We drove out to Loews at Lake Las Vegas, parked and picked up our registration. We were lucky in that they let us check into our room despite it being only like 10am or something. We changed into our swimming stuff and then met up with Cori from the SLC LUNA Chix team and Kris and Shannon from Spokane down by the pool. The lake water was cold and a little grody. But I quickly got used to it and off we went. They warned that you would be DQed if you swam out too far so we stayed in the cove like we were supposed to and did 2 loops. We swam for only about 20 minutes. I felt pretty good but my left arm and shoulder felt a little weak. I hadn’t been in a wetsuit in a long time, so there was probably some adjusting there, too. I forgot my ear plugs in WA, and although I felt fine while swimming, I was pretty dizzy when we got out. I had also realized that I wasn’t freaked out at all while swimming. I guessed it was because it’s a man made lake so anything scary in it would have had to have been put into it by people. When I told this to Eric, he said I should be even more scared then because all the scary stuff would ooze up from the mud at the bottom, having been buried for hundreds or even thousands of years. Nice.
We got changed into our biking gear and fiddled with the bikes in the parking lot. We stopped by the LUNA truck and tent to see Chris Mathis and get a photo.
Then we headed out. It was really hot by now, close to noon, I think and close to 140 degrees. No shade, lots of glare and lots of heat. I took it really easy on the pre-ride.
There were some good hills and then there were some bad hills, like really long, super steep, un-ride-able hills that were even hard to push the bike up! Once on the top of one, you head down and then bam! There is another one! I’m not used to riding on the gravel like a lot of this course is, so I was slow, even on the down hills. There was one downhill section you could see as you climb up another section – I turned to Cori and asked if we had to go down it. And yes we did! I got off and walked down it. Feeling a little wimpy but I also know I have a hard time on that loose gravel and I didn’t want to crash before the race even started. The glare in some spots reminded me of the glare on snow - where all you see is white - no bumps, it was all washed out. At one point we rode down through this crazy canyon, where the gravel was deep and the canyon walls were high on either side. Kris was just riding along, one hand on the handle bars, taking videos while I was holding on for dear life trying not to crash! Leaving the canyon there was this crazy section that must have been a bit of a mud flat at some point since it was smooth but had cracked in all kinds of ways due to the heat. check out Conrad Stoltz's photo of it, it was so cool. 
Not much longer there was a section that I can’t even compare it to anything I’ve ridden on before. Maybe it was an old river bed? Kris managed to ride it but the rest of us had to get off and carry our bikes since the bumps were so big up and down and all over and non-stop. I wish I could explain it better because it was crazy. After that crazy part the rest of the bike course was pretty fun with a short section of sort of single track but always with the gravel cramping my style.Later we headed back out to NW Las Vegas to pick up the kids and take them to my brother’s.
When we got there, Sirus was riding a big bike all around a park, just round and round. He did crash once, it looked pretty bad, but he got right up and started riding again. Seamus was on a push scooter just scooting along, getting themselves all worn out. We headed over to Rick’s and then out to dinner. I hadn’t seen Rick (or Carissa or Hannah) since Disney World, so it was fun to catch up. Rick is a funny guy. 
After dinner we dropped the kids at their house and headed back down to Lake Las Vegas. (yes, each of these trips was about an hour each way).
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