Race Weekend Part II or RACE DAY!

Sunday, September 12th
I woke up briefly at 3:00 AM.  Otto and I walked to the kitchen to make sure his food and water were still there.  (They always are, but we still check.)  I went back to sleep.

My alarm went off at 4:30 AM.  I have never been good at packing in advance.  But, when I have enough time, I can be quite efficient packing in the morning.  It's true for any trip. So even though my bathroom looked like this on Saturday night, I had my lists and was in a good position to have everything ready.

I looked outside. It was raining.  Well, it wasn't so much raining as it was misting.  Everything just looked damped.  I really didn't think it would be so bad.  I would be wet for the swim and a good portion of the bike, so why did it really matter?  Ignorance really can be bliss.

So here's what getting ready involved:

• Getting "dressed" in my tri suit. (But first, I had to apply body glide to any part of skin that would touch my wet suit or a seam on my wetsuit or tri suit or any part of skin that might touch any other piece of skin.  This means I was pretty much covering myself in body glide.)
• Packing up my mostly dried wetsuit with cap and goggles.
• Applying sunscreen to my face.  (Little did I know how unnecessary that effort was.)
• Packing 1 towel to lay all of my stuff for transition on and a smaller towel to wipe off my feet during T-1.
• Tucking my running shoes and favorite socks in my bag.
• Putting a change of clothes (pants, t-shirt, hat) into a plastic bag and packing it into my larger bag.
• Filling 3 bottles of water (2 for the bike, 1 extra) and adding them to my bag.
• Adding body glide, powder, 2 gels, nutrition bar, and chomps to my bag.
• Layering an extra t-shirt and jacket on top of tri suit.
• Packing my helmet and sunglasses. (Again, the ridiculousness of sunglasses wouldn't strike me until later.)
• Eating some low fat cottage cheese, plain oatmeal with some frozen mixed berries mixed in.  (The entire time I was getting ready, I considered making coffee.  I really wish I had just committed and made the darn coffee.)

After all of this, I put on my flip flops, told Otto to wish me luck and headed out the door.

When I first got outside, there was a gentle mist floating through the air. It felt good.  As I walked toward West Potomac Park, there was a guy a couple of feet behind me who was obviously also on his way to compete in the triathlon.  We struck up a very nice conversation. His name was John. He was an attorney from New York and this was definitely not his first tri.  As we walked, the rain started coming down, harder and harder.  By the time I got to transition, it was raining.

I picked up my timing chip, strapped it to my leg, and went to re-find my bike.  Everything seemed so clear and easy.  I was no longer nervous about the race.  There was nothing else that I could do to prepare physically.  I only had the things that I brought with me.  It was time to put four months of training into action.

By now, the time was about 6:00 AM.  It was raining a full-on, going to soak everything on this green earth kind of a rain. I wasn't completely sure what to do.  In theory, I should be setting up my transition, but the sooner I did that, the sooner everything I had with me would be soaked.  So I just stood there.  I chatted with the women around me. And we stood there getting wet. The woman next to me told me that while she was in the port-a-potty, it was warm, dry, and didn't stink yet. She thought of staying in there until the rain stopped, but decided that would be selfish and a little bit ridiculous.  Transition was supposed to close at 6:55 AM, so by 6:40, I finally bit the bullet and just set-up all of my stuff in the pouring rain. 

They had been announcing that the start of the first swim wave (which was scheduled for 7:00 AM) had been pushed back 15-20 minutes but it was still unclear if transition would stay open for longer.  So there everything sat, in the rain, getting wetter. 

Transition did stay open for an extra 20 minutes and during that time, the rain lightened to a mild mist.  However, that did nothing for my already soaked transition towel.  You can't see it very well in this picture, but every single item in this photo was wet, wet, wet.  I did have enough forethought to cover my shoes and socks with a plastic bag, but more about that later. 

The extra t-shirt that I was wearing (and planning to wear prior to my swim wave in order to stay warm) was completely soaked and useless at this point.  I donned by wetsuit in an effort to stay warm and headed out of transition as it was about to close.



Transition in the misty morning.



I ran into my new TNT friend Teresa. She was eating her breakfast consisting of two hot dog buns and a banana.  Why?  Because that's the breakfast she ate every Saturday during training.  It worked fine for four months of training, so would she have changed for race day?

We stood in line for the port-a-potties and that's where we heard the National Anthem and a few words from Mayor Adrien Fenty who was also competing in the race.

The rest of the hour and twenty-eight minutes before my swim wave was spent trying to stay warm, dodging from tree to tree to avoid the rain, and watching the other swim waves start.  That's where the true entertainment of the day was, watching other swimmers.  It's amazing how many people can't swim in a straight line AND don't learn to site in open water.  We watched one guy swim 50 meters, stop and hang onto the kayak for about 5 minutes.  Then he started swimming and from the sidelines, we all cheered.  But then we realized that he was definitely not swimming in a straight line and it appeared as though he was swimming straight across the swim course.  Finally, I realized that he was swimming to the 100 meter buoy and he proceeded to cling to the buoy for another few minutes. During this time, there were at least another two swim waves that passed.  Once he let go of the buoy, he swam another 25 meters or so and again, grabbed on to one of the kayaks.  Either this poor man had not done nearly enough training or he was having such significant panic issues that continuing did not seem prudent. I'm not sure if he was finally able to continue or ended up dropping out of the race.

Ok, it was at this point that Teresa (who was in the swim wave after mine) and I realized that we were getting very close to our swim times.  We headed up to the swim corrals and I said good-bye and wished Teresa good luck with her race.  As I turned to join the ranks of the other dark green capped swimmers, who should I see, but my very dear friend Stephanie.  She had made it out, early in the morning while it was raining to watch me race.  I gave her the biggest hug I possibly could without sending her tumbling backwards.  It was so good to see someone who was there for me. This picture, the only one of me moments before entering the Potomac is compliments of Steph.

I think this post has been long enough, so I'll save the actual race for tomorrow night.