Wednesday, July 30, 2014

IMCDA: The steps before the big day

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. 

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