Well, it’s day 3 after Ironman France. After getting up at 8:30, having breakfast of granola, fruit, a croissant, OJ and coffee, I fell back asleep on the couch as the gentle warm air moved through the flat. My legs are no longer sore but my body is definitely fatigued and can explain why we haven’t really done much the last couple of days… but here’s the breakdown.
Monday was really about getting Mel and Linda off to the airport and Julie to the train station. Successfully done, I received a call from Julie who, due to her first train’s 45-minute late arrival, missed her second train in Lyon to meet up with her friends near Geneva. So, we told her to come back to Theoule and try again in the morning. Joy and I began the not-so-glamorous work of clean up and laundry, shopping and oh, yeah posting my race report. My email inbox is full of emails from the past week and I’ve just now started to read some of them. Sorry if you needed a reply… I’ll get to it; eventually.
Monday night was the Awards Banquet. Joy and I got dressed up. These generally are long boring affairs because of the length of giving out all the awards to the age group winners and giving the pro winners a chance to talk about their races but they generally put out better food and they show videos of the day and you get to somewhat relive your race and explain things with context with those you’re with. BUT NOT HERE! No it was just the opposite of what were used to with the exception of the boring part. No videos, people didn’t dress up with the exception of what appeared to be the Americans and some of the French. Apparently, in Europe, the Awards Party is not that special. The food was basically the same as a few nights prior, however this time without salad. The only plus was this time the beer was real and finally cold. As the evening came to a horrendous anticlimactic halt, “That’s it! Thanks for coming everyone!” Joy and I just looked at each other, stunned, and walked back to our car and drove 40 minutes back to Theoule wishing we could somehow get back part of our vacation.
Tuesday we got up early again said our goodbyes to Julie as she reschooled us on our French and we watched her get on the train and then headed off to Antibes to shop the Marche’ Provencal. Now this is a farmer’s market. Fresh produce, spices, flowers, olives, olives and more olives. The cheeses were delicious and the sausages and salamis are like none we’ve seen in the US. I began chatting up with a wine vendor who lit up when I started talking to him about why I like certain Rhone wines. Going behind a cart he grabbed a glass, pulled out a bottle and handed me a sample, which I politely accepted and swirled, sniffed, checked for color and tasted. “C’est bon?” I looked at him, “Je voudre’ celle ci, s’il vous plait.” With a nod and a smile, “Oui, monsieur!”
Later we strolled to Chateaux Grimaldi where the Picasso Museum is housed but we could not find an entrance and later discovered it has been under renovations. We did however stroll a gallery of Picasso ceramics but not the same. As the day was getting hotter we opted to go back and chill at the beach below our apartment in Theoule. We first picked up some beautiful salmon fillets for our dinner to match with all of our fresh greens from the market and a couple of meatballs for our lunch (amazing!).
Joy and I enjoyed swimming in the warm waters of the Mediterranean trying to imagine what the people do who own the yachts anchored in the near distance. We showered up, enjoyed our wine and cheese hour, prepared dinner and retired early.
Today we are going to get a little more sun and then go up into the hills for dinner. It seems to us this trip is now about to take on a new phase… the eating phase. Although I thought we were already eating pretty darn good. However, I think Joy is determined for me to replace all those pounds lost in training before we get home. I’m not worried. I have more races to go this year…
