IMAZ Day 2

IMAZ Day 2 started with the most important item of the day. Setting up the espresso machine and making a latte. Once that was done I went downstairs for the free breakfast at my hotel.

I went to the Expo area to meet Glenn for a swim. The new video starts with this area showing the bike transition and swim start. Not too much to see but there were a lot of people there for the practice swim. Maybe it just seems like a lot since it's in a much smaller area than IMC or IMCDA. Glenn and I got a nice swim done. The water was just chilly at first but then was very nice. The weather has been perfect. Well, except for yesterday. Very strong winds blowing a dust storm through Phoenix - gusts up to 45 MPH. My hotel is right under the flight pattern for Phoenix airport. With the wind blowing hard and the planes overhead - it sounded like a freight train in my room.

So anyways - we got a nice swim done. The water should be just fine for Sunday - temp is pretty similar to what we had at Wildflower for practice weekend. After the swim we got in line for registration. We stood in line for almost an hour. The funny thing was once we got to the actual registration area we were through it in about 10 minutes. I'm not sure what the hold up was for getting to this area.

Day 2 video shows the area where folks were getting ready for the practice swim, then the registration line, weigh in, instructions, more instructions and getting the timing chip. Plus a little bit thru the souvenir tent and then the free massage.

Or at least what I thought was a free massage. I forgot it was really the "Active Release Therapy" - which is still free but not quite a massage. The woman there worked on my quads and found some tender areas. She pushed pretty deep with her thumbs while I was stretching my leg back and forth. Probably good to work some of whatever is in there out a bit - but I was really hoping for the free massage part. Guess I'll have to wait until Sunday night.

Glenn and I also found Raf from the NB team. We walked to downtown Tempe for a quick lunch. Then Glenn and I decided to drive the bike course. It's a three loop course so we had to drive it three times to get a good feel for it. No, not really. Just drove the long road - Beeline Hwy - once and found the hills. After last Saturday's ride and the Calaveras loop before that - these aren't really hills. More like sustained "ups". The out ends on the uphill then we turn around and head down for the back into town part. Should be nice if the wind holds off.

After driving back in to town I went back to my room and rested a bit. Met up with Glenn again for dinner and the mandatory race meeting. Best news from the race meeting - each water stop on the bike route will have 4 port-a-potties - and a bike rack! What a great idea! A bike rack while you're dropping the kids off at the pool.

More tomorrow on putting the various transition bags, special needs and race numbers together. Then I'll drop off my bike in the afternoon and get a shot of the transition area filled with bikes.

Here's the link again for today's video -

http://www.vimeo.com/user:177522/clips

It's a big file so make sure you have some time and lots of bandwidth to download it.

Thanks again for all the good wishes.

Staying strong, going long (on Sunday) -

Dan