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What would you do differently?: I would try on the old wesuit a few times if our lakes were not still frozen up here!!!  Transition 1
Comments: My hands and feet were frozen, so it was all kind of ackward. What would you do differently?: Not much...took it easy and methotical as it is the first of many to come.  Bike
Comments: Immediately on the bike, I settled in….and heeded all of the warnings about spinning the first 25 miles. At mike 26…..what I saw almost made me choke on the salt tab/Tylenol pills I had in my mouth! OMG…..WHAT A HILL. Honestly, it looked like a train of ants marching up the side of a mountain. At the crest of this monster, about 100m left, I hear this dude yell out “Yo Brian….how’s that new chain workin for ya??” It was my mechanic guy from the day before….Wind BACK in my sails. The rest of the hills (mostly rolling, but 2 other biggens) seemed much easier as I got into a nice quiet pendulum motion you get when climbing in “the zone”. HRThomson reeled me in with 8 km to go on the bike…..which is later than I had thought…as I was riding fairly conservatively not to mention that despite her size, this chica can ROCK the bike too! We BOTH looked at each other in shock when we reminisced about the MONSTER hills we just rode. Honestly, in all my years riding, I have never ridden hills as long and as steep as these!!!! We rode in together and left transition as a team What would you do differently?: Kinda hard to practice hills on rollers..... but that would be it. Transition 2
Comments: Very nice....as smooth as usual...perhoas just a tad slow... What would you do differently?: Not much...  Run
Comments: I was happy with my run.....I tried to keep the 5:30 pace I started with, but kept hearing my coach saying “you have 16 of these to do…chose your battles”. I did my usual fair share of enjoying the sights and the sounds, taking it ALL in…..the wafting aroma of the hibachi’s on the beach, the fog of weed from the surfers…and a few wet dog smells rounded it out. During my run, another dude from the Bike shop ran past me and patted me on the back and said “Hey Bri…just think….1 down, 15 to go”….that choked me up…its really working….virtual strangers caring to take the time to listen to what we have to share… What would you do differently?: Not much.... Post race
Warm down: Broke down the bikes...and headed to San Diego for some Sushi!!!! What limited your ability to perform faster: Number of races in the season. Event comments: Once again, we got our $$$ worth out of IM corp. Well done...and hats off to alll of the Service Personel out cheering us on. Last updated: 2008-03-21 12:00 AM
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United States
Ironman North America
60F / 16C
Sunny
Overall Rank = /
Age Group = Clydsdale
Age Group Rank = 0/
It was a long flight to San Diego. We flew Ottawa-Toronto-Denver-San D….with an unexpected 2 extra hours in Denver! All in all, we got to the Airport at 9:30 EST and checked into our hotel in Oceanside at 2amEST!
In the AM, our first priority was to check out the bikes. Once all assembled, we figured we would check out transition as registration still didn’t open for a few hours (internal clocks were still on O-town time). The first few pedal strokes on my new “never really seen the road” Blue T14 was heaven…..wow. When a bike fits ya, it makes a TON of difference.
As we left transition, there is a short-steep hill within the first 1k of the ride that we had seen over and over again in the IM.com website. We decided that we should give it a whirl. I had complained to Stella that on our last trainer ride and earlier in our ride that my chain was clicking…almost like I had a link that was tight. Well, as I climbed the hill I found out what it was…SNAP…. chain breaks in two and Bman tastes his first pavement of the year!
We googled “bike shops in Oceanside” and hit on this typical LBS, where the owner was the head tech mechanic in Kona IM for years. Dude hooked me up style!! They loved the idea of what we were doin and said “See you out there tomorrow”.
So that I would not have any bad vibes the next day, I got back into my tri gear, strapped on the old lid and went back to ride that hill. Mission accomplished.
When I got back to the hotel, Sara Reinersten (challenged athlete and Kona finisher) thought our endeavor was very honorable. She was a very nice person….not like she was portrayed on her one kick at reality TV….lol.
We went to get registered and all went well with no hiccups. Registration was right on the beach....it was pretty neat to feel the breeze and see the surfers out in the water.
After a nice pre-race meal, it was lights out for the night, bikes and bags already for tomorrow, as we were less than 1 mile form the race site, as we were riding there.
5am, the alarms go off and its time to pack the car (we were checking out of the Guesthouse Oceanside, and there was NO allowance for late check outs). We rode to the start line and went to our respective zone areas to set up our spots. Being #911 was pretty coolio too!