Day 1: The 8 Hour Car Ride

In honor of the last every Ironman St. George, I plan to share some highlights of our journey.  Today:  The 8 Hour Car Ride. 

From well before we got into the car, it was a comedy of errors.  I worked on Tuesday night until 8 pm.  Arriving home at 8:20 pm, we started loading the car.  After we get everything loaded, my husband pauses....  "I think I forgot to pack the computer cord."  This wouldn't be such a big deal, except that he means he forgot to pack it when he was leaving work a 3:30 in the afternoon.  The cord is still in the wall at work.  Attached to... well, nothing. 

So, our plan to leave at 6 am quickly turned into leaving at 6 am, driving 20 minutes to work to grab the computer cord, stopping for gas and coffee and then hitting the freeway at 6:45 am.  The day hasn't even started and we're 45 minutes late. 

When we drove this route in February after our training camp, it took us about 6, 6 1/2 hours to get home from St. George.  Today...  8 hours +.  I think we drove through more construction zones than zones that were not under construction.  Including one single lane road where the traffic from the opposite direction had to be stopped.  Yes, we sat on the highway for about 20 minutes.  Parked.  We talked about running laps around the car to loosen up while we were waiting. 

We had planned to stop at the half way point (Kingman) to swap drivers and fill up with gas.  I won't say who but someone (not me) decided that we should stop early... a couple of miles outside of Kingman to fill up.  Any normal day this would have been fine, but today there happened to be two very large charter buses filled with old and fat people on their way to a weekend in Vegas.  There had to be 10 women in line for the bathroom and you couldn't actually walk down the hall because the heftier ones blocked the aisle. 

(Disclaimer:  It's not my intention to offend anyone with this assessment, but if you had seen the group that got off the bus you would have agreed.  There was an unusually large percentage of fat people on the bus.  Like a good 85-90% of them.  Probably more.  Now that I think of it, I didn't see a single "normal sized" person in the group.  And by normal I mean by overweight-America standards, not Ironman-athlete standards.  I literally had to rub up against someone's belly to walk down the hallway.  Kinda weird.) 

Anyway, the point is, we picked the wrong stop.  Had we gone a mile further, we would have been able to fill up with gas and probably find something to eat.  Instead we refilled our water bottles and skipped the mile-long line at the register.  As we hit the road, I'm now behind the wheel and behind an 18-wheeler getting on the highway.... and I completely miss the exit I need for Vegas which happens to be pretty much a mile after we get on the highway.  Crap.  I drive 6 miles out of our way before we get back on the right track which doesn't help the mood in the car. 

Finally, finally, we are on the road to St. George.  And this is the part I love about traveling with my husband.  We talk about our goals and dreams.  We do this anyway, but for some reason, when we travel the amount of time we spend dreaming multiplies.  We talk about our passions.  Our goals for the race on Saturday.  Our goals for the next year, the next ten years.  And the best part is, we are so similar in our mindsets that I don't have to feel awkward about having lofty goals since I'm only an recreational athlete.  He gets it.  He asks me my plan for the race on Saturday.  He shares his plan for the race.  We imagine a perfect day.  We laugh about our plans for post race celebration (hello, milkshake!).  And before long, we are pulling into the Dixie Center in St. George for athlete check-in.

E'ly is all ready to go!  Showing her off with my swag bag:  Kick-Ass IM St. George back pack compliments of Ironman!

I'm official!  Athlete #219. 

 View from the hotel.  We can just make out the "Dixie" in the red hills, the backdrop of St. George, Utah.

And just in case my sisters are reading... Oh, yeah!  Someone got a new wool hat!  (Inside family joke, ya had to be there...)

So that's all for day 1.  We stopped for lunch at Great Harvest Bread Company.   Two words:  Orange Pullapart Loaf.  OK that was three words, but the best thing I've ever tasted.  Thank goodness we only had a free sample while we were waiting for lunch cause I definitely would have eaten the whole thing. 

Check back tomorrow for Day 2:  Swim and Bike Course Recon.  Happy Race Week!!