Posted by: Becca

Winter is here! Sure, if you go by the calendar, there are still three weeks until winter officially starts, but we play by a different set of rules. Once the snow stake is out, winter is here.

Kyle planting the snow stake in the yard.

We took a few turns this weekend. The snow was great, but there were way too many people. We also had a great Thanksgiving dinner, complete with Diane's spinach casserole and Mom and Nan's sausage stuffing.

Thanksgiving Dinner

Posted by: Kyle

Today was our last day on the redneck riviera. We had to fly out around 1:00 pm, so we got up fairly early and spent the morning on the beach. I was actually a little surprised by how beautiful this part of Florida is. I always just assumed that Panama City Beach was just a trashy spring-break town full of high-rises and strip malls. There is plenty of all that, but there are also some of the nicest beaches I've ever seen.

First thing this morning we went to the beach just outside our condo, then we stopped at a beach on the way to the airport in the town of Destin. Here are some pictures.

Posted by: Kyle

Today's race started at 7:00 am with a two-lap 2.4 mile swim in the Gulf of Mexico. The water was crystal clear and beautiful, though it was fairly rough due to the swell from hurricane Ida down near Mexico. It was a mass beach start, and with more than 2200 people in the race it was pretty chaotic. There was a lot of unintentional punching and kicking for the entire first 1.2 mile lap.

After the swim it was on to the bike for a 112-mile, mostly flat loop. It was a nice bike course and a nice day - sunny and in the 70's. I was amazed at how many people rode the bike portion of the race way, way faster than they should have. It's a long ride all by itself, but it's really just a way of getting to the start of the marathon. I let a lot of people ride by me on the bike, but, as expected, I saw most of them again later as they were suffering through the run.

The run was next. The run course consisted of two 13.1-mile out and back loops through PCB and the surrounding neighborhoods. At the east end of the course the road entered a state park and took a loop through the sand dunes, which was a very pretty, though quiet, portion of the run.

As I came back into town at about mile 13 of the run, I saw Becca on the side of the road watching the race with Pat and Steven Stockwell. They were in Pensacola visiting their son, and came over to Panama City Beach to watch their goddaughter race. Becca just happened to bump into them along the side of the run course.

Panama City beach is actually in the central time zone, but being so far east it gets dark really early this time of year. By the time I finished my second and final loop of the run, 10:09:13, after starting the swim, it was mostly dark already. After a shower we headed to a Mexican restaurant to finish the day off with some enchiladas.

Posted by: Becca

Ironman requires that you pick up your packet and attend a mandatory race meeting TWO days prior to the actual race. Kyle had to teach on Thursday, so that was impossible. We headed to packet pick-up as soon as we got to Panama City Beach of Friday morning - a little worried they were going to tell us 'No dice, we said mandatory pick-up yesterday. Sorry you flew all that way, but you can't race.' Instead we were greeted by ultra pleasant volunteers who happily gave Kyle his packet. Phew.

Next, it was time to pick up Kyle's bike. When we got there, his bike had a flat tire. It was the 3rd time that tire had a flat in the past week AND it was a brand new tire. We decided to put an old tire on with a new tube. Kyle did the repairs and we dropped his bike and other stuff off at transition. I spent the remainder of the day and night worrying we would show up in the morning and have a flat tire (and about cockroaches, but that's a side story). Walking around town was fairly comical. I have never seen so much spandex in my life. There were amped up athletes running, biking, and flexing everywhere you looked. And then there was Kyle...

Dropping off the bike.

Bags full of bike clothes, shoes, and helmets.

So many fancy bikes...

With the race stuff taken care of, we headed to the beach. It was absolutely beautiful! There were miles of white sand beaches and crystal clear water (and high rise hotels but you could ignore those). The weather was perfect with full sun and temps in the upper 70's.

Sunset

There are an awful lot of Waffle Shops in Panama City Beach, and it was pretty hard to find a pasta place. We looked around for a while and finally found Sweet Basil. It was loaded with people from the race.

On cockroaches - we rented a small beachside condo via the internet. It was $50 a night, so Kyle started told me we were staying at the Roach Motel. Combine that with the story a friend from Florida told me about cockroaches walking on her face while she was sleeping, and I was on high bug alert!