Thursday, May 1st:

     Greetings from St. Croix! I came in yesterday afternoon. It was a long day of travel; Austin to Dallas, Dallas to Miami, Miami to St. Croix. The trip went smoothly and I'm happy to be in the tropics. St.Croix is a neat island with a lot of character. They do drive on the left side of the road (although with American-style left side stearing wheels) so my orientation while riding has been a little off.

     Richie and I have a home stay with a very nice couple, Richard and Lori. They have a beautiful home perched up on a hill with view of the Caribbean. Richie and I have a little two bedroom guest house off the main house. We're located right off the run course. Last night, I did an easy jog on the golf course portion of the run course. Today, Richie, Mirinda, and I rode a little on the bike route. We rode up to The Beast, then I rode up about half of it just to get a feal and turned around.

     It's going to be a really fun race. The course is challenging but it looks like its going to be really fun. I think this is an ideal race for those who enjoy the challenge of racing against others, rather than those people who are wrapped up in their paces, splits, and times (that's code for "this is not a course to go your fastest time" but it's going to be fun to race). I already like what I've seen of it.

     We swam the course this morning as well. The atmosphere at the swim is really low key and laid back. I just love swimming in that aqua-blue sea. I could see the bottom the whole time. There were several sail boats anchored in the bay where we were swimming. Just beautiful. I do have to admit that the guy who was killed by the shark off the coast of San Diego last week did creep into my head a few times as we rounded the furthest bouey before heading back into the harbor. No sharks today though....

     I've got a couple more low-key days before race day. Other than the short warm-up workouts, I'm pretty much going to relax here at our host family's place. I'm posting a few pictures from today below. More to come in the next couple days.

A view of the bike course section along the sea on our ride today.

The start of the infamous hill "The Beast." Funny, it doesn't look very steep from here, it does get a little tougher around the corner, nothing to worry about.

Mirinda and Richie on our morning ride.

Some people have a lap pool....our host family has a "lab pool"

Richie got to the host family first so he chose the more "manly" of the two rooms. They call the room where I'm staying "the Princess Room". I fully realize that by publishing this, I am opening myself for endless "Princess" jokes from my friends. This is also the first time I've slept in a canopy bed.

Lobo and Maxi have made it very clear that I'm not in St. Croix to race, rather I'm here to pay attention to them.

Friday, May 2nd:

     It's my easy day today, focused on resting and relxing. I enjoyed a slow morning of waffles, coffee, and reading on the patio overlooking the sea. It's important just to kick back and relax like that before a race. I hadn't planned on swimming, but the swim course isn't going to be open tomorrow, so Richie and I went down and swam for about 15 minutes. Just enough to get warmed-up and get the feel for the water, but not enough to get you tired. The water was quite a bit choppier than yesterday, but it's still fun to swim in the sea. One of the locals told us the swell is moving in so by race day we should get a good sized swell to go with the wind chop.

     After our swim, we grabbed some lunch and drove the whole bike course. Man does this course look fun. It's a course where you can really play on the terrain. The biggest issue is that the road surface is really rough and filled with crack and pot holes everywhere. There's also a mile section where you go over about 8 different speed bumps, so we'll have to use extra caution there. the best part of the course are the climbs. Like I've said before, this is going to be tough, but fun!

     Last night, I ran in the 5k fun run that's put on with the event. We did more of an easy jog for the fun of it, but I was suprised at how hard some people ran, including a pro who's name I'll omit. Richie and I were chuckling as we watched this person go out hard while we jogged with the little kids. I guess we'll see if this person runs well on Sunday?

     I'm posting a few more photos from today, but it's just been kind of a relaxing kick-back sorta day. The couple days before the race always feel like the calm before the storm as you rest, drink fluids, and binge on carbs. I'm off to kick my feet up.

A look at the patio behind the guest house.


A look out at the swim course this morning before our dip. That small island is where the swim course starts.


The camera crew films Richie on our host family's patio for the race's TV coverage