Coeur d'Alene Race Report!!!!!

I just read Tasha's (The Thighmaster Route to Kona...over there ----->) race report and I cried and decided to get on it and start my own. Here goes...



I flew to CDA on Wednesday before the race, thinking giving myself time to settle in would be helpful. New boy dropped me off at the airport, flight was uneventful. I got into Spokane around dinner time, picked up my first ever(!) rental car, and headed east towards CDA. Ten minutes later I pulled over and got dinner because I was starving and shaking, and got the requisite pitiful looks from restaurant goers because I was eating alone. Whatever. Once I got to CDA I met up with Greg (a customer who was also racing) and his family in their RV, and spent the night in the front half with his 10 year old daughter.



Thursday we went down from the expo and checked in, getting our race numbers and all that. Working retail has sucked all the fun out of race expos since I can usually get the same stuff cheaper, so I didn't buy anything. Elliott and Co. got into town that afternoon, which was a very good thing as I was about to strangle Greg. I take the Ostrich approach to racing in that I like to pretend it's not looming on the horizon, and Greg's type-A "I must go down to the lake for the 100th time to determine the proper angle to approach the waves today" mentality was really cramping my style. Seriously people, the water's going to be the same amount of wet whether you pre-swim it or not. Might as well stay warm and dry, don't you think?



When Elliott's fam showed up we checked in to the house that we were sharing, which was special. Sharing with his fam was fine, but the house itself was a little weird. The theme of the kitchen decor was apparently "stuff as many chickens as possible into one little room." Chicken wall paper, lace curtains, statues, you name it. Plus plaid carpeting...even in the cabinets. Oy. The rest of the house was equally country-cutesy, with the exception of my bedroom and the basement. I had the joy of inhabiting the Pulp Fiction/Mohammed Ali/nuclear mushroom cloud room, and the basement was lovely in its rifles-and-deer-parts splendor, with a chicks-with-whips-and-leather poster for good measure. Yeah. It was that good.



Friday entailed picking my dad and brother up from their hotel and making fun of the house with them, eating, and making excuses when asked if I'd like to go for a ride or run. Pre-ride? Ha! No thanks, ignorance is bliss!! One of the days (I think it was Friday) Elliott and I decided to try to find a grocery store. We got lost for 35 minutes and had to ask a toothless man who barely spoke English where to go. We later found out that the reason it was so hard to find was there was no longer any street leading up to the store. While checking out we decided that geography lessons may be in order for the high schoolers in town, since the girls at the store thought Wales was either in Canada or in the South America vicinity.



Eventually Elliott's wife's parents and brother showed up, making meals a big production. Happily, all of the non-racers had done this before, so us lazy racers didn't have to do much more than change the channel and show up for meals. That there is the real reason I race!



Saturday was more of the same, along with the pre-race getting the bike ready session (where my dad insisted on holding the bike up and asking questions...so cute), and dropping off bikes and gear bags. My nerves were starting to get to me. Holy crap. Race day is near!