Race Day 3 Post 1

Wow – boy did I get some sleep last night. Well a little bit. I went down at 1:15 a.m. in the room and was up at 2:30 ( minus the buzz time trying to fall asleep) to check on Michael. He was good so I did some earlier updates and before I knew it – he wasn’t around doing laps anymore. They will do 7/8 minute laps and I was standing on the side of the road waiting for him to check and realized he wasn’t around – a check of the TV monitor showed he hadn’t been around in a while so assumed he went to take a nap.


Harn Wei Kua of Singapore

So I snagged Harn Wei’s tent on the side of the course to get another little snooze in at 4:30 and asked Mary Miller (Wife of Arthur Puckrin) to wake me when she saw Michael again. I woke up at 5:45 and wondered and checked in with Mary and she hadn’t seen him. I hung for awhile and went to the room at 6:30 to checkon him and there he was getting some shut eye. I woke him – he was in that waking stage already and he said he would sleep a little more. I mentioned how long – maybe 7:30 and he was having problem with that so I mentioned no later than 8:00 and he agreed. I was about to walk out and figured why not lay down again and get another hour in – the computer could wait) sorry people – a little bit more beauty rest is needed.



Artur Puckrin of England and Michele Santilhano of South Africa

T.J. Murphy, the Editor of Triathlete Magazine, is arriving today and will spend a few days here, so need to look good for him. ;-). We woke at 7:45 and headed back to the course. Michael had told me that earlier in the late evening (when I was in Harn’s tent), that he found himself sitting in a park bench, not knowing where he was at, so he figured it was time to get a couple hours sleep.

Well – as I sit here typing this I am reminded, quite noisily at that, they have these birds here that are called Grackles. They are about the size of a crow with a long tail. They make this voice noise that is very load for the size but they also make this even louder sound with the feathers that sounds like a herd of monkeys in a tree. And there will only be two or three of them flocking together. Very noise birds for their size.


The kitchen and Denise ~ Jorge's daughter and my helper/Interpreter/Explainer of things

Last night midnight rations consisted of spaghetti in a cream sauce, mac and cheese with some kind of red sauce to it, chicken/vegetable mix along with rice in another container. And a few people kept telling me about this cider, try it. Well I finally did and it was good. It was in like a 20 gallon pot with a ladle. Well when you stirred it to get some, there was all this fruit in it. I just got done talking with Denise (Jorge’s daughter) and this is the scoop. It is called Ponche and is a tradition Christmas drink, or late in the year drink as some of the fruit that is in it you can only get later in the year. It has halved oranges, Téjocote (it is like an apricot and the whole thing goes in =, it has a skin like an orange), apple, guava, cinnamon, piloncillo (it is a sugar but comes in a rock form), raisins, pineapple juice and orange juice. This is all stirred together and heated.

The Mexican tradition is to have this at Posados. This is to replicate when Mary and Joseph were going house to house trying to find a place to stay so mary could have Jesus. In Mexico, before Christmas, there are two groups of people that will comprise the Posados. Posadas actually comes from the term Posada which means a place to stay at. There is the group of people on the outside of the house that represent Mary and Joseph and there is the group inside the house that represents the people that were being asked for a place to stay. The outside group is invited in to have ponche, tamales and other food, and piñatas and it turns into a party. You can also add Tequila or other forms of your adult beverage to it as well (hmm might have to bring the bottle of rum down tonight for that). Did I just say that?