"Vacation, part 2"

Once I crossed the finish line, celebrated with my friends via high five's I moved onwards to get my medal. It was a pretty one, different than the standard medals they gave out this year. I'm glad they did, it's an ironman, you shouldn't have cookie cutter medals. I was pretty grateful to receive a medal. It's not the reason I race, but it's a nice reminder of the sacrifices I made and commitment I made to myself and living a healthier lifestyle as it hangs on my wall. I do feel for those folks that finished IMFL this year and the race ran out of medals. tsk tsk WTC, tsk tsk. I saw my friends again, we took some photos (mike just recently setup an FTP server for us to share all the pics/vids, so I'll have to edit the photo in later).

I headed to the athlete tent and found my way to some food. Dominos pizza and cup O noodles. Not the best stuff for ya but let me tell you this. There is nothing better than calorie dense junk food/crap food post race. I'm pretty sure by the time I had eaten the slice of pizza and started the noodles that my body had already digested the pizza. I literally ate like 600 calories right then and there and felt hungrier than when I had started. I walked around for a bit in search of a space blanket, from there I made my way to the massage tent. I had skipped the massage tent at IMWI because my friend Erin was there to cheer and help me bring my stuff back, she was studying for med school exams and I was feeling pretty good so I just walked back to the hotel and what not. This time around the villa was about 9 miles away, so why not. I got in, barely had to wait 2 minutes and was called over by a very nice lady, Ruby. Ruby congratulated me helped me take my shoes and socks off (which was really weird, I was totally fine) and asked me what was hurting. For me, it's always my shoulder and neck after a long bike ride and marathon, my legs were not terrible at all. She went to town and beat the daylights out of me, it was incredible. While getting worked on I decided that it would be nice to return the favor and get a real massage from her later in the week. I asked her where she worked and told her I would be there. Low and behold, this resulting in bonus massage time. Saweet! I finished the massage, found my friends and got my bike. I headed into the mega pelican grocery store to change into street clothes, dropped my bike off to TBT (TBT is in the garage of the mega store for those racing next year) and headed out to find the gang.

I had decided that I wanted to stay out and wait for TM to finish. It was her first IM and I wanted to be there to support her. I missed out on Konstantin at IMWI because I drank milk and became violently ill (I'm intolerant to milk, oops). I knew she wasn't far behind me, but I also knew It would be about a 2-2.5 hour wait. It was fine, I hung for a bit and after an hour or so I started feeling weak. I ended up grabbing some food, which helped but another 30 mins went by and I was starting to have cold sweats. I decided that I needed to walk around, try to use the porta john and see where I went from there. No use, I told the folks that I was heading home. But right as I was about to leave something clicked and I felt a little better. I got back to the finish line JUST in time to see TM cross. She was so excited she ran right by all of us screaming at her.

We got our hugs and what not and waited for her to come out of the athlete area. I'll never forget the look on her face. Relief, satisfaction, happiness, you name it and it was there. I ran up, gave her a huge hug and we shared a word or two about how glad we were to have shared such an awesome experience together. Honestly, seeing her cross the finish line was way more exciting than crossing the finish line myself.

We gathered her things and headed back to the house, where surprisingly we didn't all just crash. We stayed up, shared stories of our day (some of the best stories were from the spectators. mexican superman anyone?). We laughed, bitched, moaned, laughed some more and eventually all made our ways into a restful night. 

Monday came around and we decided to rent a van and show everyone the course. We headed into town, had burritos (of course we had burritos) and rented a van. Manny was kind enough to chauffeur us around, which was great considering 1 rita and I'm almost under the table, 2 ritas and I think I'm speaking fluent spanish and 3 ritas and I'm on the fast track to sleeping at the front doorsteps. We drove around the island, stopped to take some photos and to pick up some gifts. It was really nice to see the eastern side of the island on two feet. It was much calmer on Monday. Made me wish that the race was on Monday instead of Sunday, I'm confident I would have been 20-30 mins faster on the bike had it not been the wind. 

We drove up the whole eastern side of the island and right before it takes a left to head into the city (crossing the island) is a nice place called Mescalitos. Here we stopped for dinner. I must say, this is a must go to spot at cozumel. Hammocks for you to nap on the beach after eating, great drinks (small drinks, but great; both ritas and mojitos) and pretty darn good food. I ordered two dishes, because I hate passing up more good food. One caveat is that the place closes when the sun sets, there is NO lighting. but i think it came out to like 200 bucks american for 6 people to eat and have drinks. It was quite a good bargain. 

On the drive home the sun totally set and while driving I noticed a lot of little flashes outside. It reminded me of the time in PA while cycling cross country in 2009. LIGHTING BUGS/ FIREFLIES! They were out by the millions. We pulled over to observe/enjoy the site. It was quite marvelous. On one side you hand the island that was glowing the the bugs, on the other side you had the sound of the ocean and glowing of more bugs. It was quite surreal. We arrived home and finished our night strong with some pool activities and conversation with the Guatemalans who also stayed at the villa and raced.

My favorite "shot" of Manny