Arrived in Coeur D'Alene Today

Today started at 4:15am CST in Nashville.  The whole family departed Nashville on a 7:00am flight to Spokane, WA via Las Vegas.  We arrived on time in Spokane at 12:30pm PST and rented a car and drove about 35 miles east to CDA.  When we arrived it was a balmy 59F and raining - reminded us of Upstate NY.

After checking into our hotel we made it down to the IM village to register, pick up gear and do a little shopping.  Afterwards we grabbed lunch, hit the local grocery store to get some snack for the room and then made our way back to the hotel.

I dropped off the gang and grabbed my wetsuit and headed back to Lake Coeur D'Alene to "test the waters".  The lake is beautiful with a back drop of hills/mountains covered in a lush landscape of evergreens.  After wrestling on my suit and cap I entered the water, just as the sun peeked through the clouds.  As expected the water was chilly at about 63-65F, not too bad.  I swam for about 15 minutes to simply get acclimated to the cool water.  The lake is very clear and the water actually tastes good.

At 6:15 ish I made my way over to the athlete dinner and meeting to review the rules for Sunday.  The typical stuff, no drafting, no littering, no urinating in the neighbors yards, etc-nothing too exciting the usual do's and dont's.

Got back to the hotel where the family was watching a movie and i proceeded to put my bike together and get my gear all organized to make Saturday a relaxing peaceful day - which is needed.  Having the family at an event like this is fun but challenging because you really have to focus and get prepared mentally as well as getting all of your gear, transition bags, bike, etc organized in advance of race day.

The weather for Sunday is suppose to be in the high 40's to start the race and climb throughout the day to 62F with rain showers.  May sound a little daunting but this is actually decent temperatures for and IM - only without the rain.

Enough rambling for today -getting excited and looking forward to a relaxing day tomorrow.

More to follow........