Sunny Arizona

All is good here in Tempe Arizona! I arrived last Wednesday night and am fortunate to do some acclimation to the dry weather as I stay at my friend Michelle's house. Michelle is the best! She always opens up her house to me and I feel like Tempe has become a second home! The temperature is a chilly 50-something in the morning, but once the sun comes up it warms up quickly! High in the 80's (we may hit a record of 86 degrees today) and EVERYDAY is sunny! Last Saturday, I joined the local tri community down at Tempe Town Lake (where the race site is) to do a "Splash and dash". Actually, I only did the "Splash" part of the race which consisted of a 2000 Meter swim. The rest of the race was a 3K run, but I opted out of that, and hopped on my bike instead. OK...the water is COLD!! I figured, Arizona=warm air=warm water...Not the case! The temperature was 64 degrees, and to me, that is COLD!! Im glad I did it though, as I am a HUGE wimp when it comes to cold water, and now I will be "mentally prepared" for race day.

After the swim, I hopped on my bike for a nice 3 hour ride with some Ironman paced intervals mixed in. WOW! The wind was CRAZY!! I felt like I was in Kona on a bad day! The wind was so bad that I was afraid to grab my water bottle for fear that I would get blown into the traffic on the highway! I ended up riding with two cyclists for a few miles and asked them about the wind. "They said it wouldn't be windy this time of year"!, I said to them... "You believed them"? is how they replied! GREAT! ;-) I spoke to another local after the ride and he said that it was the windiest day he had witnessed in a while...OK, so maybe it won't be so bad on race day! If it is, I guess Im prepared for that too! Always prepare for the worst, right?! Hey, at least we won't have torrential rain all day like IM Lake Placid!

I had a "day off" yesterday, so I drove up to Sedona, which is absolutely beautiful! I did some short (and easy) hikes and had a perfect day off doing nothing Ironman related. It was a great break! here are some pics from yesterday. Oh and being a "solo hiker" yesterday, I would carefully prop up my camera on a rock, set the timer, then run into postion and pose for the picture! It was very amusing! Below are pictures of Red Rock State Park, the Chapel near Sedona, and some other rock formations near Sedona: