My friend ran a 5k marathon once. Oh yeah we got that a lot from all the Vegas peeps. Apparently triathlons and gambling and smoking don't go well together. Oh well.
Anyway, we came to Vegas early to have a few extra days to have a fun little
vacation as well as to sort out all the details that involve triathlon. And
thank goodness. Because we needed every day.
Things started out okay with a smooth flight that got us
into Vegas early on Wednesday, checked into our hotel without a fuss. Amber and
I spent the day exploring the area as well as getting our portraits taken.
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| Ironsherpa and Irongirl |
Amber also had to do a swim-run so Amber tried to swim in
the Stratosphere’s pool. Which was interesting…
Her planned forty minute run turned into 20 minutes because
of 1)the oppressive 100+ temperatures, and 2)the oppressive crowds that come
with anything involving the strip. That ended up being fine since less is more
before a race and the heat will only drain you if you spend too much time out
there in mid-day.
The next day Amber had to do a swim and bike so we went to
the YMCA of North Las Vegas and boy was this a shock. Rather than an old
Concord YMCA, we were exposed to a brand new state of the art YMCA. In addition
to a huge, clean facility, they had outdoor swimming pool and a water slide.
That might be the best chance to get me to the swimming pool.
While Amber was swimming, I went for a run over at
Centennial Park and had some great views of the city as well as the mountain
range.
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| A view from the Y |
After the workout, Amber and I headed to Henderson to get
her bike in. We had been encouraged to go to a specific place for a great
biking route that didn't have any cars. I was going to go for a second run
while she biked but within two pedal strokes we heard something was amiss and
sure ensure Amber’s rear derailleur on her bike had broken.
Not an easy fix. We took the bike to the local shop who,
probably due to being too busy with triathlon preparation, were not too
helpful. Luckily, Myles Chase of MC Cycles who was coming out to support Deidre, was able to
get a new derailleur overnight shipped to our hotel. Problem solved.
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| Myles putting on Amber's discwheel(oh yeah, which was DENTED by TSA on the flight out!) |
Not so much. The next day at 10:30 when the delivery was
supposed to have arrived, our package was not delivered. We decided to head to
the race site to register. However, due to high winds the registration was
delayed in order to change the location. We met up with a few other Zoot
athletes and spent some time in the local library waiting for the race
registration to reopen.
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| Zooters Kendra, Hanna and Amber |
After finally registering, but not getting her bags for the
race transitions, we headed back to the hotel thinking we would be able to get
her bike fixed. But unfortunately, the package had still not arrived. After
several hours of checking, the shipment was still in transit. We finally
called UPS to see why we hadn't gotten
it yet, and we got something in return. The run-around. I spent over an hour on
the phone using my big-boy’s voice before finally getting someone to finally
agree to just leave the package, which was routed to the wrong town, where they had it and we would go get it. So we hopped
in the car and drove for about 30 minutes out of town, straight into a scene
from CSI. There weren't yet any dead bodies but if we stayed in this
neighborhood much longer there most likely would be. We hurriedly picked up the
package, got back in the car and headed back to the hotel where Myles assembled
the new derailleur while Amber doubled-down on the penny slots.
Today has been pretty uneventful so hopefully this will
continue through tomorrow when Amber and Deidre look to compete against the
best half-ironman distance triathletes in the world. We will keep you posted on
the results J
Up Next: IRONMAN
70.3 Worlds Championships in 15 hours!
Update: Click her for Race Report
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