Vegas trip (race included)

When most folks have entered their "offseason" (i.e. ice-cream for breakfast, lunch and dinner) I had this crazy idea to sign up for Silverman, a full Ironman distance race outside of Vegas. This race is not an official Ironman race, however it is the exact same distance. It's still a 2.4 mile (3.8km) swim, 112 mile (180 km) bike, and a 26.2 mile (48.2 km) run. Why I choose this race versus another Ironman right now is to get away from racing with 2,500 people and the IRONMAN hype. There are only 204 individual racers in the full distance race entered, and only 31 men in my age group.

Today we are flying down to Vegas, race day isn't until Sunday (November 8th). I woke up this morning with a combination of nerves and excitement. Yes, I am nervous about the race, but I'm also excited to have some time in Vegas to see a few shows. We are staying in Vegas a week after the race, and the current plan is to do some outlet mall shopping, catch a few Vegas shows and aquarium tours. In 2007, Tam and I did spend a couple of days in Vegas, during our epic drive from Florida to Victoria, BC. The time that we spent in Vegas then wasn't relaxing enough to truely enjoy Vegas, we were working out the details of purchasing our Victoria home from the hotel business centre for 90% of our stay there. So it is nice that we will have another shot at Vegas.

I have had great luck with the weather throughout all of September and most of October and managed to train fairly hard despite wanting to flop on the couch and eat everything I see (remember the ice-cream comment). Okay I did discover chocolate flavoured beer, and have eaten a large number of small halloween candy bars. I have done the hard training and now it's time to put it all together in Sunday's race. This race is branded as North America's toughest race. With ~12,000 vertical feet on the bike course (IM Canada is close to ~6,000 vertical feet) and another 1,800 vertical feet to climb throughout the run, this is not a "flat and fast" course! This course will be a real challenge just to finish.

Watch this blog for pictures and updates throughout our trip.