ON THE ROAD TO JAPAN?

It's been busy times since Amanda and I arrived back from Hawaii. We had a little trip down to San Diego to take care of some business plus do some training over our old training grounds. I hadn't done the Elfin Forrest loop or ran in Rancho Santa Fe for years so it was a great to re live my first years living in the USA. It was good to catch up with some friends we hadn't seen in a while. Of course we had to have breakfast at Pipes cafe after our Sunday long run (Breakfast Burrito!!!)  and have dinner at Station Sushi at Solana Beach .... yum! I was a little bummed I didn't have a surfboard with me as it was possibly the nicest, cleanest surf I had ever seen in San Diego. Damn!

So now I am in taper mode for Ironman Japan and we are heading north before we leave to Japan. We are following a similar route to last year when we drove from San Diego to Coeur d'Alene only this time we will end our trip in Seattle to fly out to Tokyo. We could have flown from LA to Japan but we decided that since Amanda may race Lake Stevens IM 70.3 a few days after we return plus we will be heading to our second base Bend, OR it was best to drive to Seattle to have all the luxuries of the Golden Turtle. 

What's going on with the price of gas though? Last year we were paying around $3.20 per gallon ... this year we are paying $4.60 - $4.80 ... ouch! 

Training along the way is fun .... driving 200-300 miles a day and training at different locations. So far we have trained in Santa Barbara, Pacific Grove (17 mile drive is the best ride you will do in the World!) Santa Cruz (great pool at UCSC) and San Francisco (love running the Escape from Alcatraz course). Further on we will stop in Santa Rosa to ride over the Vineman course and run in Eugene, OR for a run over Prefontaines tracks. There will also be stops a various swimming pools in Redding, CA and Portland, OR. For those that need to find pools on the road check out www.swimmersguide.com. It really helps a traveling triathlete pretty much anywhere in the world. If all goes to plan we should reach Seattle on Saturday night ready for our Sunday morning departure to Japan.

I am looking forward to racing another Ironman. I am especially excited to be racing for my new sponsor K-Swiss and trailing some prototype shoes. They are awesome! I am also looking forward to another showdown with Mitch Anderson of Australia who has gotten the better of me on every occassion we have raced. We seem to get ourselves into a close battle each time we race. I lead him out of the swim, he catches me on the bike then we are in close proximity on the run. It will definitely be another interesting one. 

We it's time to get out of the coffee shop and onto the bike! More from the road soon!

Cheers