Ah, Track Season...and an interesting plane ride

School, track practice, dinner, odds & ends, bed. Sprinkle in an occasional meet and Saturday invitational and that equals not getting around to blogging in a while.

Since I've got a few minutes before dinner, I figured I'd sit down and write one. I'm out in San Diego (technically Oceanside--40 min north of SD airport) and we're getting ready for Beth's triathlon debut of the season--Ironman 70.3 California. My role is the equipment manager. I play a role on the day before the race helping Beth prepare for the race. Beth flew out Thursday morning and I flew out Thursday after school.

How did I get here? Well that's kind of an interesting story.

I swung by track practice after school and set up a few things and made some final arrangements for Saturday's race and then off to the airport. We were on the plane and ready to take off for Chicago. We get to the runway, it's our turn, and we start speeding up. We're at that point right when we're about to take off when, all of the sudden, we slow down a little at first and then the flaps on the wing pop up and we slow down A LOT. We come to just about a complete stop and then the plane drives off to a side runway and the trucks with the flashy lights drive up....

Meanwhile....

Beth is already out in Oceanside, flying out with Chad & Jen Thursday morning. They get their luggage, eat lunch/dinner at Noodles, and go over to packet pick-up by the pier. After going through the expo, Beth needed to make a quick pit stop. There were a row of port-a-jons, her cell phone is in her back pocket, and...........there was a ker-plunk!..........Uh-oh!

Back to me....

The pilot gets on the PA and tells us that he thinks that they may have hit something while speeding up on the runway. Perhaps a bird or something. So, they needed to check out pretty much all of the bottom of the plane--specifically the wheels and the bottom side of the wings. After an hour and a half, we were finally cleared to take off. However, now my connection in Chicago was going to be very tight.

Will I make it?.......

While waiting for our plane to finish inspection and wait for clearance, I check my voicemail and there's a message from Beth from Chad's phone saying about how she no longer has a cell phone. In the end, it was kind of funny but now we have to get a new phone. I didn't want to call her back and add to her stress of whether or not I make it to my connection yet, so I figured I'd just call her when I got to Chicago. No problem because I had plenty of time.

Plenty of time...until it took FOREVER for us to be 'cleared' by the airline's mechanic office in San Fransicso. The pilot said that this was the longest he's had to wait for a clearance from the main office (or so they say...)

So, the plane is scheduled to land in Chicago at 7:40 central time. My plane leaves at 8:00. How far do I have to go between gates? So as soon as we get on the ground, I turn on my phone and try to call to find out what gate I need to go to. Who do I call who is probably on the internet? My dad, probably not--I'll save him for last. I tried my sister-in-law, brother-in-law, mom....none of them picked up. Okay, try my dad and he doesn't have the computer on, but he turns it on and logs on. He tells me that the gate is only 10 down.

So, I get off the plane, power walk down through the hallway, call Chad's phone (since Beth's is in the pooper), and buy a personal pan pizza (8:00 eastern time and no dinner yet). I'm talking to her and she gets on the phone and wants to tell me the story about the cell phone. I tell her that I've got three minutes to get on the plane and can't talk long. I told her that "there were better ways to get a Blackberry or an IPhone."

Anyway, we're here. Beth, Chad, & Jen did some pre-race workouts and I did some running, too. We did lunch at Subway and we're going to have dinner tonight and then the big race tonight.

Here's some pictures from today:

A picture of the Oceanside Pier

A picture of an establishment I first learned about in Phoenix when I was just learning Spanish--El Pollo Loco. Translated: The Crazy Chicken. I love the name!!!