Finally! A Lake Swim

Troy and I met out at Shawnee Mission Park - wetsuits in tow - and headed to the swim beach. Before we even got our wetsuits on, one of the lifeguards told us we could only swim right outside the roped off swim area. This wasn't ideal, but certainly workable. Into the water we went. It was a gorgeous day, but pretty warm outside, and being that the swim area is SOOOOO tiny, it's pretty shallow - hence warmer water there too. We did a couple down and backs along the ropes and I was just too hot in my full wetsuit, so I took it off, tossed it up on shore and continued swimming in my tri suit. MUCH BETTER!
I felt great in the water - very relaxed and calm, comfortable stroke...hope this sticks for next weekend. It was actually really nice being out in the lake - almost felt like it was playtime, rather than a workout.
After a short swim, we layed the wetsuits out on the sidewalk to dry for a little bit and just enjoyed sitting there, soaking up the sun, chatting about final packing for the race, etc.
When we got back to the cars, we moved Troy's bike and bags over to my car. I think I may have mentioned this before, but my folks' are taking our bikes and ALL our race gear with them, and they're driving (with my niece, Bailey) to Idaho. They are making a bit of an adventure out of the road trip - stopping at lots o' different places (ie, Mt. Rushmore), so they'll have a good time. It's a huge relief to us, not worrying about shipping our stuff!
On the way home, I stopped at Garry Gribble's running store and bought two 10 oz bottles for my race belt, some reflective tape (a requirement if you're on the run course past dark), and another tub of Perpetuum. Yummy. I think that does it for my list of race needs. And with that I headed home to pack up the gear.
Did I mention that I had new tires put on my car today? Well, I did. The front tires were pretty worn and I thought it would definitely be best to get new ones prior to the car being driven (by my parents) 1800 miles+ to the race.
I went home, loaded up my bike and headed over to my parents' house to drop off the car. Bill and Kim were there to drop Bailey off, so I sat around chatting with them for a while. Bill and dad worked on the car top luggage deal. Finally I decided I should go pack up the rest of my gear. I had been making a pile of things on the kitchen table, so really all I had to do was put everything into a bag. As I did this, I took inventory by jotting every item down as I stuck it in the duffel or my tri transition bag. This went so quickly and I got so much stuff loaded up. Feelin' good. I took that back over to my folks' house, where they were finishing up with the car top deal. I loaded the bikes and our gear into the back of the car so my dad could see how it needed to go. Then we all helped load up their luggage into the car top. Done. Whew. This is a relief.
I got home kinda late, and pulled all my stuff together for tomorrow morning. Troy and I are meeting at his store in Lawrence and I'll follow him to the race (Kansas 70.3).
To all those racing tomorrow - GOOD LUCK, RACE WELL, FINISH STRONG!!!