Pre- Race Dinner and stuff – Heat Wave 2009

The race report will follow on Monday – but I survived the Heat Wave again – this time without the heat. I bested my time from last year and had a good race.

Mike picked me up at my house Friday afternoon and drove us up to Brandon, Mississippi. Ted and Linda live on the reservoir in a beautiful house. They were gracious hosts and extremely hospitalible. I have seen Ted at every triathlon that I have done – all of them – he told me that he has done over 300 races. Chris was already at their house and Ben was trying to help Chris put a new cassette and chain on his race bike. We soon took off to Indian Cycle for race package pickup. Indian cycle is a very nice bike shop / fitness shop in Ridgeland. They had tables of appetizers out and there was even wine. Package pick up was up stairs and they had all of their tri bikes lined up – very impressive – Specialized, Orbea, Trek – all decked out! We also ran into Steve and John from Hattiesburg and they would be coming over to Ted’s house for dinner. Linda had prepared a huge dinner – spaghetti, chicken, two kinds of salad and of course numerous cookies and other goodies.

The weather was spectacular – most of us ate outside under a pergola that Ted had build. Ted is a specialty build and makes wonder constructions (even featured in Southern Living magazine) – he said that right now the ‘Outside Kitchens’ are huge. This outside area at Ted’s house was very nice – it had a beautiful brick fire place and a wonderful view over looking the reservoir and marina.

I had a really good time just talking race strategies with all of the athletes. We all swapped stories about past successes and failures. I ate a little too much - Chris told me that I really didn’t need to carbo load – but I wasn’t – I was just enjoying the food.

I was fading fast just after 9PM and soon headed up stairs for bed. I read a little bit and drifted off. We would be getting up at 4:30 for the race. I woke up at about 4:00 and waited until I heard others stirring.