As for the race, in my opinion it was the toughest course of the three I've been lucky enough to complete. (Madison, WI, Louisville, KY) The weather was near perfect if maybe a little warm by the second half of the marathon. But I'm getting ahead of myself so let me back up and break it out into sections just how things went...
Andrea, Kelsey and I flew into Spokane, WA on Thursday shortly after noon and made the short drive over to CDA and checked into the resort. Our room was on the 14th floor overlooking the lake and we had a spectacular view!
We dropped our stuff in the room and caught lunch then we hooked up with Hugh and his crew and headed over to the expo to get registered and checked in for the race. We were glad we did this all Thursday too because Friday's lines into the tent were very long. By doing this Thursday afternoon we breezed right through and it gave us more time to spend money in the merch tent! Once checked in we made our way over to the TriBike Transport tent and pickup the bikes and the gear.
Happy to see my bike made it!
Now that all the gear was picked up we had a couple days to hang around the resort and enjoy ourselves. It was great to have Andrea and Kelsey with me the whole time for this event. I got to treat this more like a vacation and not just a race weekend. Friday morning I met Hugh, Jared and Shannon at the beach for a swim. Yes the water was cold! First plunge took my breath away but after a couple minutes I warmed up a bit and could get some air without gasping for it. We swam about 25 minutes in the choppy water and aside from my feet being cold it felt pretty good. Although it left me a little worried that this was going to be a tough swim!
Friday afternoon we spent some time at the expo buying some Ironman stuff then hung out with the Ryan's a bit and went for a hike on a near by trail.
Hugh and I stop for a pic along the trail. This was a popular spot for local teens to jump from!
Friday night Andrea and I went down to the Beach House for dinner while Kelsey got room service and relaxed. The Beach House was awesome. Great food, great service and yes more great views of the lake.
Saturday morning Jared, Hugh and I rode one loop of the marathon course and then took a short run down to the first turn around and back. Grabbed some breakfast then it was time to pack all the gear bags and drop everything off at transition for race day. The rest of the day was rest day for me while the girls went to the spa then over to the golf course for lunch and then back to CDA for some shopping. Carry out dinner in the room Saturday night then to bed and try to get some sleep!
Race report to follow...
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