The Need for Heat!

This past weekend I took a flyer to Las Vegas (actually Henderson) to train for 3 days solo in hot weather. With St. Croix just a couple of weeks away the 40-50degree weather in Billings, made me a bit nervous about dealing with the Caribbean heat of St.Croix. With Allegiant air, Vegas is a cheap and fast place to get to and the training is actually pretty good. I was able to log 14 good hours of work In 2.5 days and got my first sunburn of the year! I even stayed in my Hotel/Henderson area without even a sniff of the Vegas strip, although I really wanted to check out the Pawn Stars shop, maybe next year. It was all good and even though not all the workouts felt super great, I got the work done. The body really needs to acclimate to the heat you know. It was a real challenge to keep up on the fluids and monitor the intensity during training without melting down. The river mountain loop trail(40mile loop) is a great bike trail that loops around the Henderson area and runs close to Lake Meade, I also road out in the Park (lake Meade)and up some great climbs in very desolate desert roads that reminded me of riding in Kona.



descent and back up climb to Calville bay( lake Meade national park)



and at the bottom at the Calville bay the marina in the foreground, I had a snack here and a drink, but no mountian dew

I also did my first open water swim in Lake Meade, which was a bit chilly at 57 degrees, but my new T1 wetsuit and neoprene cap from Desoto did the trick and after some minutes it wasn’t all that bad( warmer than the Snake river!)




The last day I did a hot, hilly 14mile run on the river mountain loop trail and ave, 7:15 pace which was encouraging, then a bit later, in the heat of the day I did another 3hr ride and transition run(90 degrees!). Sunday it was back to Billings and met the Fam at the Peaks to prairie finish at Coulson Park. Sarah and her team of Jenel Duey and Robin Culver won the womens division, congrats! Also a shout out to Paolo Gerbasi for placing 2nd in the Duathlon and all the other clones and friends that did peaks/grizzly races, Sue, Carla, Pat, Ed, Tina, Don, etc… also congrats to clone Mike Fogassey for getting in to the Hawaii Ironman world championships in this years lottery! lots of work ahead mike!

It's great to be back in Billings, although the weather is still pretty wintery here. But that's ok, since now I will be taking a bit of rest after this past 20+hr week and I will ready for this weekend's tune up sprint Tri in Missoula and then the following week its off to St. Croix!