Pictures from Dawn on the Run
The Pink Chick has been featured in the Calgary Herald – Calgary Runner blog…how cool is this…..check it out here.
Thanks Keith it is an honor to be featured amongst some of the awesome athletes in your Calgary Runner blog (part of the online Calgary Herald).
Okay so they summer has come and gone. Wait, when was it here? Oh well moving on. It’s September and another month is over as well. I haven’t done a whole lot since the Chaparral Triathlon. I guess it was time for a bit of a break anyhow.
I have been to the pool a few times and oh yeah done a little bit of running here and there. Enough goofing of though time to get back to some serious training or well as serious as I get. You see I’ve registered to run the Vegas Half Marathon in December. Flight and hotel booked. There’s a whole gang going from my neck of the woods so it should be a blast again.
I did do a fun and free 10k on the weekend. I’ll try to get around writing about that in the next few days. But for now I just wanted to let you know I’m still alive.
4th tri of the season is now in the books. Sunday was an early morning. The Chaparral Triathlon is in the south end of town and I’m way up in the north end. The Chaparral Tri offers 3 different races – Tri – it, Sprint and Olympic. I opted to do the sprint distance cause I got razzed for doing just the tri-it distance at Coral Springs and well I didn’t feel like doing the Olympic. The Sprint distance wasn’t the usual instead the bike/run were supposedly a tad short but I’ll tell ya more about that later.
T1/T2 check in closed at 7:30am so while I wasn’t due to start my race until 10am I still had to be there way early. The plan was to be there for 7am so that meant being up at about 5:30ish so I had time to get dressed and finish off putting my stuff in the car. Hubby tagged along for support and to take photos but I let him sleep a few minutes longer.
I had prepared/packed most of my stuff the night before. I did not want to eat my breakfast that early so I opted to make a pita stuffed with peanut butter and banana. I divided it up into 3 sections – 1 for breakfast to eat on the way there, 1 for after the swim and the last section for after the bike. I also filled my water bottle for the bike with ice and Powerade. It was a tad chilly so I wore capris and a tshirt over my swim outfit (tri top & swimsuit bottoms). My outfit for the bike/run was already packed in my transition bag. Rumor had it the swim would be warmish so I opted not to wear a wetsuit.
We picked up Nikayla (my granddaughter) who was coming along to keep hubby company and headed south just after 6 and got there just before 7am. The place was already a buzz with lots of athletes setting up their bikes. I found the row for mine and started setting up. I love how they say 7 bikes to a rack but somepeople spread their stuff out so much your lucky to get 5 on there. I set my stuff up so that my spot is only a few inches to the right of my rear tire and barely using any space. They announced we could enter the transition area after the prerace meeting so I didn’t have to worry about ditching everything there right away.
I milled about visiting with friends and checking out the venue site. I waded into the lake to about knee deep to check the water temperature. Chilly by some standards but just fine to me. It was overcast and threatening to rain. I told myself it would be okay to sprinkle but prayed there would be no downpour. At 7:45 they had a brief meeting explaining rules, routes, wave starts etc. It was hard to hear so I missed some key info….oh well.
The first wave at 8am was the women Olympic triathletes. The Olympic racers had to do 2 laps of the lake. This is a short clip of the women as they head around the bouys for their second lap.
They were followed by the men at 9am. There were a couple of slower women still finishing off there second loop as the men headed out.
After the men headed out for the Olympic we got a chance to warm up in the water. I dove in right away and it felt warm to me but others complained it was chilly.
Swim Start – Sprint
Next up was us, the Sprint triathletes. At the last minute they annouced the women would go first at 10am and the men would follow at 10:05….Yikes! There had been cameras in the T1/T2 area. It was X-Weighted filming a family of 3 doing the Sprint Tri as their “goal”. I chatted breifly with the Mother/Daughter as we waited to start the swim. We headed out in a clump of women, most in wetsuits but a few like me just in swimsuit type attire. The announcer had joked “No Shivering Allowed!” I didn’t but saw a few others even in wetsuits with teeth chattering.
It didn’t take long before we were well spreadout with the fast swimmers way way ahead. I know there were swimmers behind me and cool I even passed a few. Ahead of me someone signaled for help and the boat headed towards her leaving a gassy odor in the water…yuck. I swam past it as fast as I could. My goal was to try and stay ahead of the X-Weighted ladies and their film crew although I’m sure I ended up in some of their footage (providing they don’t cut me out). They were actually pretty nice people and cheered me on throughout the event. Heck I had a tweet later from Paul Plakas that their film crew boat even rescued a few swimmers. His comment was “who does a tri without knowing how to swim?” I kind of have to agree, one should be know if they can go the distance.
I loved the swim except for one tiny detail. Remember I said the men were starting 5 minutes behind us….well that meant by the time I rounded the half way buoy they were pretty much on top of me. I swung wide around the buoy to avoid getting a foot in the face or putting my foot in someone’s face. However in doing so I ended up heading a tad bit off course costing me valuable minutes in my swim time. I had hoped for 25 minutes but had to settle for a time of 27:35 but heh at least that was less then my plan B goal of 30 minutes.
Once back on track while the water was still crowded and choppy I kept on track and headed straight for the finish. The start had been on a sandy beach but the swim finish arch was above the boat dock. The ramp under the water was extremely slippery so we had to swim right up to the end where a volunteer was to help out of the water. I looked at the guy and laughed. I figured for sure I would pull him into the water before he pulled me out. I was wrong but nearly lost my bottoms as he pulled me out…ooops. Oh yeah I also scraped my knee up on the slippery ramp.
Swim Time – 27:35 place 211/219 (not last out of the water, yeah! That’s a first…lol)
T1 & Bike
Nikayla was waiting for me as I exited and handed me my glasses. I had given them to her on the beach before heading out. I found my bike quickly. I think I did good on T1 time. What took the longest was putting on my compression socks. Thankfully to save time I had this bright idea of rolling them up then all I had to do was unroll them to put them on.
Off on the bike. The bike was good except for one really nasty hill. Now let me clarify that. It’s not the going back uphill I minded so much it’s the going down. I’m still a bit terrified of long steepish downhills and need to work on that. Oh yeah, lucky me I got to do that route and hill twice. Unlucky Olympic athletes had to do it FIVE times! Remind me never to do the Olympic at this triathlon, lol. Despite breaking an awful lot on the downhill I still made good time on my bike.
T1/T2 & Bike Time – 1:13:39 214/219 – Garmin put actual time on bike as 1:01:42, T1 approx 9 minutes which means T2 was about 2 minutes.
T2 & Run
T2 was almost a disaster but apparantly still reasonably quick. Others on my rack had racked their bikes over my spot and left me no room to manouver my bike into place. I tried but nearly knocked off the other bikes and luckily another athlete came to my rescue to help me squeeze mine into place. Despite that I was off and running fairly quickly. The downside of the run – volunteers seemed to have no real clue as to where we were going, nor did I for that matter. The run route ran back past where we had excited from the water. Hubby told me later that there were many near collisions earlier because of the way the two courses overlapped. The route took us through the park area in a loop that ended up back parallel to the finish area. Yikes people everywhere including all over the path I needed to run on, made for a slow go and well I’m already slow enough…sheesh. Once out of the main area and running in the community there was no signs and only one maybe two volunteers. Being at the back that meant I was pretty much on my own. Oh yeah I can’t remember where but there was one aid station. After looping the community it’s back through the park again. I was frustrated as my garmin showed way over the 5k distance and longer then they had said. That of course through of my finish time. Oh well such is life.
Finally the finish was in site and I picked it up just a little to finish strong. The post race food was excellent – huge salads, buns, pasta salad, lasagna and fruit. Lots of prizes and yes I won something once again. This time it was a “Tri-it” visor. Cool. Hubby was nice enough to fetch the vehicle while Nikayla and I waited. Oh yeah, the weather held out for most of the event. There was a bit of spitting rain during the run which actually felt nice and the temperature was just right for all of it.
Run time – 1:13:39 – 214/219.
Overall time – 2:38:08 – 215/219 – While there were 3 DNFs there was still one athlete that finished behind me by just over 3 minutes. Finally a tri where I wasn’t in last place…lol.
Well that’s it for this year’s tri season. Four triathlons, each slightly different, 4 new tech shirts, 4 prizes and 1 awesome medal. A good start to “Tri Life”.
I’ll keep swimming but I need to get back to running. I also need to look at my training plans and decide what’s next. Be sure to check out all the great photos over at Flickr.
Off and on since earlier in the year I’ve attended meetings, updated files, etc in preparation for this year’s Ironman 70.3. My role is volunteer coordinator or volunteer captain as it says on our RACE OFFICIAL sheet. It’s a fun job but gets hectic the week of the race. Actually I still have some paperwork to do. Which reminds me I still have paperwork from the same role for the Calgary Marathon. Man I wish I could retire already so I could do all this other stuff.
Speaking of retirement. I’m now calling it “Turning Pro”. After all when I do finally retire most of my time will be spent doing races, triathlons or volunteering at such events. Heck I already do all that but well I’m still working for a living…lol.
Anyhow race week started July 28th. After going for 1000m swim at the pool little Nikayla (not so little, she’s 9 next week) and I headed downtown to the Westin. Time to start setting up for the Expo. We organized the volunteer room, set up food for those doing the package stuffing and then had a meeting with the rest of the committee.
Thursday and Friday were long days with both Nikayla and I spending pretty much 12 hour days down there. Nikayla was awesome! She was my little errand girl running water and food out to volunteers stuck at their stations. On Friday I snuck out in the morning for another 1000m swim. Swimming was about the only training I squeezed in during the week.
I had thought about riding my bike in on Saturday morning but opted not to as it would have meant getting up way too early. Nikayla had a BBQ to attend with her Mom so I had no little helper. I did have a volunteer helper so all was just fine but a few people did miss having Nikayla around. I’m grooming her to take over for me someday. She just has to learn Excel…lol.
Saturday is a much shorter day. The Expo closes at 1pm and we just have to stick around to pack up and clean up. On the way home from the Expo I stopped at Walmart. Had to pick up a card for hubby as it was our anniversary – married 12 years on July 31st. I got home to find roses and carnations on the table along with my fav coolers. What a sweetie.
I showered and changed. We then headed over to Moxies for a romantic dinner. During dinner hubby puts my hand on his tummy and asks if he’s getting fat. Nope, but there was a box hiding under his shirt. Inside I found a 1k diamond necklace – beautiful. Guess I’ll keep him for another year. 
We had a great evening together but headed to bed early as well Sunday was gonna be another long day. Most of my volunteer duties end with the Expo closing down. I get to chose what I would like to help out with on Sunday. This year I opted to head straight down to the Finish area where I could see some of T2 action, watch racers finish, get some great photos and help out in the VIP area. It was a pretty relaxing but fun day. I didn’t manage to get any running in but probably walked at least 5k taking photos of the various areas of the run. Hubby had loaned me his camera so again I played with shooting photos from various angles and locations.
The VIP tent is only a few meters from the finish area. Watching the Pros finish and then the age groups is amazing. I am in awe of how fast some of the pro athletes are. Their ability to complete all three sports in such amazing times.
After all was done, awards awarded and some of the clean up I left. I gave our announcer Don a ride back to the hotel and headed home to cleanup. Several of us plus some of the participants headed down to take over the patio at the Barley Mill. We drank beer, laughed, ate and pretty much closed the place down. It’s always such a great event and I’m kind of sad the week is over.
Want to read/see more about Sunday’s Ironman 70.3 then check out the links below.
From Grant Burwash’s blog (Calgary Athlete). He put so much into the race that he colapsed at the finish!
Oh yeah in my month off post I forgot to mention one other item. I was going to edit the post but it’s long enough and well frankly Karen deserves a post all of her own. 
Karen has been running a number of trail races this summer as part of the 5 Peaks Series. July was going to be my only chance to go cheer her on at one of the races. Originally I had planned on it being a weekend get away for us but instead it ended up being a day trip.
Anyhow on July 24th hubby and I took a trip up to Sundre for the 2010 Sundre Snake Hils Race. We’d never been there so it was a nice day trip for both of us. I took hubby along as well he’s better at taking photos then I. Speaking of photos we both took lots and they’re on Flickr (link at bottom). The “different” shots of flowers and such are mine. I was playing around with different angles. These are some of my favs.
Of course Karen had to send a “Tweet” before getting ready to head off running.
Once all the racers headed off we moved up the trail to catch runners in action. I love the shot Darren caught of Karen at the halfway point.
This was a great spot to take photos and cheer on the runners. Hubby walked up the trails a bit further and I sat on the side for a bit. After a while I headed over to the other side thinking it would be cool to catch the runners coming uphill. I even caught a video of Karen running up the hill. See she also runs uphill, not just downhill.
After Karen headed off on her second loop we meandared are way back to the finish. We shot a few more photos along the way of runners heading for the finish. Finally back at the start/finish area we found a great spot to sit and wait for Karen. Karen did an awesome job running strong through the whole race. Maybe next year I will do this one.
As pictured above Karen one a prize for her gravity downhill quote.
After the race ended it was fun and games litterally! For some of the prizes they opted to have a wheelbarrel race. It was hillarious – see for yourselves.
At the end as we were leaving we spotted this nasty bug. It had landed on Darren first. When he dusted it off it landed on me. He dusted it off me and it landed in the grass where after we took a photo several kids huddled around it fasinated. Never did figure out what kind of bug it was just that it was nasty and huge. Any ideas anyone?
Time to head home. We made a quick stop at Timmy’s along the way for a snack and then were on road back home.
Time flys when you are having fun and that’s exactly what happened to July. I blinked and my nearly month off was over & done with. I had from July 8th to 30th off. Longest vacation I’ve ever taken. I thought WOW I’m gonna get lots done and have time to relax. I even made a “To Do” list. Well I only accomplished about half of what I planned. Oh well such is life.
Of course you already know some of what we did cause I blogged about it. We started the holidays with a trip to Seattle for the Drag Races. We had a blast. While away a friend installed new flooring throughout our main floor. It took me two years to convince hubby we had to get rid of that nasty carpet on the main floor. I love the new look (on the left). Now to convince him we need to do the rest of the house. I’ve got my work cut out for me…lol.
So after Seattle and the floor there was stampede. I made it to two concerts but never made it to any pancake breakfasts so I made myself some waffles for breakfast a few mornings. Speaking of eating well I had hoped to be a good girl and drop a few pounds but that didn’t happen either. At least I didn’t gain any, oh well.
Next it was the Coral Springs Tri. Which was a lot of fun. I did however get ribbed by a few friends for only doing the “Tri-it” distance so fine, when I signed up for my next tri (Aug 8th – Chaparral Triathlon) I signed up for the Sprint distance.
I did work in a bit of training during my month off I checked out a different pool over at the Crowchild Y. My membership alllows me to go to any Y so instead of paying for parking downtown I headed over to the Y at Crowchild. This one is salt water and a tad warmer then Eau Claire. I looked after my granddaughter for the last week of July so I even took her along with me for one of my swims. She had a lot of fun.
I also managed a few longer bike rides and a few runs. My runs need to get longer as I have a 22k race in September. I am however debating dropping back to the 10k distance as I haven’t been running long enough distances and well frankly I’m not quite motivated to go longer. Speaking of motivation I did another chat for a group of runners. I really enjoy motivating others. Of course since I was motivating them I even motivated myself to run with them.
At another run club night something cool happened. I had a lady come up and hug & thank me. She had been a volunteer at the Chinook Triathlon and because of me she was now going to do triathlons herself. That rocks!
Onto the last week. Last week I spent most of my time at Ironman 70.3. No I did not compete (maybe someday) but I’m still the volunteer coordinator so it was a busy and fun week. Busy and fun enough that it deserves it’s own post so I’ll end this one and move on to my next.
The Short Version
Gorgeous day for a race. The water was warm and loved the swim the best. Did the 325m with no wetsuit in 15:01 place 45/56. Bike 10k sucked as knee felt weird on the way back. Time includes transitions 54:32. I think my Garmin read around 35 but I forgot to stop it…oops (place 53/56). Finally the run was ok, no knee issues on the run – 2.5k in 23:33 place 54/56.
Overall time was 1:33:04 place 56/56. Would have liked 1:30 or better but I’ll take what I got…lol.
A couple of the women messed up and did 20k instead of 10k. The sad thing is they still beat me. One had a swim time of 7:31 – amazing. I can only dream of being that fast The other had a swim time of 10:29 and both ran the run in under 20 min which is about ave looking at the results.
Read on if you want to know more
This is quickly becoming my “Year of the Tri”! On July 18th I did my 3rd and definitely not last Tri of the year. Need I say I have become addicted…lol. As I had not been able to do much in the way of training between our Seattle trip and Stampede I was glad I had only registered for the “Tri it” distance – 325m swim, 10k bike and 5k run. A short and sweet tri. I figured it would be a good training event for practicing the three sports and transitions plus a chance for yet another openwater swim. I do love open water swimming.
It started with an early morning as we had to be checked into transition by 7:30am at Coral Springs lakeside. For breakfast I had a multigrain/flax pita stuffed with peanut butter and banana. I only ate 2/3rds of it. I wrapped the last bit up and put it in my transition bag for a snack after my swim.
Advantages of getting there early are finding a great parking spot and getting a good spot on the bar for the transition. Not that my transition times are very good yet. Heck I’m slow at everything else why should transition be any different….lol.
Once I got set up I milled around a bit and took a few photos. I then stored my camera away for on the run and after the race. I wouldn’t be able to use it during the swim or the ride. Unfortunately Darren had to work so my photographer and top supporter were absent. As I was doing the short distance I had opted to not use a wetsuit so I went off to check the water to see if that had been a mistake. The water was awesome. Yeah! I did find a sharp metal lid near where we would be finishing. I tossed it in the garbage possibly saving someone’s toes from owies.
Many of us went all the way in and swam a few strokes or more. Only a handful were not wearing a wetsuit. My distance got to go first after the quick prerace meeting. We started our swim at 8am. The bouy that looked so far away from the shore really wasn’t that far away as I got going. I was passed and I passed a few. I passed the young teen I had met on the bus at Stampede. It was his first Tri and he had not trained a lot for the swim. He was struggling. I found out later he was only 3 or 4 minutes behind me for the swim but he kicked my butt on the run. I love the swim. The water was wonderful and I felt I could easily of done the longer distances without a wetsuit. While I thought I could have swum faster when I compare it to my times at Chinook I guess 15 minutes was okay.
From the swim to transition I thought I moved quickly but I guess I really didn’t cause somehow I ended up at the back. I should be used to that by now. The ride was an out and back with a couple of small hills that were not nearly as hard as the Chinook Tri. I thanked all the volunteers and officers along the way but I they were few and far between. As for my time on the bike, my right leg did bother me a bit, not pain, just felt weird and didn’t seem to have any power. Actual riding time was about 5 minutes longer then I had hoped for and well 20 minutes for 2 transitions still needs work.
Onto the run course. Somehow I ended up on the wrong side of the fencing. I went to the potty and then carried on for the run. The timing matts were on the other side of the fencing so I had to do a short backtrack to cross the matts. The run was a 2.5k loops through the Coral Springs neighborhood. For the longer Triathlon distances it was multiple loops. While there were some nice houses it is a rather boring and uneventful run route. With no music or other distractions I had to amuse myself – something else I will have to work on…lol.
On the plus side 2.5 really is a nice short run and my time for that was pretty much on par for me 23 minutes. All added up my time was over the 1 1/2 hours I had hoped for but not a total disappointment. And yes I was last but only by a few seconds this time.
It was a lot of fun and the nice thing about doing the shorter race was being able to sit on the grass and relax while I watched/photographed the finishers from the Sprint and Olympic distances. When the last athlete finished they started the prizes and awards. There were some great prizes and cool beans I won a new pair of Merrell runners.
What’s Next?!?
Well like I said this is quickly becoming my “Year of the Tri” so why stop now. Next week I’m busy with my Ironman 70.3 volunteer stuff (PS – we still need more volunteers) but I’ll still be training as I’ve signed up for the Chaparral Sprint Tri.
Coral Spring Tri Photos on Flickr
Race Results – Tri it Distance 2010
Event Website
This year’s stampede started while we were in Seattle so we missed the parade and the first few days. Acutally I never made it to even one pancake breakfast. I did however make up for that by making myself waffles at home for a couple of days.
On Wed July 14th I headed down to the Stampede grounds via bus. I had tickets for Bon Jovi. Carrie, my daughter had to work so she was meeting me there later. I walked around the grounds. It’s amazing how many “unhealthy” food choices there are and very little that is healthy. Oh well I settled for a greek chicken pita thingy. It was okay. I watch all the rides that no way I would go on and wondered through the vendor area in the BMO center. Man they sure try to sell you a lot in there. Finally I headed into the dome to find my seats and meet my daughter. I had bought the ticket off the classifieds at work – $50 each. They read “behind the stage” which I thought was strange. They ended up being awesome seats for that price. We were side on to the stage but up really close.
The opening act was just so-so but my daughter thought a couple of the guys were really cute. Bon Jovi was AWESOME! He had the crowd on their feet pretty much from song one and for the whole night.
The next trip to Stampede was on Friday. This time I was heading to Stampede with hubby. I had gotten the tickets to Kid Rock when I bought one of the bowls auctioned off by Energy 101.5 for the Empty Bowl Charity. These were pretty good tickets as well but a little further away then I was for Bon Jovi. Darren wasn’t sure he would like the concert but Kid but on a great show. He’s quite the performer! Disappointing though there was no encore set so the night ended early. We made our way through the crowd back to the bus area. We found out later about the accident on one of the rides. A handful of people had been injured as the Scorpian ride had come apart.
This is a race report of a different sort. In this one I am and will always be a spectator. The only participating we did was 12 years ago when we got married at the “tree” just before the event started. Oh yeah, I”m talking about Drag Racing, not the ones ya dress for but the ones where you watch fast cars – NHRA
We’ve made the trip to Kent (just south east of Seattle) almost every year since we met back in 1996. We got married in 1998. We had to miss a couple of times cause Darren couldn’t get the holiday time when we first moved to Calgary.
Anyhow this year Darren still couldn’t get the time off but luckily his shift was Tues, Wed, Thurs so we were still able to go but it had to be a quick trip. We flew down early on Friday AM, picked up our rental car, checked into the hotel and still made it to the track before noon. Just in time to do a quick tour through the pits and then settle in to watch the big guys race. We did miss a couple of rounds of the non-pro cars but got to watch them later.
It was a gorgeous sunny day filled with lots of great races and fun times. I’ll post links to the photos at the bottom of the post. The pics always tell the story best so I won’t ramble on too much here. And oh yeah, hubby has his own blog with his version of how the weekend went, that’s always worth checking out over here.
We always end each day with a walk through the pits and some relaxing in the parking lot. Oh yeah, that parking lot is a large grass field that usually takes forever to get out of so always best to plan a tailgate party with a ton of your new best friends…lol.
The other must do on this trip after changing at the hotel at the end of each day one heads over to Meeker Street Bar. It’s walking distance and one really must walk there as the drinks are strong enough to put one well over the limit even after only one. They also make the best clam chowder. It was cool to walk in there on Friday and find 2 friends from a previous year had already claimed a table and saved us a seat. You get to know the regulars at these events. These guys were from BC.
Saturday was pretty much a repeat of Friday, sunshine, sunscreen, fast cars. What more could one ask for. Oh yeah I did manage to get up at 6am and go for a bike ride in the hotel gym. Other then a ton of walking that was the only training I did. Oh yeah don’t forget the stair climbing up and down to ones seat. You do that countless times during the day for beer, potty, pit cruises and food (not necessarily in that order). Of course on Saturday we also repeated the relax in the parking lot. And don’t get me going on the parking lot cause Saturday they stuck us on the one way way way far away from the track…grrr. And yes back to Meeker St Bar later.
Sunday is the day of the finals. It also starts out with the taping of ESPN. That’s always fun to watch so we get there early so we are up front and get caught on camera a little. Then it’s the usual tour through the pits for the smell of nitro and the sound of thunder as the races warm up their engine for the finals. It’s always fun to watch the crowd run when they get too much Nitro. That’s why you see me wearing a bandana in some of the photos.
After walking through the pits I headed for our seats leaving hubby to check out a few more cars. Only I didn’t go directly to our seats instead I went to watch them introduce the drivers and somehow ended up on stage dancing. You see they asked for volunteers for a contest. Now I should have known better but I put my hand up and well the guy goes “I’ll take her, the one in the pink”. Oh oh. Anyhow there was two guys on stage and two volunteers. They lead and we had to follow their moves then the crowd cheers determined who would win. Only well they changed the rules and then each of us had to lead while they followed. I had the whole audience clapping along with me when I led…lol. Anyhow I got 3 free shirts out of the deal, had a lot of fun and all day long I got High-5′d as well as “cool moves, Pink chick”. I almost felt famous…lol.
While we did see some great racing it was a sad day as one of the racers crashed and did not survive. The races were delayed after the crash for quite sometime. We did not find out until much later that he had not survived the crash. Top Alcohol Dragster racer Mark Niver, 60, of Phoenix, was involved in a fatal incident when his dragster crashed in the shutdown area during the semifinals. My heart goes out to his family.
Sunday is always sort of a sad day anyhow. It marks the end of a fun filled weekend and means we have to head home. We of course finish the day off with one last trip to Meeker St Bar. It was hubby’s birthday so we celebrated that as well with of course our friends from past years.
The trip home on Monday ended up being longer then usual. We had a direct flight but it got cancelled and it ended up taking us all day to get home instead of just a few hours.
Race Weekend Recap from NHRA
Friday Photos
Saturday Photos
Sunday Photos
Flying Home (link to be added later)
2 comments »