Home safe and sound...

Reid's week long birthday celebration is finally over. Because we were going to Clearwater, Alice didn't want him to be over shadowed by the event and we gave him his presents and cake last weekend. Yesterday was another birthday dinner with my parents and his cousins and today is his actual birthday. He is now OFFICIALLY a teenager.

Last night I packed up the bike, I didn't want to be rushed and miss anything in the morning. I bought so much stuff and if I didn't have extra room in the bike box I don't know how I would have got it all home. It was an early morning, I was up at 6 am. I couldn't sleep. We packed and got to the airport a couple of hours before our flight. I wanted to make sure we had enough time for Southwest to get the bike onto the plane before take off. There was no way I wanted to drive from Burlington back to Buffalo to pick up delayed luggage.

The minute the plane took off I fell asleep and woke up two hours later. It was the first time I've ever slept that long on a plane. Reid said my mouth was wide open, like I was catching flies. I was dead tired. It's a wonderful feeling to sleep most of the flight and wake up twenty minutes before landing. It reminded me of when I was a kid and would fall asleep in the family car and my dad would wake me up once we got home. It was like time travel.

All our luggage made it this time and we started the two hour drive home from Buffalo. Karma got a couple of twenty something guys at the border. An older gentleman in a truck let a car in front of him in and then didn't let these two guys in, which is fair, it should alternate. But these two Middle Eastern looking guys in their fancy BMW took offence. They drove up beside the guy, rolled down their window and started yelling at him and harassing him continuously. They were real A-holes. It's one of those moments you'd love to see the old guy pull out a gun and scare the sh*t out of them.

Turns out that the border guard didn't like those two guys either and sent them in for a car search. When I got to the border guard, I told her that she sent the right two guys for a check and some aggravation. I told her what happened and she agreed they were A-holes. She went from serious to a big smile on her face when I told her the story and that she did the right thing.

When I got home my legs were stiff. There would be no way I could even do a light jog today. I was kinda happy about it because that told me I gave everything I had yesterday. I did go for two short 200 meter bike rides. The first time was to test my bike out after putting it back together. The second time was to test it out again after I fixed my 10th flat tire of the year.

I also unpacked all my gear and put everything away and out of sight. Psychologically I'm trying to treat it like the season's over and if everything is out of sight, it will be out of mind. I'm even draining my Garmin of power. I haven't started to eat any junk food, but I am starting to loosen up the restrictions. Yesterday I treated myself to a small piece of Reid's birthday cake. I figured it was well deserved.

Now that the race is over, I can't but think how lucky I was after my chain broke. I was able to get back on the road in less than five minutes, that's less time than it would be to change a tire. My fortune made the difference from having the race of my life to having one of the greatest disappointments of my life. It's unbelievable how fine that line can be.

If it had taken only four minutes longer I wouldn't have PB'd. Or if he didn't show up or wasn't able to fix a broken chain, I don't even want to think how disastrous that would have been. All I remember as looking at my broken chain and seeing my finishers medal slip away.

I was blessed big time yesterday. I'm sure it was all the positive energy, well wishes and karma from everyone who was following me and cheering me on. Maybe it was also some Karma I earned from helping someone else at one time. After I got back on my bike and started racing again, I did look at it positively and think this was going to be a good story for the blog.

I've already changed my blog, I took off the Clearwater countdown timer and put on the Ironman China countdown timer. Now I've got to learn how to rest and relax. I have no idea what I'm going to do with myself for the next two to three weeks.

Off Season Rest - Day 1