Training in Las Vegas.

Red Rock Canyon outside Las Vegas, actually.

Interbike was especially hectic for me. Not only was it my 1st time in Vegas -a huge culture shock- it was also Interbike – another full-on sensory overload. Fortunately there was training- my safe haven from the ruckus and all the squalor out there.

Its impossible to squeeze the above mentioned 3 disciplines in only 3.3short days. I would get up early (7am in Caveman terms) to go train, so I could be at the Avia stand at around 12 or 1.

Swimming was done in the Palms Hotel’s U shaped pool. I donned my Speedo (since its Vegas and anything goes, no one really paid attention) and swam U shapes for 40 minutes between the pool side water bar, around the island with palm trees and I would flip turn close to a group of dudes talking loudly, beer in hand (9am) about the previous night’s party.

Cycling and running was a lot more fun, I drove out to Red Rocks Canyon, and trained in the desert. My 1st run there was especially eventful. I bumped into Christophe Sauser on a cyclocross bike (Specialized Tricross) in the middle of nowhere.

Once running, I went straight through the desert landscape, not following a path at first (I was aiming for a dirt road in the distance) then, 100m from the road, a large buried object caught my eye. It was the lid of a plastic container about the size of a soccer ball. Animals had dug it open and gnawed at the plastic. If it was anywhere but Las Vegas I would have carried on running, but the mystery of Vegas where anything is possible was too much. Maybe someone buried his gambling winnings there? I unscrewed the lid and cautiously peered inside- it looked like a huge jar filled with old Vaseline. I breathed through my mouth- not wanting to risk a whiff of whatever is NOT someones Blackjack winnings. I took a stick and poked- the Vaseline was just a layer floating on top of a very suspicious liquidly substance. By then I wasn’t even breathing through my mouth anymore. In fact, I wasn’t breathing at all. I stirred with a very long arm, chunks came up to the surface. I tried to identify body parts.

Short of taking the evidence to the crime lab for further analysis, Private Investigator Stoltz couldn’t solve the mystery and link the tub of juice in the desert to that pimp’s disappearance last summer.

The rest of the run was relatively uneventful – I chased 4 rabbits from the bushes they were hiding in, and oh yes, behind a small tree in the dry riverbed, I bumped (metaphoricaly spoken) into a couple (of people) getting it on. ?!?! Thats Vegas for you.

New bike and old red rocks.