Oye, Michael Phelps is here!

First of all, HUGE congrats to everyone who raced ironman this weekend. I tracked everyone all day (it was my birthday weekend so Chris couldnt complain!), and I am so proud of everyone. I know it was a rough day for a few of you, but finish or not, you are all heroes of mine!

In celebration of the Bicentennial, Mexico decided to recreate the Olympics. This sounds like a really cool idea in theory, so Chris and I went to check out the events on Saturday. It was a mess. There were over a million people expected to go (and stand together in a .5mile space of street), and walking was nearly impossible. Basically along the street the events were set up and you could walk by and see people compete. Problem was that the "arenas" were about 3 stories high with no bleachers, so you really could only see on the screens around the street. Mexico had the Olympics here in 68, so why they didnt choose to house these events in the old arenas is beyond me. I guess that would have made too much sense. Rumor was that Mr Phelps was making an appearance and I was excited to see him swim. But when we got there I quickly realized that he wasnt really going to be swimming. The pool was about 15 meters and he was in a relay with a few other Mexican swimmers and racing agains some past Mexican Olympians. Some were old(er) and none could compete with him. So instead of seeing a race I saw MP dive in and swim almost the full length underwater. Im sure he was thinking the entire time WTF am I doing here??. But then quickly realized the amount of money he was going to be making for showing up. After watching for just a few minutes, we left. The events went on today so I couldnt even have a good run. NOT happy with Marcelo (the gov) at this time.

This was the closest we got to Michael - he is on the big screen.

Here I am standing in front of the "Track". It was probably about 200 meters around. You cant see the people because we snuck into an off limits area by pretending we were tourists who didnt speak Spanish.

And finally, for your viewing pleasure....While many of you were staring at hot bodies in speedos in Kona, I was staring at my own athletes in diapers. They were competing in some event, but not sure what it was. I assume it is an ancient Mexican art form. Notice the socks - I guess that is their idea of barefoot running. Although I am not sure many of these dudes do too much running.

Now it is couch time while Chris cooks my birthday dinner and I rest up for another tough week of training. Have a great week everyone!