RACE DAY INFO

For those of you Team Preddy-ers out there.  Oh, let me digress, I won’t be long.  The whole family went out to eat the other night.  Mom wanted to know what you call a person from Idaho.  She kindly asked the waitress:

mom: so you’re from Idaho right?

waitress: Sure am.

mom: so what do they call you?…. (pause)

do they call you Ida -Ho (pause whole family gets a little nervous) – ans?

yeah, Idahoans?

waitress: yeah, that sounds about right (as the whole family wipes the sweat off our brows thinkings she was going to leave it at just Ida-HOS or take it one step further with Ida-Ho-Ers — seriously say it outloud, say it with a slight southern drawl — does not sound appropriate.

Anyways.  For all you Team Preddy-ans out there, I want to let you know that you can actually track kelly along her race.  All you have to do is go to www.ironman.com and go to the ‘live coverage.’  Then you can type in her name or her race number which is 2080.  This live coverage should allow you to see her times as she passes various checkpoints, and there’s also a live video feed of the finish line that you can watch her strut across.

The race is tomorrow and Kelly is all prepped up and ready.  She’s got all her race and special bags packed and ready to be dropped off in just a short while….

Putting the final touches on the gear, equipment, and nutrition

Hiawatha Hell.

Well the whole clan has made it to Idaho. After a few disagreements with hotels.com, a minor delay on US Airways, and a few drinks in Portland (enjoyed my Mom and Dad) we all got to CDA. It is definitely gorgeous out here. The weather according to the locals is AMAZING and on the verge of hot…. to us it feels a bit chilly. The temperature is perfect for racing. The only downside is there is a chance of rain for tomorrow… eh, you can’t win the weather battle all the time.

We have gotten to enjoy a little time in Ironman village where you can shop for gear to your hearts content, make inspirational signs, sample some grub, and meet all the other crazy (I mean focused) triathletes.

Kelly has still been plugging away at her training…. nothing too intense (it is her taper afterall). She’s suited up in her wetsuit the past two morning to swim the cold waters of the lake. She’s taken her bike for a cruise, and I even got to join her on a jog this morning. We went downtown and I left her at the water and went yooogging around town….. we met back up and she changed into some running clothes and we finished up on a run together. I think we are still on Texas time because we woke up, made breakfast, did all that above, and were back home by 10.

Besides the Ironman, there was another adventure that we enjoyed (well, the jury is still out if I enjoyed it or not). And by ‘we’ I’m talking about Scott, Dad and I. Dad/Bob is a big fan of rails-to-trails. It’s a great effort across the nation (who knows, maybe international) where old rail lines are turned into bike paths. It makes sense – most of the work is already done – it’s smooth trail that goes EVERYWHERE — all you have to do is rip out the rail system and either re-pave or gravel. There’s one of these rails-to-trails that Dad/Bob wanted to check out here – called the Hiawatha Trial….. needless to say Scott and I were dooped into going along. We rented bikes at a ski lodge that is right on the border of Montana and Idaho then drove a few miles more and started our bike ride. The trail goes through all sorts of old train tunnels and truss bridges and the scenery is nothing short of breathtaking. But there is a piece of this that I’m leaving out — Mother Nature. She apparently didn’t like that we were doing this ride. The thermometer in the car kept dropping and dropping, and then rain started falling more and more. When we started the ride it was 53 degrees and raining very very steadily. For some reason we still got the bikes off the car and left the comforts of a car with heated seats. We were not properly dressed for this outing – by the grace of god all of us had rain jackets — but not near enough layers beneath. Let’s also mention that the temperature drops about 10 degrees within the tunnel and the water streaming along the sides is cold and deep enough to give you hypothermia (at least that’s what our shuttle driver said). We kept a bit faster of a pace to hurry along the trip, and we probably didn’t stop to take as many pictures as one normally would when riding this trail. The worst part, was that we finished and were soaking wet and muddy – yet had not thought to bring a change of clothes. (don’t think the muddy attire stopped us from jumping into a dive bar to drink some whiskey though)…. The ride was good, would have been better in the sun, or even just a bit more heat. I’ll throw on some pictures of Kelly in Ironman Village and some from the ride, just don’t expect to see pictures of me – the wet/muddy/bundled up look is not a good one on me….

Here's Kelly getting her Ironman Band for the week and getting the low-down from Pat.

Bob and Scott having some boy time. The 'mud stripe' came free with the ride.