News
Penticton Update #2
Posted August 27, 2004 11:17 AM
The weather continues to be dodgy. On Wednesday there was a very heavy thunder and lightning storm with torrential rains. Yesterday, even though the forecast was for 0% chance of precipitation, it rained heavily in the afternoon. So who knows what race day will be like. We've resolved not to look at the weather forecast between now and Sunday morning. It's always way off base!
Yesterday (Thurs) was the first day the athletes could pick up their registration packages. We waited until late in the afternoon so the lineup process didn't take too long. We are now wearing our wrist bands - the badge of honour!
The weather is putting a damper on everyone's enthusiasm level. The merchandising tents and athlete's village aren't very busy. It seems quite a subdued atmosphere all around. Hopefully things will pick up!
We've done a light workout each day this week, either a shortish swim, bike or run. Yesterday was a 20/20/20 workout - 20 minutes in each discipline, just to keep the muscles fired up.
We had an amazing sleep-in this morning which was well needed as we'd stayed up until at 2am the night before watching the men's triathlon at the Olympics. The house that we're staying in had the upper floor rented to a family from Oregon. We have rented the entire house in previous years but the owner had recently converted the lower level into a b/b rental suite. It was going to be prohibitively expensive to rent both the upper and lower levels this year so we just went with the lower level as it's so much cooler there (when the weather is hot!) We didn't know that the owner was renting out the upper level, and moving out herself to a friend's house, until just a couple of weeks before we arrived. We received an enormous shock when the Oregon family arrived on Tuesday - there were two adults and 4 children (2 teenagers and 2 under 8's)! The upper level of the house is not carpeted and the level of soundproofing between the two levels is virtually non-existent. We were so bothered by the constant, unrelenting noise that we had found another home to move into but were unable to connect with the landlord to advise her until yesterday morning. Just as I was about to tell her that we were leaving, she told me that the family upstairs were leaving (which explained the horrific racket which began at 6:15 am - 4 hours after we'd gone to bed - and use of the washing machine at that time in the morning!) Apparently one of their other children, a grown son, in Oregon had been involved in a motor vehicle accident and so they were packing up to drive home immediately. We felt terrible for them, but this solved our immediate problem of upstairs noise. So we cancelled our "moving" plans and will stay put. We now have access to the whole house, which works out well as our friends, Jan & Ken, are arriving later this morning and can now stay in the bedroom upstairs rather than on the futon in our tiny living room area.
This evening is the carbo loading party at the convention centre. This is always a great night - the energy level is so high it's exhilarating. Last year, because of the fires in the mountains nearby, the power to Penticton had been cut off - a complete city wide blackout for about 4 hours. The organizers of the carbo loading party had everyone sit outside on the large grassy fields surrounding the building and a giant generator was brought in to power the jumbo tron tv and microphones etc. It was like a huge picnic with 2000+ people attending. Hopefully this year will be somewhat less challenging!
I'll post again tomorrow night just before we settle down for the final "sleep" before the big event.
