Trication Part 4 – Boulder

Thursday:

We woke up early to head to Boulder for our last BAM OWS at 6 am in the Boulder Rez. I was so lucky to meet my Coeur Sports team mate Rebecca at this OWS and am super blessed that she delivered a special shirt for me to Boulder from Kebby and the gang at Coeur Sports. I am part of such an amazing team!!

Hello sun!! You are magnificent this morning!!

Meeting up with Rebecca…turning virtual friends into real friends 🙂

Getting our game face on 🙂

Turning another virtual friend into a real friend…Susan McNamee

After the swim, The Iron Hippie had some bike issues, so we went for an easy 20 minute shake our run. We then showered at the Rez before going to Ironman registration. It is always fun to get the Ironman wrist band and all of our race bags!!

Meeting DC at registration…our race director has been AWESOME!!

Getting Registered for Ironman Boulder

In line for registration…

Getting my stickers and swim cap

All registered!!

After registration, we went to Louisville Cyclery to get the Iron Hippie’s bike fixed, checked into our host home in Boulder at about noon, grabbed a quick sandwich, went back to the Boulder High School for the the athlete meeting at 2 pm, got some ice cream to cool off and then went back to Louisville to pick up the Iron Hippie’s bike.

This is my room at my home stay.

I even have the Ironman Boulder SBR flag up in my room 🙂

Yummy sandwiches…located on Pearl Street

Allen and his wife and I are sitting in the shade at the athlete briefing.

Allen’s girls were so good at the athlete briefing!

Mango dairy-free ice cream

We then went to the house that my parents have rented for their stay in Boulder and enjoyed some time with them before going to Pearl Street for dinner. We ate at the Cheesecake Factory for dinner since we had a large party and knew that we could get basic meals there.

Ironman athletes getting ready to eat lots of food!

Post Cheesecake Factory photo shoot…

My parents made the trip to Boulder to cheer us on!!

My twin nieces even made the trip to cheer us on…

I’m so lucky to have my family here to cheer me on!

The twins and Allen’s daughter Sara posing with a stuffed bear.

Friday:

We slept in and went to the Boulder Rez at about 10 am for an hour bike ride before getting groceries. We dropped off the groceries at my parents house before heading back to our home stay so we could shower and pack our gear bags.

Hour long ride went really well…Mojo and I are ready!!

After all was ready, we went over to my parents house and made a homemade pasta meal while we sat around chatting. It was a nice and relaxing evening, with an early to bed to end the day.

All the gear bags are ready!

Mojo is ready for race day!!

Saturday:

What a whirlwind of a day…we woke up to go swim at the Rez, but the line of traffic was too long and we couldn’t get to the gates before 8:15 (which was the time cutoff apparently, even though it was advertised until 9 am), so we weren’t allowed to swim until 9 am on the short course. We did a little swimming and then test rode our bikes to make sure everything was working well before we put our bikes and bike gear bags into T1 at the Boulder Reservoir.

Mojo is all racked and getting a good night’s rest at her temporary home so we can have fun tomorrow!!

Giving Mojo a “good night” kiss.

Bike gear bag is delivered.

Swim buoys are set…this is just the first leg. That orange turn buoy is a long way out there!

We then drove to the Boulder high school where we dropped our run gear bag at T2 and then grabbed some lunch at Lyfe Kitchen before going back to our home stay for a shower.

Run gear bag is delivered.

We went to my parents house to chat for a couple of hours before going back to our home stay, eating a plain meal (plain chicken and a plain baked potato) for dinner and then EARLY to bed. With a 2:30 am alarm, 6 pm bed time it was…

Sunday:

Sunday was race day. I’ll have a completely separate post for my race day.

Monday:

We woke up early to go down to Ironman Village to get some finisher gear.

I love my puffy Ironman Boulder finisher coat!!

We then went back to our home stay and took a nap before loading the car and leaving Boulder by 1 pm. We made it to Kearney, Nebraska where we stayed overnight at the Holiday Inn Express and grabbed a bite to eat. All I wanted for dinner was potato skins, so we went to Applebee’s thinking they would have them. Nope. I was so tired and hungry that I started to cry. I don’t think the poor server knew what to do with me. The Iron Hippie looked online for a place that served potato skins. Did you know that if you google potato skins in Kearney, Nebraska, you won’t get any results?!?!?!?! We ended up leaving Applebee’s (I did leave the server $2 for my meltdown) and going to the Chicken Coop where I was super happy with my potato skins!!

Tuesday:

We woke up at 5:30 am, ate some breakfast and went back to bed until almost 9 am. We were obviously tired…we showered, loaded up what little we took into our hotel room and hit the road at 10 am. We finally arrived home at 3:30 pm. I was so happy to see my girls!!

I’ve missed these two faces!! They were so excited to see us!!

I guess this means it is time to come back to reality and normal…whatever that is!! I already miss Colorado and want to go back!!