November 24-30
Steve and I went to Cozumel for his Ironman race. It was a bit of a whirlwind trip and really I felt like I was still in Puerto Rico since it took planes, ferries and automobiles for us to get there. We had the misfortune of staying at the Wyndham in Cozumel which was terrible in every way except the friendly staff. The food was awful in taste and nutrition, all of the restaurants had very specific times that they were open and the times were a little strange and worst of all they had NO ROOM SERVICE for breakfast! Seriously, what other meal do people get room service for? In addition to the dreadful food was the "water saving" shower head. Ok I get the idea of being environmentally friendly and saving water, but to have so little water come out of the shower head that Steve has to fill a bucket in the sink and dump it on me while Im in the shower so that I can actually wash my hair is a little excessive. I was about a day away from showering at the public showers at the beach that you use to rinse off which by the way had great water pressure and shower heads. Oh well, I guess we didnt go to Cozumel for a luxury vacation, we were there for the Ironman and that was the most important part of the trip.
For those of you that dont know what the Ironman is, it is a triathlon comprised of a 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile bike ride and a 26.2 mile run all consecutively, with no breaks, as fast as you can. I know, I cant imagine why any human being would want to do this either but apparently its pretty popular and Steve really wanted to do it, so there I was in Cozumel at 4:15am awake and getting ready to head down the starting area so Steve can get all of his gear ready. Let me preface this by saying that the 6 months before we left Vegas Steve was training 3-5 hours a day pretty much everyday getting ready for this race. Once we moved down here, 2 months before the race, he trained maybe 1 hour total. I tried my best to talk him out of it but he's a guy, enough said.
So despite the lack of training he insisted on attempting the race. First up, the swim. I have to say it is a little crazy seeing 2,000 men and women swimming together as if they were a school of fish in the ocean. Anyhow, Steve did really well in the swim and finished 2.4 miles in just under 2 hours.
Next came the bike, 112 miles of it to be exact. He started off at a good pace and I saw him once on his first loop and he was looking pretty good. As I was tracking him on my i-phone through Ironman Live I noticed as the hours went by his pace started to slow and I knew he must be getting tired. After about 5 hours of bike time I was at the transition area waiting for him to come out for the run, and I was waiting and waiting and waiting, starting to get a tad bit worried. Finally he made it out about 15 mins before the time deadline for the bike and I could tell he was TIRED! I tried to cheer him on as he slowly started the run "Come on, only 26 miles left to run!!" not that that was any sort of incentive. As the sun started to
set and time ticked by he was still running/walking. At about mile 9 he came back around the loop where I could see him and he looked awful. I started to walk along side him and let him know that in order to finish the race in the allotted time he would have to pick up his pace to a minimum of a 10 minute mile for the remaining 17 miles and that would get him done right around midnight (yes, the race started at 7:00am) He looked at me in agony and said "I dont think I'm going to make it, Im cramping so bad I can barely walk" After me walking with him for another mile and a half trying to encourage him, he knew that despite how bad he wanted it the lack of training the last 2 months had taken its toll. After a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride and 10.5 mile run/walk we called it a night and went back to the hotel to ice almost every joint in his body. Once we move to a training friendly environment he'll give it another shot. Still very proud of him, I know I couldnt swim 2.4 miles let alone ride ride 112 right after.We stayed in Cozumel for one more day then headed back to Cancun for a little R&R before returning to Vieques.
December 4, 2010
We attended the Vieques Christmas Parade and tree lighting ceremony. This topic deserve a blog all its own which is coming soon (I need the photos to accompany it and am waiting on them from a friend). All I have to say is that one of the locals compared it to the Macys Day parade complete with fireworks extravaganza!
December 6, 2010
First trip to COSTCO!!! Steve took the day off and we flew over to San Juan at around 8:45am (plane was supposed to leave at 7:30 but even aviation is on island time). First stop was the mall. Even though I didnt really buy anything it was nice to have the option to. Next stop the pet supply store. There is only one pet store in all of Puerto Rico that sells the particular brand of dog food that we use so we had to go on an adventure to find it (streets are almost as bad on the main island as they are on Vieques). After we picked up the essential supplies for the children we headed into old San Juan for lunch. We found this cute little Italian restaurant that had WONDERFUL food, especially since you cant really get Italian on the island. Delicious! Finally it was time to go to Costco....never thought I would be so excited to see the magificent fully stocked warehouse that is Costco! It was as if the Angels were singing and the heavens were shining down as we 
walked through the large roll-up doors, almost euphoric, I swear. Anyhow, back to reality. The only unfortunate part of our Costco trip was that if what we bought didnt fit into one of the 2 empty suitcases and one large ice chest we had we couldnt buy it. So now I had to be strategic about my Costco shopping, which is extremely hard when you havent seen decent meat, cheese, produce, wine or really much of anything in over 2 months! As you can tell from the picture I went for the absolute necessities, wine, meat and cheese. After all, I can always go longer between hair washings to save shampoo until the next time I can make it Costco. The whole day flew by way too fast, cant wait until the next Costco trip.
December 10, 2010
Our things finally got delivered today!! I have no idea how they manuevered the huge truck through the local streets to our house but they did! As soon as they
started to unload the truck and we realized just how much stuff we had shipped that needed to fit in our little house Steve looked at me and said "Sh*t, we should have sold everything and rented a fully furnished house." This coming from the guy that was home on delivery day to unpack a few boxes and hasnt really been home since. Yeah tell me about it, unpacking everything and trying to figure out where the heck it is all going to go is no easy task (see December 13th).
December 13, 2010
Still Unpacking.....
And we're all Tired!
December 14, 2010
Did our first dive today from Mosquito pier. Cant belive it took us this long to get out there but we finally made it. The visibility wasnt too great as we have been having some pretty windy weather and storms to the North of us. Highlight of the dive was the huge sea turtle that was just as interested in checking us out as we were it. Forgot my camera again so as soon as I get the photo from our friends that we went diving with I will post it. We hope to start diving at least once a week so I'm sure I will have some better dive stories for you soon.
Have a great day everyone, more blogs on their way!
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