The Front Row with MARK NELKE June 26, 2011

It was Friday afternoon, and it was time to get in my last bit of training before today's ninth edition of Ironman Coeur d'Alene.

No, I'm not actually in the race ...

Come to think of it, if you're reading this paper on Sunday morning, you're not in the race either. You might be killing time waiting to cheer on your Ironman, or, more likely, still at home trying to figure out how to spend your day - do you brave the traffic, steer clear of the closed roads and head for downtown and cheer on these remarkable accomplishments, or stay home and see if the Mariners can actually score a run? Or if Paula Creamer can win a second major. Or if you can recognize anybody still playing at Wimbledon.

Last year, walking on the Centennial Trail along Lake Coeur d'Alene the day after Ironman, we noticed lots of people had written messages in chalk on the pavement, wishing their Ironman athletes well. Some were pretty clever, so on Friday I wanted to see what kind of messages people were leaving for this year's race, but in the stretch that I walked, I saw nothing. Maybe people were waiting for Saturday. Or Sunday morning.

STILL, IT was a nice afternoon for a walk, so I parked just past the condos at the edge of The Coeur d'Alene Resort Golf Course and started hoofing it eastbound.

"Be careful - don't get run over by Ironmen," warned a woman pushing a stroller, as we crossed paths.

I laughed.

As you might imagine, that stretch of the Centennial Trail was busy with Ironmen on their bicycles.

But, there was also a sprinkling of other forms of humanity - a woman walking her dog, another woman pushing a stroller with two children, a man on a bike with a milk crate on the back, a woman on a bike wearing a backpack, two older women on Schwinns, followed closely by two older men. I didn't even know they still made Schwinns.

Sure, I might have been asking for trouble, but, as the sign says on the road, cars and bikes should share the road. So, I figured (and others must have as well), on this stretch of the Centennial Trail, Ironmen and others can share the road as well.

Plus, some of them rode on Lake Coeur d’Alene Drive anyway, instead of the bike path.

For the most part, people followed the rules of the trail. Just past the Beachouse, though, one woman buzzed me as she whizzed by on her bike. She was riding with two other women, pretty much side-by-side-by-side, while I was as far to the right as I could be on the 13-foot-wide path. Apparently she felt she needed to be at the far right of the other 12 feet.

I said nothing, but thought lots.

OTHERS, THOUGH, were more thoughtful, and simply veered slightly to the left to pass. A few actually vocalized that they were coming.

“On your left,” one said.

“Thanks. Good luck,” I said as he rolled by.

“Thanks,” he said as he pedaled away.

I should have asked for his bib number, so I could cheer for him today.

Most of the riders had shirts covered with the usual logos. One man, however, wore a purple-and-black shirt with TCU in big block letters across the back.

Where one of the water stations was to be set up, little pieces of white tape were on the path, listing where everything was supposed to go — water ... food ... toilet ... cola ... perform. Cola?

The last time we walked that stretch of the trail, at milepost 18 — which, of course, is between mile markers 20 and 21 on the Centennial Trail — it looked like the wet spring weather had buckled the road a bit and made it cracked and uneven, ready to split apart. On Friday, the road was patched and ready to go, which was a good thing — we didn’t need to turn that stretch of Ironman into some sort of steeplechase. The race is tough enough.

On one stretch of the trail, a man and a woman rode by. She had a sponsor logo on the back of her shorts that was apparently unfamiliar to him.

“Your shorts crack me up,” he said to her as they rode by. “I keep thinking they say ‘Taco Tri,’ not ‘Tao Tri.’”

Again, I said nothing ...

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via e-mail at [email protected].