Pic Spocket

I’ll break down the Clearwater FL trip in 3 articles. This is the first part.

We arrived in Clearwater with our friends Craig, Tracy and Baby Turner about one week before race day. Despite our attempts at travelling light, between baby stuff and all my racing equipment, it was clear upon landing that the rental car size I had originally reserved would not cut it. So up to the counter we went to upgrade. I was offered a minivan, but I hate minivans and big SUV’s were too expensive. So we settled for a Crown Victoria. That thing has a trunk big enough to hold a few dead bodies and more hehe! Still, we had to keep some luggage with us in the car. Good thing I did not have my bike with me since I used the TriBikeTransport service.

We hit a snag when we got in Clearwater: the keys to the Condo we rented for the week were not where they were supposed to, and the agency is closed on the Sunday. After trying to reach them without success, we wandered around for a couple of hours, starting to wonder where we would camp if we could not reach anybody. Even the emergency number we had did not work. After digging deeper in the paperwork, we found a backup to the emergency backup number (?!?) so we finally managed to reach somebody that would get us the keys we needed.

Things were not looking too good on that first day. Temperature was really cold and the wind was blowing like crazy. The stroller was going away on its own because of the wind! It felt as cold as it was when we left home. Fortunately, things would get better in the following days!

The condo we had was just awesome: view on the water channel behind from the balcony, huge amount of space, nicely furnished with everything we needed to cook meals, wash clothes, etc. Perfect setup! Moreover, it was only a 5-10 minutes walk to downtown Clearwater Beach and Pier60, central point for the upcoming race. Here is a view at night we had from our huge balcony. In the distance, we see the bridge (causeway) that I would have to cross so many times during the race.

Cadence (Baby Turner) quickly got comfortable in the Condo

In our first days, temperature got nicer, in the low 80’s, sunny everyday. In our first couple of days, we walked around and did a beach day. All the beach shower posts in the area had a turtle on it. The sand on the beach was deep white, the finest sand I have ever seen, groomed every morning. It felt really fluffy when walking on it right after being groomed.

Pier60 was one of the local attraction and we went on it. Every evening, they had local artists selling their creations on the pier, but nothing really caught our eye.

During that time, I had a light training schedule to follow, about 1 hour per day with light swims and run sessions (my bike would only show up Thursday). It was nice to be there early on and see the race campus slowly getting built and seeing more and more athletes arriving and training in the area as the week progressed. The Ironman race there is a big show, being the world championship.

When Wednesday came, it was time to register and hit the expo and the Ironman store. I had plans to get a lot of t-shirts and training gear as souvenir of this experience: who knows if I can ever make it back to the Championship! I pushed to get there early, and as a result we were amongst the first visitors

One funny thing. One day in the elevator, we meet this very nice lady that reacted to Craig’s “Ironman Muskoka” shirt and started conversation. It took us a while because we did not recognize each other right off the bat, but it turned out it was Margaret, another athlete from the surroundings of Windsor, and we have the same coach! We saw each other at least once at a training day last winter. They happened to be in the condo unit right beside us. What were the chances?! Margaret is competing in the 60-64 age group. What an inspiration!

Her and her husband were super nice and they invited the whole bunch of us for their “traditional Ironman turkey dinner” which we gladly accepted on Wednesday evening. Dennis Masse, also from Team LPC was in the area to volunteer and see the race during his vacation. We had a very nice evening. Here are both of us near the Ironman Media Lounge.

The area is known for Dolphins. And we saw many of these. Triathletes swimming at the beach actually happened to have Dolphins following them. We actually had a show right at our doorstep, from our balcony, when the “little toot” tour boat came around. 2 dolphins were following them and they started playing right below us. Pretty cool!

On the Thursday, I could get my bike from TriBikeTransport so I was there at the opening, helping them setting up the tents. I got my bike, so I could do my small bike+run workout. Craig ran with me. The area was super nice for running. You could feel the place getting alive with all the other triathletes training on the strip.

In the afternoon, we went in the “John’s Pass” touristic area where there is a lot of shopping, boat rentals and boat tours. I have never seen so many Pelicans.

After going through the shops, we did a bit of sightseeing. They had one of those bridges that opens to let bigger boats go by, like in the movies

After an Ice Cream, we decided to go on a small dolphin boat tour excursion. It was nice to go out on the water and see all the properties on the side of the water.

We also saw several birds, including 2 Bald Eagles in the distance, and others including pelicans once again.

Everybody enjoyed the ride.

As for Dolphin sightings, we saw one or 2 very briefly at the beginning, but nothing else. We actually saw more action at the condo.

Funny thing: back on land at the ticket counter, they had this machine… We have the same type in Canada, usually to attempt picking up toys or similar things. But here, you were trying to grab a live lobster.

Out the boat, Corinne and Tracy tried a “Hurricane Simulator” machine. It did not look like much from the outside, but look at Corinne’s head once she got out.. hehe! Good times.

Thursday evening, we went to the Ironman banquet on the beach at sunset. It was quite nice. They had these huge lanterns on the beach, all the tables with white table cloth, food was pretty good for a buffet (I liked the Ironman airbrushed cookies). They had a parade of all the country flags: 60 countries participating at the race. We had the usual pre-race briefing at that occasion once the live band finished playing.

For the Friday, day before the race, I had to stay off my legs as much as possible if I wanted to perform on Saturday. So beach day it was!

More pictures and larger version in the album below.

Clearwater Vacation

See part II for the race report.
See part III for the last Clearwater sunset. (to come)

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 20th, 2010 at 9:21 am and is filed under Family & friends, Travel, Our news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.