Race Day!

We had the alarm set for 4:45 on Sunday (just like our Tuesday swim practices!). I woke up to use the restroom at about 4:00 and didn't really get back to sleep but managed not to toss and turn before the alarm went off. It was a good night's sleep as far as I'm concerned. I took a quick shower just to really wake myself up, ate a banana and bagel with peanut butter, grabbed the transition bag and headed downstairs. The night before we had packed our bags using a checklist I had written up with my race plan. I was confident that I had everything and knew where it was. The bike was racked and ready. Nothing more to do but get down there and set up.

We me the team in the lobby at 5:15 and walked down to transition in the dark. There was a line to get body marked at the entrance and we had to wait about 15 minutes to get in. While we were waiting some guy walks past to the line and yells, "Any 45-49 age group men might as well go home now that I'm here!!". What a tool! I should have remembered his number and seen if he could back that talk up at the finish line. Regardless, really class act. There was also this young guy who walked up with a pretty expensive bike asking where bike check in was (it had closed at 8:00 the previous day). One of the race officials came up and said, "Sorry, man, you had to be here yesterday. You can't race". That sucks for him! We reached the front of the line a they wrote our race numbers (I was #4050) on each shoulder and the front of each thigh; our age and any special waves (TNT for us) on the back of our calves. The latter was for anybody who might be chasing you to determine if they should bother passing you or not since you would be in their group.


In transition we laid out our gear in our little plots of land behind our racked bikes. I met the two TNT guys on either side of me and took only about 5:00 getting everything set up. We then mulled about as the sun came up, put on sunscreen, and goofed around to release nervous energy. I double checked my set up again and they started to announce that transition was closing at 7:00 when the first pro wave was set to go off. We went outside to use the port-o-potties and watch the pro men and women's waves enter the water across the bay. Only 17 minutes later the first pro men showed up and we watched them run right by us at the swim exit. Holy crap they were fast! We could also see them come out of transition on the bike (in and out in under a minute which is lightning fast). All of the pros and most serious age groupers just leave there bike shoes clipped in to their bikes and pedal on top of them out of transition, slipping their feet in when they get up to speed. Save 30 seconds or so which is a lot of time if you are competing.

After watching a few more come across we started the 3/4 mile walk over to the swim start beach. I was getting pretty nervous at this point and walked back to the hotel for a minute to grab an extra gel to eat just before the swim. We had plenty of time to burn; the first TNT wave wasn't going off until 9:00. I wasn't entering the water until 9:15. That was tortuous; I just wanted to get in the water and go, go, go! I rejoined the group at the beach and picked up my timing chip. I might have been a good thing since the line earlier in the morning was chaos apparently. Some more walking around by myself then I found the group. Lots of laughing and chatting punctuated by silence and serious faces. Most of us were pretty tense. At about 8:45 I started to get into my wetsuit and applied lots of BodyGlide around my neck and upper arms (BG is basically a non-petroleum lubricant to prevent chafing; the suits can get really bad around the neck and arms if they are sleeveless. I learned this on Friday during our first swim!). I went off to the side of the starting line to swim and warm up for about 5 minutes then back to the group for a couple final photos and to pack away my shirt and flip flops. We cheered on the first 3 TNT waves as they enterd the starting chute: men 35+ at 9:00, women 35+ at 9:05 (Steph's wave), women 34 and under at 9:10 (Liz's wave). Teen went off at 8:50 in her age group. After the 9:10 wave entered the water our final wave got in the chute.