sweet, have fun. jealous ;)

Did you pack the red thong?
Nice....you ARE a lucky dog.

tribro - thanks, I'll keep in touch as I find i-net cafes. not that I want to rub it in. heh. :)

cheers toni, maybe our vistas will be at see-level I don't expect to do any small plane sightseeing however.

Anton: Yep, packed the little red bikini. :D

Tamara, great idea. I'll make notes.

PoC

I'm SUPER jealous; it's -11 right now here in sunny Minneapolis.

As for the IMC70.3 course, here is my take. I did the race this past Sept., wow that was brutal. The course itself was much better than I expected, especially for Mexico. The transition area is just north of the Water Park, the closest hotel is the Westin.

It had been less than one year since the hurricane. The under water vegetation was still pretty much dead, so the under water scenery was not as prestigious as you might expect. The swim was a 2 loop rectangle course with wave starts. The water was calm at the start, but it was choppy once the race was in progress with everyone in the water.

The bike course was modified because of the remaining damage. It was still 56 mile, but had a different route. It's an out and back course with a 3 loop section in the middle, very flat. We had a pretty good tail wind and then head wind on the 3 loop section. There was lots of drafting with only a few judges handing our penalties.

I think the run course changed a bit, it did not go through the golf course. It was a 2 loop out and back course with NO shade. The course is pretty much flat with some minor bumps along the way. The course goes north from the Water Park into the hotel zone; I forgot where the turn around was. The one part that is deceiving is the finish line. Most people think it's where the bike transition is, it's like a mirage you see in the dessert, it there but it's really not. The finish line is past the bike transition area, at least a half a mile or so.

I have to give them credit on their inaugural setup. I was very surprised to see them have plenty of water on the run course where everybody needed it; it was brutally hot with no breeze. The one thing they lacked was CO2 cartridges, they only has a minor supply at the expo for sale and disappear right away. This is an issue since you can't travel with them, but they did have a guy riding the course on moped with a bike pump. Hopefully they learn a lesson and put some porta-potty’s in the transition area instead of just by the beach.

There isn’t a lot of parking at the race site. We took a taxi the morning of the race, from the Westin which was the closest hotel/resort. After a brutally hot race the last thing you want to do is ride your bike home, but we did because there wasn’t a lot of taxi’s there for us take, it was only like 3 miles I think. The post race tent was great, plenty of cold water and Gatorade and pizza, a nice area to sit under a water sprinkler and plenty of people to give a massage.

I say it was brutal because it was darn hot, it killed me on the run. The best thing about the race was the post race R&R that we enjoyed while recovering.

Ok, one thing we have not asked him is that "is he working out??" He promised me he would before he left. I too am very jealous btw ;)

Hey! Tamara - BBB, I ran a 10k today started at 7:30am I ran south to the 8.5km mark and turned around. I carried a water bottle and drank all of it.
Then I jumped in the ocean and went for breakfast.
Later, I settled in at Papa Hogs ' a nice dive shop palapa on the beach with cold ¨refreshments :) and did a 1000m swim in the salt water - calm, 82 degrees, clear, lots of fish, people snorkelling, then a cerveza and lunch.

I may rent a bike and do a lap of the island tomorrow, about 30k totally flat.

Still on Cozumel, Cancun next week.

Gotta go to dinner, the GF is in the shower, manana!

PoC

Dude that is just cool man it sounds great down there...

Tough life PoC... thanks for taking one for the team and going there for us! ;)

Another great swim today, 1500m in a calm sea off Playa del Carmen. It is so easy to stroke it out in salt water!
I live at 1200 feet above sea level, not much but it feels like Im breathing so easily and the water is a perfect temperature too.

First night of Carnival tonight. We foillowed the parade of dancers along quinbta avenida and up to the plaza. It is just like Rio here!

A long last swim tomorrowe then back to Canada and the foot of snow in my driveway. :(

I jogged 2kms up the beach to Grand Coco bay resort, put on the goggles and swam back to the hotel = my longest swim this year actually and my last swim in Mexico this trip. We fly back at 7pm tonight
:(

Talk atcha later,

and thanks for looking in on the thread. I felt like you were all there with me :)

I´ll post pix when we get em developed back home.

PoC