Yesterday went by in a blur. After lunch my dad and I headed to pick up my bike from Tri Bike transport. This company is great! This is the second time that I've used them and I have been really pleased with their service. Although pricey, they take all the hassle out of getting your bike to the race venue. All I had to do was remove my pedals and take my bike to the bike shop in San Antonio, Trisition Area. The only drawback is that I had to take my bike in to get shipped out on September 25. So I went without a bike for a week. Fortunately, I was able to ride my road bike during that time. After I picked up my bike and their complimentary water bottle and hat, we were on our way back to the condo. You see, I had forgotten to bring my bike shoes and my rear wheel. This was an amateur move on my part, but I didn't replace my cleats on my bike shoes before I departed. I decided to do it here and I ended up stripping the screws. As for my rear bike wheel, I needed to have the cassette (think, gear shifter thingy) from my training wheels to my race wheels. This is really a simple procedure but I was lacking the tools to do so. So we returned to the condo picked up the aforementioned items and headed towards the airport to a bike shop called Bike Works. They were very helpful and had me on my way in a matter of 15 minutes. We returned to the condo and then I went out for a run. When I came back we walked out to the coast to view the sunset and the volcanic cliff. It was beautiful. (Pictures to follow.) During all this time, we managed to miss the parade of athletes down in the IM village. :( By this point it was around 6pm and we decided to head out for some dinner. I will keep this short, but dinner at the Sheraton's Kai restaurant was disappointing and overpriced. I will leave it at that. When we returned to the condo it was 8:30pm and I was ready for bed!
Fast forward to today, Wednesday Oct 6th!! I woke up early, 5am PST and headed downstairs. Our coffee pot broke, but my dad was clever enough to improvise. I suppose that would have been a good excuse to go to a local place. ;) Maybe tomorrow....after some breakfast a discussion surrounding---among many things---contentious health care reform, electronic classroom mediums and more I headed out for my 75 min bike ride at 7:30am PST along Ali'i (pronounced ALI-EE, kind of like Hawai'i) Hwy. Things got a little interesting when some tour buses drove inches away from me, but I survived. I rode the first half of the run course and then hit up the first part of the bike course, traveling on the Queen Q Hwy up to the Energy Lab. (This is also the second part of the run course.) The road surface was smooth and clean! The shoulder was wide and even the bike path showed an image of a biker with a helmet!! On my return, I hit up the Muscle Milk, Cytomax and Powerbar stations for some electrolyte beverages. I also sported my new ice arm coolers. What a great invention! Now I am back and showered and waiting to go to the beach.
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