After last year's wonderful experience racing in Vegas, my brothers and I had been looking forward to this event all year. That is until Greg got sick...but it was still an opportunity to meet up, have fun, and compete in a challenging race.
Some things could have been better - the swim was cancelled due to fridgid temperatures, a bee flew into my helmet and stung my head on the bike, we had some fairly strong head winds to battle against on the bike, etc. But all that is part of the race and nothing to complain about - in fact, I was still smiling and having a great day up to this point.
But when a race has advertised aid stations (water) at miles 20 and 40...and you're out of water at mile 40 and cannot find this elusive 2nd aid station - you may find yourself feeling dehydrated by mile 45 and cramping by mile 50. In fact, you might feel that the "Showdown" is more aptly described as a "Letdown."
Thank you a thousand times to the random young lad that offered me his 10oz. water bottle in the turn-around parking lot. And special thanks to the unknown hotel lobby that let me fill up my water bottles while half-way up the last 7-mile 1600 ft hill climb. Both were answers to prayers!
And for anyone thinking about doing a race by Sunset Racing (namely the Showdown at Sundown) - I'd recommend a more organized race like __________ (insert any other triathlon event here)! I for one will not be back. But it was a small success regardless, even though Greg had to race the shorter event; I was still able to beat Mike (revenge from last year) and we made the best of our trip.
It was good to spend time with Greg and Kellie and we hope Greg gets better soon. We also enjoyed the quality time with Miguel and Kathleen (Michael's special friend). And thank you to the Heaps Foundation for letting us stay with you guys for a night - pickleball was a blast!
Also, the biggest thanks to Jennifer for supporting me through all this and putting up with all the hours away while training. She's also a great partner at pickleball. If given the choice, I'd have to go with Jennifer over Heaps - just going with the scoreboard on this one...haha! Below are some great photos she took of the event:
Jennifer and Annalisa...also enjoying the shuttle ride more than myself.
Unhappy to find out this was just a bench and not a real big scoop of ice cream!
Here we are, as white as can be (and determined to stay that way), in Nassau, Bahamas.
A satisfying smile after a nice swim off the beach.
The hills at St. Martin.
Have GOT to stop and admire the flowers!
We had a whole day to spend in St. Martin, so we rented scooters and toured around the island going from beach to beach...sorry, no pics of the nude beach - it was gross.
Our view from our lunch stop...beautiful view AND fantastic food!
All Spence would talk about was how dissapointed Whitney would be if we didn't visit this "crazy" airport.
Formal night.
