The Goldwing rides to California

The trip was planned.  The room was reserved in Las Vegas at the Aria hotel Saturday November 28th...

But then the weather comes in.... Forecast snow on I-70 Friday the 27th. 

 

Just over 1000 miles to Las Vegas.  Via Las Vegas NM.  And Winslow AZ which was worth a picture.

The Hoover Dam

Of course once checked in I got a cocktail 

 Followed by Dogfishead on tap...

The crazy things you see on the street in Las Vegas.

 After riding through Las Vegas on motorcycles 4 times.  I guess the 5th time is the charm.  I found the fabulous Las Vegas sign...

Chicago for a little Ironman (and diabetes) training

Last weekend I hung out with my friends that are doing Ironman Arizona with me.  Lorrie, Susie, Nancy, Lyndsay, Sally, Tommy, Chris, Kathleen, etc.....   Unfortunately for me most of them live in the midwest and/or Chicago, specifically.   Lorrie found a 1/2 marathon for us to run on Saturday and a 100 mile bike ride on Sunday!  I was in!  It was also Lorrie's 50th birthday on Friday!

Katie made cupcakes!

 

Lorrie and her brother Frank enjoying drinks together on her birthday - this was before the entire bar sang Happy Birthday to her!

 

Up bright and early to run a 1/2 marathon.....

Next on the plan was a swim in Lake Michigan but the water was rough so we bailed and went to the gym instead.   This was the view from the parking garage at the gym.   Beautiful sky!

After our swim we met with the TriMonster group for some post-exercise recovery food/beverage!

Sunday morning?  Up bright and early for a 100 mile bicycle ride.....   we rode to Wisconsin and back... and it was 105 miles not 100 miles!

 Great weekend and sad to go home on Monday but got in some good workouts to prepare me for Ironman and some tips from my diabetics teammates!

Harvest Moon 70.3 (Half Ironman)

So, the Harvest Moon 70.3 mile triathlon is a half iron distance race ('IRONMAN' is a brand name and it is NOT a brand name race) that is the 2nd weekend in September and I thought it would be cooler than the Boulder 70.3 the first weekend in August... I was WRONG.  89 degrees for a high for the Boulder race and 95 for the Harvest Moon.  Ugh.  I don't race well in heat.  At least there was a slip-n-slide finish!!!

My finish for the Boulder 70.3 in 2011 was 7:59.  My finish time for the Harvest Moon, in spite of the heat, was 7:25!   An improvement of 35 minutes!  The general rule of thumb for estimating your Ironman finish time is to double your half iron time and add one hour.   Going into Wisconsin that put me at 17 hours - the cutoff is 17 hours and I ended up completing the race in 16:47.   With 7:25 I am looking at an estimated finish time of 15:50.   I am actually estimating 16:11 in my mind, for some reason.... but we'll find out on November 17th!

Tony and his relay team had a great race, placing 3rd overall and each getting an award with a bottle of wine!

I had a great race, overall, and am looking forward to Ironman Arizona in 9 weeks (not that I'm counting).

Did I mention that the slip-n-slide finish felt soooooooooo good?  It did.   Every summer race should have one.

Weather in Colorado.... (our house, anyway)

This was at our house..... no flooding but plenty of rain and hail!

some extra pix I picked up

 Tour de Cure

Tour de Cure

Copper Triangle

Copper Triangle

A good choice for Labor Day!

I had some time, so did my new flying buddies Amber and Cache.

Scott's Bluff area.

Playing it cool in the back seat...  Or wait, is he asleep?

There really isn't any way to describe trying to find and flying by Crazy Horse.  We could see a white spot on the mountain 20 minutes, or 50 miles away before we approached. 

 Crazy Horse.  Imagine the entire windows being filled with one huge sculpture...

Just playing it cool.

Washington is the first to see.

Another very impressive  sculpture to fly by.  Not as large, but much more impressive than Crazy Horse.

 Somehow Roosevelt got the shaft...

 Still in the background...   Flying by Rushmore was a bit harder than Crazy Horse, doing this again, I would approach Rushmore from the south, and descend into the valley with a clear exit path, you could fly much closer than I was able to.

 My flying buddies, and my new flying photographer!  Thanks Amber!

Of course, once on the ground in Rapid City it looked like Kansas...  No time for the $100 burger!

Back in the air, but not enough time to see Devil's tower up close...

One sick passenger, One late arrival at the home airport, but 3 very happy fliers!

Steamboat for the night OR how we put 500+ miles on the motorcycles in a day and a half

We decide to take a little trip on the motorcycles on Saturday of Labor Day weekend because, well, just because.  Here's a quick summary - 535 miles.   Denver - Ft Collins - Steamboat Springs Lake - Steamboat - Rocky Mountain National Park - Lyons - Denver.   I'm tired now.

So, it went something like this...  Denver to Fort Collins for lunch on Saturday - 

 

Tucker asked if I thought it was going to rain - as I was putting on my luggage covers.   I said yes but he seemed doubtful until this fuel stop at Ted's Place.

 

Top of Cameron Pass - we saw a moose at this stop!

 On to Steamboat Springs Lake State Park to our (very) little cabin overlooking the lake!  It was great!

 We found out that one of our friends was in a bicycle race in Steamboat Springs the next morning and got up early to see her and find out that 2 other people we were knew were also racing!  It was fun to see another bike race and some racers that we knew.

After that it was off to Lyons quickly for dinner at a friend's house and then home about 8pm.   We got rained on both days for more than 1 hour each time.  I was cold, wet and tired even when we returned to Denver.   Would I do it again?  In a heartbeat.  :)