Thursday was the beginning of all
things race related. We started off by going down to the water to do a test
swim and practice in the wetsuits. At first the water was cold but after a few
strokes I didn’t notice the temperature anymore. My borrowed long-sleeve
wetsuit (thanks Aixa!) would work just fine and I didn’t even need to use the
neoprene cap I brought with me. The temperature ended up the last thing I was
thinking about though. The water was super clear!
I’m used to the good ol’
murky water of Texas lakes that hide whatever may be lurking beneath you. Being
able to see as the water got deeper was a totally different experience.
Unfortunately for me, I watch horror movies and have a very active imagination.
So instead of enjoying one of nature’s finest attributes, I was picturing every
horrible scene from every horror movie I have seen. So ensued the
hyperventilating and proclamations of how I didn’t need to swim before the
race. Luckily Brian and Herb helped calm me down (a little) and swam next to me
so I would be able to see them next to me. I did a few short out and backs from
the shore to a buoy that was out in the water and Brian tried to get me to swim
to a dock that was a little ways down the beach. I started out with him but he
quickly got ahead of me and I decided to turn back before I freaked out again.
As I got back to where I could stand in the water another swimmer that was out there
stopped. He ended up being from Germany and had been in town for a week already
and said that he had been swimming in the water by himself most of the time and
he had never seen anything. He gave me some good calming tips and even took our
picture with Herb’s camera. I thanked him and let him continue on his swim. I
did one more out and back and did much better with leaving my eyes open under
the water and not hyperventilating anymore. I wasn’t too worried about race day
because I would be surrounded by so many people that I knew I would be
distracted by racing rather than by anything my head could conjure up.
After that we drove down to athlete
check in and bike pick up. We picked up the bikes first and then dropped them
off at the race wheel place to get our dancing shoes put on our bikes. Then we
hit athlete check in and became “official” ironman races with our wristbands
on.We checked out the expo for a while, spent way too much money on IM gear,
listened to the pre-race meeting, and then picked up our bikes and headed out
for a short ride on the bike course. Brian started out from the expo site but
Herb and I drove out to a little parking area we had seen and met up with him
there and started riding from there. We got a few miles in and established that
our bikes were in working order and the wheels felt good.
Later that night we
went to Hillary Biscay’s Smashfest party at a local bike shop. There was great
food, cute Smash gear to buy, and a Pro triathlete Q&A with Hillary, Maik, Haley Chura, Derek Garcia, another male pro whose name I can’t remember, and
Heather Wurtele! It was so awesome meeting Heather in person. She’s another one
of my favorite female triathletes and she’s super nice and also extremely tall!
I definitely felt extremely short standing next to her!
We had planned to do another
practice swim on Friday morning with a group of people from the IMCDA Face Book page, but when we turned on the news that morning and they showed the whitecaps
on the lake from the strong winds we decided against it. So we turned Friday
into a day of making sure we had all our gear ready, making last minute
purchases for things we may have forgotten, and doing some exploring closer to
CdA. We used our vouchers that they gave us in lieu of an athlete dinner and
met up with Kate and her husband Ray and had a fun dinner overlooking the lake
as a pretty spectacular storm rolled through. This, I was hoping, was going to
be the last of the rain.
Saturday came and it was time to
check in the bikes. I did one last test ride around my hotel parking lot and
did some last minute rearranging of my food items on my bike. We went down to
transition one last time and I set off to rack my bike. I did a little
visualization here picturing myself finding my bike and taking off toward the
mount line. Then we went and dropped off our bike and run gear bags. It was
another cool day with a good breeze and we looked out over the water one last
time and I hoped that the wind would be gone by the morning. I spent the
majority of the rest of the day off my feet watching a Law & Order: SVU
marathon on USA. How perfect was that? Nothing can suck me and Brian into the
vortex of doing nothing more than an SVU marathon. We made a quick trip out for
dinner and then it was time to hit the hay.
Next up…..race day.
