Training

Training is in full swing for the to-be Ironmaner's for the upcoming Louisville Ironman in August. Last weekend we did a 116 miler to Virgilina. This weekend, Mike and I drove over to Chapel Hill to ride with Sandybottom and her friend Kim Ring and we did a nice 43mile ride around Jordan lake averaging a cool 15mph. Yesterday I got in a mile at the pool before a thunderstorm rolled over Raleigh. With 20 weeks left to go, it is training "prime time".

In other news, good luck to NORSA member Julie Brockman who is running in the Boston Marathon RIGHT NOW and her support crew, namely Adam Domanski.

Welcome to Virgilina

Team NORSA rides again. Adam has the report on the Team NORSA Blog. Also check out Tim's Pics.

"On Sunday, April 13th, NORSA cyclists Alan Stewart, Mike Rhodes, Tim Josey, and Adam Domanski successfully completed the epic Raleigh to Virgilina, VA road ride - a 116 mile trip from central North Carolina, north to the Virginia border town of Virgilina, and back.

NORSA had attempted the trip back in December but was hampered by 40 degree temperatures and cold rain. The cyclists made it only halfway to Virgilina and turned back at the town of Stem, NC. Virgilina remained in their sights however; and April 13th proved to be the day when the weather and everyone's schedules cooperated.", and Adam said it best,

"The only disappointment from the trip was for Alan and Adam, who experienced a painful revelation of exactly how far the Louisville Ironman will be."

Here are some GREAT pictures.

The Tybee Approaches

The Tybee 500 is nearly upon Trey and I once again. We have liquidated used parts from Trey's Garage in hopes of scraping together some extra cash and have been calling in all of our sponsors for help with the hotels, gas and boat expenses this year. We have some great sponsors this year including Dry Inc. that will be donating dry-shits, T-shirts and team collared shirts. Very nice. McLube has given us some hot new product to try out on the hull. WilderGFX is back with us again this year as is Atlantic Boat and Supply and FRE Robline. Also with us is Murrays who also helped my Dad and I with some hardware on Dawn Patrol for the EC. Even with all that it is still a great challenge to keep funding in the green and we are busting our butts. Anyone near the eastern shore of florida or SC should not hesitate to come out to the finish or Start of one of the legs. Here are some shots from the Tybee last year. Can't wait.

International Rolex Regatta 2008

Back from the International Rolex Regatta in St. Thomas and back to the grind. Trey and I flew down to the virgin islands to participate in this cool race for the second time. This time, Trey raced with another sailor friend of ours John Casey an experienced cat sailor and multiple year winner of the Tybee 500 in past years. They raced on a 22 foot Supercat catamaran with a modified "tall rig". I raced with our sponsors son Hudson on a Hobie 16. Here we are on the second day of racing.

Friday was very rough and very windy. Seas 5-7 feet and winds gusting to the high 20s. Hudson and I made to the start of the first race, a 13 mile distance race, but about 15 min. in a gust pitch-poled us and we went straight into turtle (completely upside down) where we promptly lost a rudder pin to the deep. With one rudder, we righted the boat and headed in by necessity. It was a good call and many other beachcats had also headed in that day.

Trey and JC on the suffered worse luck. They were cut off by a cruising trimaran just after the start and with F18s above and below them at the downwind start, pitch-poled badly. They tore their jib and lost their mast rotator. Nonetheless they completed the first race but retired from the second unable to sail to windward effectively without the jib that had to be taken down. With an 18 boat fleet of beachcats. We were both taken out of contention on the first day. Oh well.

Here Trey and JC after getting their Jib repaired and finally getting somewhere on the last day of racing.

On Saturday, I got in 2 races with rock star crew, Hudson before we flipped in a downwind mark rounding and had trouble righting the boat with water in our mast. We retired after a long struggle to get back upright. Trey and JC blew out a second jib this day on the first race and went in for repairs but did not come back out.

Sunday, Hudson was recovering from some burned legs from trapeezing all day and I crewed for another friend of ours, Mark Chong on his I-20. We did alright but mostly just had fun. Trey and JC had more problems when their wire Jib halyard blew up on them on the last upwind leg. Sigh.

We took Sunday evening off and went down to a small public beach bay for some food and swimming. I had a snorkel and goggles with me so I went exploring. I saw Trey an JC entering the water and right as I was yelling to warn them about the HUGE sea urchins I had seen there....you guessed it. JC ended up with 19 urchins spines in his heel. OUCH. We couldn't hardly believe the bad luck we had had. But by now we could only just laugh at it. Except for JC who was in pain and not laughing that much.

It was hard to feel beaten too long though. We had beautiful weather and the water is crystal clear. Overall we all had a great time even though the race did not exactly go as planned.

Thanks to Eric Tillet and Alan Friedman from the BUZZ radio station for the great time again and making it all possible. Thanks to everyone who helped us while we were down there.

I'm still working on my write up for the EC but it IS coming along. Right now my focus is school, with sponsorship for the upcoming Tybee on the side.