World Championship Week! Arrived in Mt Tremblant, Canada

It's race week again!

And this time it's the last Tri of the season with Ironman 70.3 World Championships in Mont Tremblant, Quebec, Canada.

After spending Labor Day weekend in Lake George, NY where Mariesa completed her second Olympic tri of the season, we drove up to Canada yesterday for IM 70.3 Worlds.
We stopped in Montreal for lunch and arrived in Mt Tremblant around 4. Though still quiet, you can tell the village is getting excited for the event. Ironman signs everywhere, the Ironman village is already up and the transition area is already set up. Awesome!

Mt Tremblant is beautiful! The village is very charming, with lots of restaurants, shops, and a gondola that takes you over the village and up at the top of the mountain behind it. You see hydro planes landing in Lake Tremblant, Canoe and kayak rentals, hiking and MTDing trails all around. All that adds up to the quintessential cliche I have of Canada. Everything is at walking distance. the locals are (so far) very nice and welcoming.
A nice surprise awaited us at our rental: a deer was patiently waiting for us to feed it with carrots.

Mariesa made it to Zurich! Ironman weekend officially begins

A year ago today, I had my first date with her in the lower east side. We were supposed to get Tapas in that tiny restaurant called “Bar Jamon,” but she decided otherwise when she walked in the “wrong restaurant” next door. To her defense, that restaurant also serves Tapas.

A year later, I find myself extremely lucky to have her by my side. She’s my number 1 support. The amount of patience she has is unbelievable, and she’s been key to my training is so many aspects it is hard to describe. She’s been extremely supportive, to a point where she most certainly believes in me more than I believe in myself (and eventually it rubbed off on me, making me believe I can achieve some cool stuff in the sport). What a lady, and what a lucky man I am to have her! 

And she arrived in Zurich...

I picked her and Sam up at Zurich airport. After stopping by the apartment, we drove back to Zurich for dinner. Sam was kind enough to let us go on our anniversary date. She went on her own, wandering

around in the city and grabbing dinner. We kept it simple. I had gnocchi and she got delicious Roesti (I'd strongly recommend that you try it yourself. You can find the recipe here), a traditional Swiss dish. Nothing too fancy, and most likely not to the calibre of a 1^st year anniversary dinner, but with the race being in two days, I could not veer off track too much, and decided to keep it low key. I know it probably wasn’t to Mariesa’s taste, but as usual, she accepted it without a single moaning or complaint. She got her glass of wine, but unlike when we go on a date, she opted not to have dessert. I think she said no to dessert so that I wouldn’t feel tempted to have one either. I’ve been imposing so much on her already, and having to do that wasn’t best, but I’ll promise to make up for it sometime soon. 

Race Week - Arrived in Zurich

This is happening!

I just arrived in Zurich and I'm starting to get butterflies in my stomach. the excitement is kicking in now. The first impressions are awesome.

The city
The city looks amazing. It has this specific swiss charm of a city established at the border of Lake Zurich, with the Swiss Alps for backdrop. To top it all off, the weather is nice, sunny, and warm, maybe a bit too warm for my liking with about 33 Celsius (91F)at around 4pm today. I'd certainly prefer to race in 55F weather, but you can't control it. Seeing the Ironman flag flapping in the wind right next to the Swiss flag was pretty cool too. It shows how big the event is to the city. The water is incredibly clear, and the water temperature was around 22C (71F), which should make for a wetsuit IM swim. I'm almost excited to swim.

The race site

The transition area is being set up. Volunteers and Ironman employees are being helped by massive fork lifts to set up the transition and race site. fences, and the Ironman store are being worked on. This is crazy. I signed up for this race on July 29th of last year, and thinking that I will be lining up on the beach of Lake Zurich on Sunday at 6:50am is surreal.