Good Morning Des Moines

Saturday morning, one day before the big Hy-Vee race! Julie and I just woke up to beautiful blue skies over West Des Moines. Her luggage just arrived so she is building her bike as I type.
My trip was uneventful on Thursday afternoon and other than spending a long and boring four hours in the Chicago airport between flights, I have nothing to write about. I arrived safe and sound to my hotel room at 10pm and went straight to sleep.
Friday was a pretty full day of events. I woke up and ate breakfast at the hotel and then went to work building my bike. For all that my "expert" eye can see, my bike is doing just fine for spending the last two weeks chilling inside my bike box. Around 9:30am I was picked up, along with Laura and Sarah, for a ride to the high school pool for swim practice. It was a cute little indoor, 25-yard affair that was immaculately clean...my training session was great.
After the swim we all hopped on our bikes, went down to the Raccoon River Park and rode a few laps of the race course. I like it! Remember...this course is completely different than last year...we are in a completely different city: West Des Moines. So, even though I raced here last year, tomorrow will be the first time anyone has raced on this course.
I caught a van ride back to my hotel, scrounged up some lunch and then watched about an hour of TV. My next event was catching a ride to the USAT Staff hotel to see our team trainers for all my aches and pains. Another hour of watching TV in my hotel room before catching a different ride (thanks Margie) into Downtown Des Monies for the pre-race meeting. The 'meeting' was the same as all 20 other World Cups I have been too...but the goody bag was in a world of it's own! We all got a computer/messenger bag, a shoe bag, a hat, a bike jersey, water bottles...and then we headed upstairs and filled it with even more goodies from the event Expo. (I've got enough 'samples' to last me a week on a desert island...should my plane crash-land on one between Des Moines and Florida:)
The day wasn't over yet. Jasmine, Julie, Tim, and I lugged our over-loaded bags down to the rental car and tried our luck on finding the Hy-Vee Silent Auction/Pre Race Dinner event location. For not having much of a clue of where we were or where we were going, we were actually quite successful and enjoyed the events of the evening. The only part that killed me was a 2008 Trek Madone (custom fit to the buyer) was auctioned off at $3300!!! Are You Kidding Me?!?!?!
One more stop back at the USAT Staff hotel for Julie to get her aches and pains checked out and then I was finally back to my room to crash onto the bed and fall asleep. That brings us up to the moment, where I'm getting ready to take care of all my usual pre-race-day preparations...starting by catching a ride down to the race site to check out the swim course and jog a few minutes on the run course.