Chillin in Couer D'Alene (CDA)

I am out here supporting my best friend at the Ironman. This will be his second race at this distance, but first time on this course.

We (Lee, Karen, and myself) left Wednesday just after noon. We stopped a few of times. The first stop was for coffee and gas. The second stop was for wine tasting at The Cave near the Gorge. If you haven't tried wine from stainless steel barrels, you are missing out. The wine doesn't have that wood taste. Lee and I agreed there Chardonnay was the best out of the eight tastes we had. The last stop was for dinner (PF Changs) in Spokane. We opted to sit outside to keep an eye on our bikes. There was a suspicious guy checking out our bikes. He was merely admiring the smoking fast bikes.

We arrived into CDA a little after 8. Just in time for a fresh plate of cookies at the hotel. We called in a night.

The next morning we were up by 6 for first breakfast. Then went to the lake for a nice brisk swim. There were a few companies there with wetsuits, so we opted for a 2xu. It felt good, but not as good as my Vendetta. The swim was very choppy, no where near as bad as Ironman CDA 2007. They only set up about half the buoys, so we swam 2 loops.

We went back for second breakfast then packed up and moved over to the race hotel. What a view! We are on the 5th floor. We have a view of half of the swim.

Once we got everything unpacked we headed out for a short bike. Lee & I put on our race wheels to see which set up he should go with. I felt very comfortable with my 808 front & disc rear. Lee had no problems with the 1080 front & Sub 9 back. Lee had a nice easy ride, while Karen and I did some tempo work. After the ride, Lee prepped his bike for race day and we ran for 20 minutes.

We were starving, so walked over to the Pita Pit for lunch. Then walked over to the expo. Lee had a meet and greet with the fellow Executive Challenge athletes. We also met Greg Welch, Heather Fuhr, and Paula Newby-Fraser.

Today, Karen and I opted to try the Blue Seventy wetsuits. We still found our Xterra wetsuits to be supreme. Today the weather changed to rain. We don't know what to expect for race day. Lee being the big shot he is, was asked to do an interview. Lee even plugged us little people.