Race Weekend, Part 1

This weekend was such a wonderful blur! It's hard to separate actual events from emotions, but I'm going to try my hardest to recount the weekend with a little bit of both.

Friday, September 10th
It was a pretty normal day at work, despite the fact that I could not stop thinking or talking about the weekend ahead of me.  Luckily, all of my colleagues were very gracious and encouraging.

I ended up staying later at work than I had wanted and didn't make it to packet pick-up at the Washington Hilton until about 6:30pm.  The pick-up line and expo area were virtually empty.  Apparently, not many people were able to plan ahead. 

I did manage to take a pretty good athlete ID picture, if I do say so myself. (Yes, feel free to order prints.)  Hopefully, this is as close as I ever get to a mug shot. I also wandered around a bit, checked out some expensive merchandise, sampled some Muscle Milk and picked up my finished t-shirt.

After packet pick-up, I had a wonderful dinner (yum, Ethiopian!) with my old friend Katie.  She was so encouraging and supportive.  Thanks, Katie!  It was a great start to the weekend and with all of that walking, I slept like a rock that night.

Saturday, September 11th
My alarm went off ridiculously early in an attempt to mimick the events on Sunday morning.  My first thought: Happy Birthday, Emily!  Second thought: Wow, it's been 9 years since 9/11/01.  Third thought: Crap, I'm competing in a triathlon tomorrow.

I had some time to kill, so I laid on the couch for a few hours and "rested" my eyes. Then I started making lists.  They included: things I would need for that day's bike racking and practice swim, things I would need to do that night, and the things I would need for race day. Making lists relieved some of the anxiety.  Maybe I should make lists more often in my normal life.

Ok, so once I'd packed up my cap, goggles, wet suit, towel, change of clothes, bike number, and helmet number, I got into my tri suit, grabbed some water and food, raised the seat on my bike, put on my gloves and helmet and pedaled my way to transition.  Yes, all of this was by completed by 11:20 AM.

Once I found transition, got marked with my numbers, and got into transition, it seemed really big and scary.

I'd had some trouble with my back shifter on the way over, but the helpful bike mechanics from the Bike Lane smoothed it out and gave me some tips for the next day.

Looks good from the front, right?

My bike all racked and ready.

I had some time to spare before our scheduled swim practice, so I met up with some of my fellow teammates from Team In Training and we proceeded to pose and take some pictures.

Demonstrating my skill on the aerobars.

Showing off my sweet muscles and bib number. This pose never gets old.

After our photography fun, I walked down to the swim area to get a better idea of how terrible the waters of the Potomac were really going to be.  Truth be told, it didn't look so bad and there was virtually no smell! (Yes, Lucy. No milfoil.)

Here are a few pics to show how things looked.

This is the walkway to the swim in.

Here's the swim out.

A view down river

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also have to share a quick picture of these buoys.  There were so many comments about their size and quantity.  Apparently, most triathlons don't have 10 foot tall buoys marking every 100 meters. (Just for a size comparison, those little dots in the water are the heads of people swimming.)  Who knew?

 

I was excited for my swim practice.  I had already done a couple of open water swims, but there was something about the Potomac was particularly terrifying.

Wetsuits look good on no one. NO. ONE.

I only swam for about 400 meters.  The first 50, I really thought I was going to vomit.  I could only see about 12-15 inches in front of me and I realized that I felt so awful just because I was thinking about how disgusting the river was...but it wasn't!  So once I got over the fear of just being in the Potomac river, I calmed down and the swim went really well. 

After the day's excitement, I still had to go home, shower and get ready for the Inspiration Dinner.  During the dinner, everyone who has participated with that event's Team In Training loads up on carbohydrates and cries.  We got to hear the touching story of a little boy from Texas named Gage who was diagnosed with Leukemia and everything that his family had done and all the money they had raised for LLS.  It was a sob-fest.

I finally got home around 9:15pm.  As I laid down to try and get some sleep, I was really pleased that the day had been so busy.  I'm sure that if I hadn't been utterly exhausted, I would not have gotten such a wonderul nights sleep.

Those are the details of Friday and Saturday.  I'll share the damp details of race day in part two!