We arrived in Spokane a little after noon on the Tuesday
before the race and the first thing I did was drag Brian and Herb to Gonzaga
University so I could get a look at their basketball court. Aside from being
obsessed with triathlons and racing, I am a huge college sports fan. In 2011
when we did the Boise 70.3 half ironman, we stopped at Boise St. University and
got to stand on their very distinctive blue football field. What ended up
really cool about that race was that the run course actually went past the
field. So since we were going to be in Spokane, I had to get inside that
basketball arena!
There ended up being a summer basketball camp going on and I
was hoping to be able to see the coaches in action or at least have access to
the floor, but the gates were down and we got there when everyone seemed to be
picking up their registration packets (or whatever basketball camps give out).
So I had to suck it up and pose under the Gonzaga logo with about 50 or so high
school kids looking at this old lady acting like a fan girl. As we kept walking
around the arena we found this bulldog statue that, naturally, I had to get my
picture with too!
After that we found a local pizza place to eat (The Flying
Goat) and then we were on our way to Coeur d’Alene. We checked into our hotel,
dropped our bags off, and drove around CdA doing some sightseeing. It is the
most wonderful little town I have been to. The scenery is gorgeous, the main
strip (or downtown, I guess) is super cute, and the weather was amazing for a
June afternoon. We were able to do lots of stuff before we had to get into
race-ready mode.
We went on a tour of an old mine, went panning for gold, drove
through the mountains, did some SUP’ing, went for a hike on Tubbs Hill, hit up
the local Farmer’s Market, and scoped out the race site and drove the bike
course. Then Thursday came….time to get
ready for the race!
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