Well, I arrived in Bole (the host city) last night after a very interesting short flight from Urumqi. Specifically, I was carrying most of my equipment onto the plane, as suggested, and the plane was a small regional jet with no overhead space. Thus, Vanessa and I, as well as other competitors, held our bags on our laps for the flight; I am sure that would go over well anywhere other than China. In any case, I am here, and we leave for the desert tomorrow around 4pm China time. The race then starts the following morning (Sunday) at 8am. Today I feel good. But as I suspected, I am starting to feel a bit restless having taken off almost a week from working out now: too much time off!!! On the plus side, my legs feel good, my shoulders, arms, and back haven�t felt this un-sore in at least 7 months, and I am pretty much ready to roll. I just finished a light 2000m row and 2 mile treadmill jog to try and get my blood flowing again and wake my body up from its short workout-related hibernation. I will probably do some stretching and a short row tomorrow morning also to get at least a couple days of getting back into my routine before Sunday (side note: I really can�t believe there is a nice rowing machine in such a remote hotel in China). Maybe I am stupid for doing anything before Sunday, as I didn�t see anyone else in the hotel gym when I was there, but my training has been based on basically 2-a-days, with only about 3-4 days off a month, so I feel like I need to do something. I guess I will know next week. Other than that, I will probably just roll out a bit with the lacrosse ball and Voodoo tonight. I also got my pack finalized today, and I think I am going to start with 26.75#, with about 14.75# being food. Having talked to some veteran competitors, I could probably drop some of the food weight because they say I won�t be hungry after day 2-3, but I am erring on the side that I will be hungry, as usual. Based on my typical food consumption, regardless of what I am eating (i.e., freeze dried meals), I feel like I am still going to want to smash some food. In addition, I trained with about 31#, so hopefully, I can handle the weight for the first day (and it doesn't take too much of a toll on me) before it starts drastically dropping for day 2 on. My next post will be from the Desert. I look forward to all of your messages during the race! I�m out�
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