IM Florida Race Week
EN Florida racers:
Race week is approaching fast! Hope everyone had a good week of training with the final FT bike test and Race Rehearsal and is feeling good for race day.
With the race 3 weeks away it will soon be time to start making dinner arrangements for the EN dinner. I live about 3.5 hours away and am traveling to PCB on Monday. As such I will be in town before most people and am helping Patrick with dinner arrangements.
Typically, EN dinner is Thursday before a Sunday race. This still allows people 2 nights prior to raceday and makes it possible for people to attend the IM pre-race dinner and "mandatory" athlete meeting. With Florida being a Saturday race, we need to decide if Thursday works for everyone of if Wed might be better.
Not sure if everyone will be in town by Wed night or if many people are planning on attending the pre race banquet.
Concerning a place, last year the dinner was at Sweet Basil's, and italian place about 1 mile from the Boardwalk area. I've never eaten there but I think it worked reasonably well last year. Close, and has a decent menu (chicken, pasta, pizza, salads)
There actually is not a lot to pick from right near the boardwalk/ convention center area.
Hammerhead Freds = bar food (probably not the best idea)
Mellow mushroom is also very close (walking distance) and has pizza, pasta, etc. but might be quite crowded due to its proximity to the race venue.
Down the Beach road there is Pier Park where there are a ton of restaurants but it is about 15 min drive or so almost to Hwy 79 -- not sure if everyone wants to drive out that far.
Feedback welcome as we need to pick a time/place that works for the most people --
Be sure to fill in contact information on the Google spreadsheet
Look forward to meeting you all,
Mark
Comments
Mark thanks for taking this on. I look forward to meeting you, the coaches and all the EN folks. My plans are to arrive Wed around early afternoon. I will have my wife with me and both of us would love to come to the EN dinner. I love Italian food so last years venue seems great to me. I also would love to go to the prerace banquet.
Thanks a bunch. Happy training.
Dennis
My vote is to have the dinner on Thursday, since I won't be getting into town until Wednesday evening. That being said, if it is on Thursday it would have to be early enough for us to get back to the Boardwalk Beach Resort by 7:30 for the mandatory athlete meeting. I like the idea of going to an Italian restaurant. That's perfect for a carbo-load dinner.
Looking forward to meeting everyone.
Shawn
Happy taper everyone! I'm looking forward to meeting the EN IMFL contingent!
-Marc
Nathalie
Thursday works for me, too. My BF and I come in some time Wed.
I'm good with whatever place has good food... and am totally fine heading out of town a little bit bc I know there's not much (except Waffle Houses) near the beach strip. I'll have a rental car so could pick up a few folks (2 or 3) to sit in back if folks would need a ride.
fwiw, Last year I ate at a really nice restaurant in a strip mall across the street from a really nice Holiday Inn (?)... that might be the place you mentioned... nope, just went through my matchbook/business card collection: Firefly (www.fireflypcb.com). There was an Italian place in that area, but it was closed... perhaps it was just on Sunday night (the night I checked it out)... but I thought it was closed for the season.
Looks like dinner will be Thursday night at Sweet Basils, probably around 6 pm. This will allow people to eat and cut out if they would like to go to the pre-race meeting.
More details to follow,
Looking forward to meeting everyone,
Mark