IM Canada Registration Trip Part 1

So here's the first part of a 4 part registration trip series. Why 4 parts well because I'm a slacker and need my sleep. I can only manage 1 day per day. So basically, I packed up the car Thursday night so I could just wake up and head to the gym. Of course, I had trouble sleeping because I kept waking up and packing one last thing.

I woke up at 4:30AM and went to due my pool workout. I ended up having a pretty good day and swam my longest so far. A whopping 900 yards...whoa! I'm getting more efficient but overall still slow. I decided instead of going for a long run just to cruise a simple 30 minutes on the treadmill since I was immediately starting my 9+ hour road trip up to Canada.

I hit the road at 6:30AM. I had timed it perfectly to hit Seattle right in the middle of rush hour traffic with their I-5 construction made it super lousy. The only saving thing was I hit Costco to fill up the gas tank right before the major backup and went past it on re-entering the freeway.

I followed my Google Map directions and luckily bought gas again right before crossing into Canada. This was a smart move in hindsight.

The Canada customs agent asked me a bunch of questions and then right before letting me asked me the same question twice to see if I'd slip up. I was too quick to fall for it and I was inside Canada. I noticed as I made my way past the border there was quite a large backup getting back into the US. It was right around noon on a Friday so I just didn't think much of it.

I hit the Canadian freeway and I was off like a rabbit. It was like driving in California except you had to translate all your speed to kph and think would cops pull you over if you were going 20kph over the speed limit. I was going 80 to 85mph the whole way and people were flying past me like I was standing the still. The official speed limit was 110kph or rough 70mph.

There were tons of mountains passes on the way to Penticton. It was crazy. You were constantly going up or down massive Mt. Hood like passes the whole time for over 200 miles. The Escape wasn't climbing too well so I was constantly being passed as I was just trying to maintain the speed limit.

Overall, I made great time and the weather was perfect. 85 and sunny. I got to my hotel at 2:45pm and had to wait until 3pm to check in.

I called the two folks I was planning on getting together with when I arrived who were also up there to sign up for next year's Ironman. I called Don and he been there all day as they decided to drive during the midnight hours. He said they finally got into their room and decided to crash before dinner. I also called Darren who had done an Ironman before but was planning on doing Canada next year. I met up with him at the Expo which was about a 5 block walk from my hotel. I ended up walking the entire weekend rather than trying to deal with finding parking.

The expo was smaller than I had expected which was odd but overall they had some cool samples. We ate dinner at this decent Italian place and then I was beat. I decided to go to bed early because I had planned to ride the bike course starting at 7am on Saturday with a couple of other people. I wanted to be as fresh as possible as they were quite fast folks and didn't want to get dropped.

Don called after I went to sleep and my stupid Verizon service wasn't letting me check voicemail.

Part 2 tomorrow with highlights of a brutal head wind on the bike course and all about volunteering at an Ironman.