Ironman New Orleans 70.3 2009 PRERACE

This whole event will have to be done in 3 posts. Sorry. I still need to wade through more of the 417 photos I took! So my next few posts will look like this:

Post 1: Prerace Shenanigans
Post 2: Race Morning through the Finish Line
Post 3: Pharmie’s Finish and Post-Race Shenanigans

So lets get started with the prerace fun!!

Our flight took off early Friday morning. So Thursday night, Pharmie helped me get into “race mode” by removing that thin layer of unwanted hair:

The sink wasn’t THAT hairy when she got done. Most of this was from my shoulders:

On Friday morning, we caught a flight down to Memphis before hopping another plane to NOLA. As soon as we stepped off the plane in Memphis, it smelled like meat. No joke. So I had to have a smoked sausage biscuit:

We arrived in NOLA, waited for TriSaraTops’ plane to arrive, and then the 3 of us went straight to that sweet meet-up with 4 pro triathletes that I mentioned 3 posts down. Here’s the photo I took of the 4 pros:

Heather Gollnick, Chris McDonald,
Linsey Corbin, and Desiree Ficker

Stu interviewed them while TriCajun and Robby recorded video (I’ll let you all know when Stu has the interview up on his site - it should be pretty awesome!). Here’s Desiree and Linsey being interviewed:

Lisa (TriCajun’s wife) wanted me to get this shot of Chris that shows “The Big 3:” his tattoo, his earing, and his sideburns:

I think Lisa has a little crush!...

Here’s Desiree and my wife Pharmie. How’s this for a lot of HOTNESS in one photo?!?

Yao-zah!

Here’s a final photo of Pharmie, most of the Evotri gang, and the 4 pros:

Back: TriSaraTops, Chris, Robby, Sweet, and TriCajun.
Front: Pharmie, Desiree, Rural Girl, Linsey, Heather, and Stu.
I took the picture. No Steve in the photo. Dang.

After that, we went to the race expo. I got tapped on the shoulder and was asked “are you Steve in a Speedo?” It was blogger Viv! She was getting ready to rock her first 70.3! We sat in on the pre-race meeting (all the normal stuff: don’t drown, no iPods, here are the penalties, here’s where the water stops are, etc.), nearly ran into Macca, and finally stopped to eat. All of us started with a round of fried gator. Well, ALMOST all of us. Pharmie didn’t want to try it. I dove right in:

Tasted like rubbery, dark-meat chicken

I ordered pasta with grilled shrimp. It sounded like a good 2-days-before-a-race meal:

Finally, we went back to the place we were staying. We rented a house with the Evotri gang, and it was GREAT! At the fullest, we had 8 people staying in that house, and we had such a blast!!

Saturday (the day before the race) we wanted to test out Lake Pontchartrain. Some of the team tested it the day before, and it was CHOPPY!! Rural girl got all cut up when the waves slammed her against these concrete steps:

Notice how calm it is now!

These next 2 photos I showed a few days ago - here’s Pharmie and I before heading out:

And here’s the majority of our group when we all wrapped up:

Here’s Stu playing with his camera:

When we were standing there, a little crab scurried over my feet. Then it happened to a woman from Dallas who we swam with. Stu tried telling us that it was a small gator. Thanks Stu.

I got 2 great shots of JP, the youngest Team Evotri member, as he was finishing his swim. It looks like he’s posing for some sort of Nautica Swimwear ad:

Sorry ladies, he’s in a committed relationship...

Because the water was SO SHALLOW right where the race was going to start, a few of the guys started practicing their dolphin-dives. Here’s Robby as he seems to be skipping across the lake:

Then Robby, JP, and Stu wanted to dolphin-dive for the camera, but it was a pretty uncoordinated effort. Here’s some of Robby, little of JP, and a lot of Stu:

And then I got a splash from Robby, a lot of JP, and nothing from Stu:

We all hopped out, dried off, and headed to a little grocery store for lunch. On the way, TriSaraTops and Stu posed next to this great sign:

“Poop-Free Neighborhood”

We grabbed food, and my lunch was GREAT! I had Sunny D, beef jerky, Spaghetti-Os, and PB&J on an English muffin. If you think it sounds gross, stop to think about how most of that is QUITE good for a body the day before a race!

Then we went out Saturday afternoon for things that were maybe NOT so good for us: BEIGNETS!! Beignets are fried dough that are then SMOTHERED in powdered sugar:

Here’s Pharmie and I killing some beignets:

Here’s Sweet, TriSaraTops, and Stu joining in on the fun:

Finally, Robby (who is usually an attractive man) shoved an entire beignet in his mouth and got a little powdered sugar up his nose. What were you thinking Robby?

Here’s Pharmie and I outside of Café Du Monde (where we had the beignets):

We all headed down toward Jackson Square, which is where we were going to be finishing our 70.3 the next day.

Right in front of the square, they were already closing the street and putting up the finisher’s chute:

Then we all went back to the house, the Evotri folks grabbed their bikes (Pharmie and I had our bikes shipped, and they were supposed to be waiting for us in transition), and we got ready to check our bikes into transition for their overnight stay. Robby was a PRO at packing 6 bikes and 8 people into their big van! We helped everyone get unloaded and set up. Check out this sweet wheel porn along their huge van:

TriCajun helping Rural Girl (who NEEDS the help! Ha!) get her bike set up:

Before leaving our bikes in transition for the night, I snapped an Evotri team photo:

What a good lookin’ group!

(Left-to-right, that’s JP, Sweet, Rural Girl, Wil, Robby, TriCajun, Stu, and TriSaraTops.)

Then we headed towards transition. Our Evotri buddies got their bikes set up. Pharmie and I had to go find our bikes for the first time since we shipped them nearly 2 weeks before! We KNEW they’d be there, but there were still little butterflies as to if they would REALLY be there! I spotted Goldilocks, and Pharmie found Tony (our bikes). We got our bikes checked out on a little test-ride, and everything was A-OK. We put them back in their spots in transition. I kissed Goldi goodnight:

Coming out of transition, I nearly bumped into Macca!

We shook hands, and I’m pretty sure because of that, I was able to propel him to a 2nd place finish the next day!! (Either that, or I held him back to a 2nd place finish... I’m not sure...)

So we headed off to a final big meal before our race the next day. The van was too full, so Pharmie had to ride in the back:

We went to “Mona Lisa’s,” and I had a sausage, ham, and basil pizza:

PERFECT pre-race fuel!

Back at the house, everyone was in “final prep” mode. Here’s Sweet going through all of his gear:

Finally, it was time to hit the hay:

A few hours of sleep, and then it was time to race on Sunday morning!! Since so many of us were from the mid-west, we didn’t know what the race would hold in store for us. It was supposed to be 80 and a little sticky (NOT weather we’re used to training in during the winter months!). I’ll be back as soon as I can with the race-day story!

(In the meantime, here are links to the blogger buddies from our NOLA house party who competed in the race. Go check them out: my lovely wife Pharmie, Stu, Rural Girl, Robby, TriSaraTops, Tri-Cajun, JP, and Sweet.)