This past weekend was the Door County Half Ironman race- My "A" race for the year. Heading into the race I felt fit, but also felt like I had not stuck as closely to the plan as I should have. I was right on the first count and wrong on the second count (either that or it didn't matter).
As always, I'll split the race report into 4 seperate blogs. Today- the PREGAME!
We left for Door County Friday night after work. I've been to Door County before, but somehow never as an adult, so this was going to be a whole new experience for me. I didn't realize quite how long it would take to get up there- so leaving at 6pm, it was almost 10 before we arrived at our hotel. After unpacking the car, we started wandering- looking for the bar/restaurant. As we wandered through the parking lot having no idea where we were going, we asked a group of people "where's the bar?" And from the group behind them I hear "figures you'd be looking for the bar." It was my friends Matt & Julie and their family, who ended up in a room two doors down from us. Unfortunately, by the time Laura and I found the bar they were no longer serving food. But they were still serving wine!
On Saturday morning me and Matt & Julie drove to the race site where we met our friends Josh & Stef for a swim and eventually also ran into John & Casey. Having done the swim we checked out the transition area and then headed off to lunch at the Shipwrecked Brew Pub. No brew for me- remember the wine from last night? Next, the first of a couple (o.k. a few) Ice Cream stops on the trip, followed by me and Laura riding some of the run course on our bikes. One hill in particular was pretty daunting- Laura and I rode DOWN the hill, while the race course actually took you the other way- UP the hill. Lets just say this...it was intimidating going down.
Saturday night was our big pasta feed- the gang that had been hanging out earlier in the day plus Meagan and her family all met for a great Italian dinner. After dinner, a casual walk down the street for more ice cream!
Early to bed on Saturday night- after obessing over packing my transition bag. And early to rise on Sunday morning.
Off to the races and it's time to set up my transition area. I have a very specific race-day ritual. That ritual keeps me occupied for the time leading up to the start of the race. It includes taping GU packets to the top bar of my bike, laying out a towel in transition, with shoes placed neatly on the towel- socks neatly layed over the top of the bike shoes- helmet sitting upside down on the areobars of the bike, glasses inside the helmet, race number belt neatly hanging over the aerobars- what did the announcer say? We don't need to wear the race number on the bike...race number belt moved to the towel- neatly layed out behind the running shoes, a banana sitting behind each pair of shoes, a bag of boiled potatoes sitting beind the bike shoes (to be moved to the spot behind the running shoes after I have a potato or two during T1 (first transition- between the swim and the bike) and finally the wetsuit is on- up to my waist and my goggles (cloudy day- clear goggles today) and swim cap tucked into the front of my TRI-top. Told you I was obsessive.
What did the race announcer just say?
There's a storm coming. The race is delayed by 30 minutes. But I time all of this out so that I have something to do with all of my nervous energy for the entire time before the race. Now what? And I'm wave 10, so even when the race does start, I have a 30 minute wait until I get to go.
But I got through it all.
Tomorrow- the SWIM!
triathlon magazine...
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