Travel and Newfoundland 70.3

With my little break behind me I had just over a week to get my body moving again and somewhat ready to race Newfoundland 70.3. After 5 days off you really don’t lose much fitness at all – what you do lose is bit of strength and some feel… especially in the swim (for me, at least). I spent the weekend doing some longer strength training before the Monday when I had to head off to Baltimore to hang out with one of my sponsors ‘Cerasport.’

Cera products had organized a Meet and Greet with me in Centennial Park (Cambridge) on the Tuesday evening and I had a great time. Ceraproducts are very new into the sports world – they started off by creating oral rehydration solutions for use in hospitals. These solutions help severely dehydrated patients without the use of an IV drip. It wasn’t long before they noticed that there are similar problems with dehydration in sports and came up with the idea to develop a drink for athletes. They are still working on the flavors but are hoping to be on the shelves within the next year. You can read more about the product and order online at www.ceraproductsinc.com.

The rest of the week was spent at sea level on pretty much my usual race week training schedule. I flew out of Baltimore on Thursday afternoon and was supposed to arrive into Deer Lake airport at 12:30am Friday morning. Well that didn’t happen because the flight, unfortunately, was delayed out of Halifax and I ended up arriving at Deer Lake at 4am… sans baggage… Loving travel in the US right now!!

After an hour drive we arrived at my hotel in Cornerbrook. So tired! I just wanted to get the key to my room and get some sleep. The guy at reception was having trouble finding my booking – but finally just gave me a key and I was off to my room. I opened the door and flicked on the light – only to walk in on a guy who may or may not have been naked (sheets covering his lower half – thank goodness). With my loud entry I had woken him up and for a second we just stared at each other. Then I laughed and apologized and was out of there in a flash!!

Back down to the lobby to try get another room – I was too tired to be angry so just told the guy what had happened and he was like ‘Oh. I see. You are not down to check in until 3pm today’. So I gave him a rather filthy look and said ‘Well I am here now mate’!! He found me a room and I was back on the elevator and off into my new room. By this time the sun was rising – so I shut the blinds quite tight, climbed into bed and promptly fell asleep!

My bike arrived later Friday afternoon but still no sign of my bag and, in my infinite wisdom, I had decided to pack my bike shoes into my other bag… So even though I had my bike I couldn’t ride it. I did however pack some running gear in my carry on and was at least able to get a little run in. When my bag still hadn’t arrived by Saturday lunch – I figured it was time to try round up some gear so I could at least participate in this race. I needed a wetsuit, race kit, bike shoes and pedals, plus all the other bits and pieces that you need for a race. Fortunately, with the help of one of the race organizers and some of the pro men, I was able to come up with everything I needed to compete in the race

I was a little sad that I wasn’t going to be able to race in my special Zoot kit and felt kinda bad that I was going to be wearing all these random brands – I had some of Richie’s Team Timex uniform, and a Blue Seventy wetsuit. I was worried that my sponsors would be a bit upset with me – but figured that it was either this or sit on the sideline and just watch. So 8:30pm Saturday night I had my race bag packed and was mentally ready to race in this gear that I had never used before. Then I got a call from the lobby saying that a bag had arrived for me…………… YEAH! I ran downstairs and there it was – Thank goodness! All was well in the end!

After those few days of things going wrong – getting through the race was the easy part. I don’t feel like I need to go into all the details of the race – so here is the short of it. Overall I had a decent race – it was hard day though and at no point did I feel all that great. I kinda knew it was going to be a hard one after having that little break. I went into the race telling myself that this was nothing more than a hard training day. Fortunately I was strong enough to take 1^st place and with that my 4^th 70.3 win of the year.

Now I am back in boulder and settling back into some much needed training. The next race on my schedule is Chicago, but I am really not sure yet if I will race. I have raced a lot this year and am starting to feel like I need to make sure I am getting in enough solid training. I will see how the next few weeks go and keep you posted!