Kerrville Weekend

Jeff and I borrowed the coach from Adrian for Kerrville weekend, it worked out perfectly. This picture is from Longhorn last year, I can't believe it, but we didn't take a single picture of our campsite or the park this weekend, which is really sad because the park is beautiful! The pictures of the park below are just some I found on the internet.We got to Kerrville about 1:00 pm on Friday, we got the coach set up and walked down to the river, we couldn't believe how beautiful it was! Lots of water, flowers blooming, and butterflies flying around. We let Connor and Katie play in the water for a few minutes, then we headed in to town. We had to eat, grocery shop, and do packet pick up. As we drove into town we passed a place called Grape Juice and I noticed it was a wine bar and cafe- what a cute name! Then I saw they had painted in their window "Swim, Bike, Run, DRINK" I LOVE that kind of stuff, it reminded me of Cozumel where almost every business had signs and specials for the triathletes, it made me happy and gave me a great feeling about the weekend.Jeff and I went to packet pick up and it felt just like Austin since we saw so many people we knew! Kristen, Katherine and I decided we wanted to check out the swim ramps and transition hill we had heard about. The ramp was super steep and I wasn't sure I could climb up it out of the water, I hoped they'd have a lot of volunteers to help us out! And that transition hill!! It dwarfed the transition hill at Decker, all I could say was "never mind about trying to have a faster T1, oh well"A small portion of the cheering section that got me up that big transition hill on Sunday!
A little more of Sunday's awesome cheering section!

We spent the rest of Friday chillin' at the coach, Shayla came by and had dinner with us. Jeff worked on my bike, Spinnaker's been having some issues with shifting which has never happened before. Jeff had been working for awhile so I asked "is everything ok?" He replied "No, it's not! Your rear derailleur is about shot." I didn't say anything, Jeff just tuned up my bike a couple weeks ago and said I'd need a new derailleur soon. Shayla asked "will it get her through the race?" Jeff said "I hope so" YIKES! He worked on it some more, I did a test ride and it seemed fine. The rest of Friday evening was more relaxing, the dogs played by the river and we watched a movie, I don't even remember what movie.

Saturday we got up at the civilized hour of 7:30 and went out to spectate the bike and run of the sprint race. I hadn't checked out the sprint course at all, I assumed they'd have a 1 loop bike, but we saw Kristen ride by as we drove in and after we got to our spot I saw Andrea Fisher ride by. I was sure Kristen wasn't ahead of Andrea Fisher so I asked a volunteer how many loops they had to do. She replied, "either 2 or 3, we're not sure" Then she asked if I had friends racing and if I was racing tomorrow, then she gave me a "downtown dollar" (actually $5). I had seen something about them in our race packet so I was excited, she saw how excited I was and handed me another one. I wasn't exactly sure how they worked, but if I had realized at the time that she had essentially just handed me $10 I would have been even more excited!

We had accidentally found the perfect spot on the bike course, we got to see everyone go by 3 times, the course was 2 loops, but they went by our spot 3 times to get to T2 after the second loop.
Emmie having a great ride!
Me cowbelling
Kristen flying around the corner!
Scat in T2 resting after his awesome ride
Kelly running
Emmie hugging Linda after her finish

Most of the Tri Zoners had a great race, we had a lot of fun spectating and I got to meet Amy from Houston, she'll be in Cozumel with us doing her first Ironman, so I was excited to get to know her a little. I got a recon report from Kristen about the trail portion of the run, it didn't sound too bad.

We headed back to the coach so I could pack my gear bags and get everything ready, I hadn't done any race prep yet, so I had plenty to do. First I took Spinnaker out for a quick spin, and her gears were acting up again- UGH!! Jeff worked on the bike while I did a quick run and packed my bags. I did another quick spin and everything seemed fine, but I was still a little concerned.

Shayla came over and we decided to eat lunch in town. Jeff saw that our Downtown Dollars were accepted at Grape Juice so we went there. They had another window painted that said "Eating Antelope Makes You Faster!" As we were sitting down Julie and Richard walked in, a few minutes later Emmie walked in. She was waiting for Kristen, Katherine, Linda & Laura, but waited with us. They all ended up sitting behind us. Halfway through our lunch Ron & Roger walked in too- talk about Triathlete Central! Julie and I were enticed by the claim that "antelope makes you faster" so we both ordered antelope burgers and they were delicious! Jeff had quail tacos that were also really good. I'm getting hungry just thinking about that food, if Kerrville wasn't 2 hours away, I'd go there tonight for dinner!

We dropped off my bike and my run gear bag and went back to the coach to nap and be lazy the rest of the day.

I had never really been to Kerrville before this weekend and I was really impressed with what a cute, cool little town it is. and I was super impressed by how nice and welcoming everyone was, they seemed genuinely excited to have the race in their town. I think that really helped make the awesome atmosphere of the race weekend. I can't wait to go back, we may even go back before the race next year.