Well – made it intact with all luggage to Monterrey Mexico. It has been a fast week. My wife and I went to England for two weeks, which was just two weeks after the Virginia Double and Triple IRON that I host in Virginia. We got back late Monday night (1:45 a.m.) so had lots to do to leave today to come hang with such an International group.
My flight left 7:20 a.m. and while waiting in Dallas/Fort Worth airport to board my flight to Monterrey, the terminal we were in had two evacuations. I was lucky on the first one evacuation. Just as I was about to walk out the security doors, they rescinded it and I was saved from having to get back in line to go thru security again. However, 20 minutes later they did evacuate everyone again. So I caught a tram to get to Terminal C and wait in line 20 minutes to get thru their security (the one in Terminal D was over packed) and I didn’t know how long they were going to keep people out and I was hungry. By the time I got something to eat, they were allowing people back into. I was one of the lucky ones as some people missed their flights because of the evacuation.
Not much of a problem exiting Customs. The agent did pull me over because of all the Hammer Nutrition product I had in a suitcase for Michael Gäertner. They are sponsoring him for this race with Hammer Gel and Perpetuem product http://www.hammernutrition.com/ . As I am his support crew for this race and he is from Germany, they sent the product to me. 25 pounds of it; hence its own suitcase. After explaining what it was for and his astonished look on his face and couple curiosity questions, went on thru to find Carlos waiting for me. He helps Jorge Andonie (the Race Director) out during the race. He is his go to guy. Picking up/taking people back to the airport, running errands, etc. Carlos was helping out last year as well. He recognized me right away – however he speaks no English and I speak no Spanish.
Quick 20 minute or so ride to get to the Parque Niños Héroes (park of the heros) and the Villa Deportiva Olimpica.
The Villa was under construction last year when the Deca was going on and was finished about a month after we left. It is considered the Olympic Village and has a central court with room along the outer rim of the building. There are 4 levels of rooms ranging from 2, 4 or 8 person rooms.
It is mainly used for younger people who have Olympic potential or that is the idea (someone mentioned there are roughly 34 different sports that they practice here on the grounds of the Parque). Their ages range from 9 years old upwards of 17/18, girls and boys. So try living in an area with 50/60 youngsters coming and going, yelling at each other (they don’t realize there are other people living here as well), playing air hockey (they have two tables downstairs so the noise reverberates around) in this structure that does not have great acoustics. There is a lot of reverberation of noise.
I am in the German room. Seeing how I am crewing for Michael, Jorge figured he would keep all them together. There is Marcel Heinig who is currently in first place in the IUTA (International Ultra Triathlon Association) point standings and his girlfriend Elke Streicher who is doing the Quintuple. Their support crew is supposed to make it here tomorrow. And then we have Andreas Buscher who is doing the Quintuple as well and his support crew Helmut. They all speak English so that makes it easy on me.
Next door is Harn Wei Kua from Singapore (currently in second place in the IUTA standings), Peter Lefferts from Florida making the big jump from Doubles and Triples and Beto Villa from Mexico and his support crew. Harn’s crew will get here Tuesday – in the mean time I will crew for him.
Most people got here Wednesday or Thursday. Some like Arthur Puckrin from England and his wife Mary got here Sunday; Harn was here Monday. There is more of a British contingent here with Neil Kapoor, David Clamp, and Suraya Oliver as well. Arthur usually does the Deca IRON however he injured his back a few months ago and it is still not quite right so he figured he would squeak our a Quintuple. Oh yeah. He is only 70 years young this year.
The Mexicans have a good showing with Jorge’s wife doing the Quintuple (she was one of the original athletes that did the Deca back in 1992 and still doing it). Mario Rodriguez and Beto Villa from Mexico round out the Deca athletes. Guy Rossi from France did the original Deca with Silvia in 1992 and is still going strong as well. He also holds he record for finishing the most triathlons in the world, which I think is upwards of 160 or so. Emmanuel Conraux is the other Frenchman here and he sent an email to Jorge recently letting him know of his intentions to try and beat the world record for the Deca, which is currently 8 days and 8 minutes. I was here in 2002 when Emmanuel won that event and he finished in 8 days and 11 hours. So he has been training a lot this year to hopefully set a new world record.
I will mention the others that are here in my next post, I want to get this published on the blog page and get my butt to bed.
Buenos Noches
I am in the German room. Seeing how I am crewing for Michael, Jorge figured he would keep all them together. There is Marcel Heinig who is currently in first place in the IUTA (International Ultra Triathlon Association) point standings and his girlfriend Elke Streicher who is doing the Quintuple. Their support crew is supposed to make it here tomorrow. And then we have Andreas Buscher who is doing the Quintuple as well and his support crew Helmut. They all speak English so that makes it easy on me.
Next door is Harn Wei Kua from Singapore (currently in second place in the IUTA standings), Peter Lefferts from Florida making the big jump from Doubles and Triples and Beto Villa from Mexico and his support crew. Harn’s crew will get here Tuesday – in the mean time I will crew for him.
Most people got here Wednesday or Thursday. Some like Arthur Puckrin from England and his wife Mary got here Sunday; Harn was here Monday. There is more of a British contingent here with Neil Kapoor, David Clamp, and Suraya Oliver as well. Arthur usually does the Deca IRON however he injured his back a few months ago and it is still not quite right so he figured he would squeak our a Quintuple. Oh yeah. He is only 70 years young this year.
The Mexicans have a good showing with Jorge’s wife doing the Quintuple (she was one of the original athletes that did the Deca back in 1992 and still doing it). Mario Rodriguez and Beto Villa from Mexico round out the Deca athletes. Guy Rossi from France did the original Deca with Silvia in 1992 and is still going strong as well. He also holds he record for finishing the most triathlons in the world, which I think is upwards of 160 or so. Emmanuel Conraux is the other Frenchman here and he sent an email to Jorge recently letting him know of his intentions to try and beat the world record for the Deca, which is currently 8 days and 8 minutes. I was here in 2002 when Emmanuel won that event and he finished in 8 days and 11 hours. So he has been training a lot this year to hopefully set a new world record.
I will mention the others that are here in my next post, I want to get this published on the blog page and get my butt to bed.
Buenos Noches
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