Pre-Race

Executive summary:

• A pork tenderloin sandwich with onions is not a good night-before meal, particularily onions.
• It's hard to sleep the night before a race even though you know that you have to get up at 4:15. I woke at 2:20 and was awake for a full hour.
• Body markings are cool. You can show them off to people when you tell them that you did a triathlon.
• If the water is too warm, don't care that you spent a lot of money on a wet-suit.
• Trackshorts alone make you feel more naked than clothed.
• Going shoeless in a portapotty is gross but at least I was able to jump in a lake shortly after.
• Waiting on the beach 50 minutes before the your race begins allows you to get really nervous... and then not so nervous... and then nervous again.
• Family helps with the nerves.

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Long Form:

The night before the race, we met up with my brother, Mrk and Mg, his wife. The race was in a neutral city between our two homes, so we met there. The place we had supper was very meat heavy. So, no carbo-loading for me. I had a pork tenderloin. It was delicious.

After packet-pickup, we came back to our place for the night. I still had to pack my gear. Mrk helped me attach the bike rack to my car, which was good because the instructions were inscrutable.

He also helped me make sure that I had everything I needed for the race. It turns out there is a lot of stuff that you need to keep track of; goggles, bike gloves, wetsuit, shoes... I went through the race in my head and tried to figure out what I would need at each step. That worked pretty well but I should have just used a checklist from the internet.

We managed to get to bed around 10:30.

At 2:20 am, I woke up. I was nervous and that made me worried that I was sick. (I had the same feeling on my wedding day, when I woke up thinking, "I hope I'm not hung over". I wasn't). The onion taste in my mouth (from the tenderloin) didn't help things at all. I wound up brushing my teeth three times that morning to get rid of the taste.

I went back to bed but I was so nervous that I just rolled around. The last time I remember seeing was 3:30. I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I new it was 4:15 and time to get up.

I felt pretty good when I got up. I grabbed some cereal (bran flakes) and watched a little bit of Red Eye that we had recorded.

Then, I woke up Johann and got him dressed (Arial had set out clothes the night before. He was so adorable. He barely cried while I was dressing him.

Arial had gotten up by that point and she got Frances dressed while I loaded the car.

We managed to get out of the house a little after 5 am (we were shooting for 4:50). We arrived at the race location a little before 6 which turned out to be the perfect time because people we were able to park right next to the start. Any earlier and we would have had to park about a block away in another lot, any later and I don't know where we would have had to park.

Mrk and I got body marked with our race numbers and age. There was hardly a line and so it was very quick. As it turns out, body markings are neat. They are like a badge that says "I recently did a triathlon."

It was around this time that we discovered that the water was too warm to wear wet-suits. That bummed me out because wet-suits make it easier to swim. Plus, I had put out a fair amount of money for it (more than my bike). Slowly it dawned on my that I didn't really have a true swim-suit and that I was just going to have to wear the track-shorts that I was essentially planning to wear as underwear.

We then set up our transition areas. They had assigned numbers alphabetically which meant that Mrk and I were next to each other. That was really nice. It would have been lonely setting up otherwise. Instead, we were able to complain about the lack of wet-suits and discuss how we were going to find our spots and other such things.

Eventually, the time came to strip down to my track shorts. Keep in mind that I do not have a beatifully chisled body. I would dare say that my body is not really attractive at all. Fortunately, there were other guys in similar condition also running around shirtless in too-tight shorts.

One thing that really made the near-nudity easier to deal with was that I had to leave my glasses at transition. When I don't have my glasses, it is like I am in my own world. In a way it's like when a child covers their eyes to hide, it is irrationally comforting. If I can't see, maybe no one can.

We had to go down to the beach at 6:45 to hear the opening instructions. A touch before that, I joined the giant portapotty line. Mrk gave up his spot in line to join me in the back. He is very considerate.

I just have to say that going into a portapotty without shoes is disgusting. I tried not to think about what I was standing in and I wiped my feet on the grass a quite a bit. Later on, I swam in a lake.

While I was in line, I ate a gel (you are supposed to have one 15 minutes before the race). Since it is required by law to have water with the gel, I needed water. Arial found me water far above the beach (but it was better than no water at all).

We hurried down to the beach only to learn that the instructions were being broadcast over their speaker system. The real reason they wanted us down there was to chear on the elite starters.

So Mrk and I waited on the beach. I occationally waved at Arial and the kids who were watching from the grass. Arial wore an orange shirt so I was able to spot her without my glasses.

On the beach, we noticed that everyone else had brightly colored swim caps (provided in the packet. Ours were black. I'm reasonably certain that someone hoped we would sink and not be recovered. Arial says that she saw a couple other black caps but I didn't (granted I didn't have my glasses).

Finally the race began... but not for us. It was a time trial start, which meant that one person started every "3" seconds. They were using chip timing so it wouldn't affect our times. At three seconds a person, it should have taken 30 minutes to get the whole field started but with 30 minutes gone, only about half had started. That kinda sucked.

While we waited, the announcer talked. And talked. He started by doing play by play of the leaders. But when they got out of the water (about 7 minutes later), he started to just tell us how much better the time trial start is over the traditional wave start. It was almost like he was being defensive.

I was able to make out the leg markings on the guy in front of me. It said "70". It took me a bit to remember that that was his age. My next thought was that he had lied but when I saw his face, I believed him. He was in incredible shape.

Around 15 minutes after the start, Arial, Mg and the kids came down to the beach to hang out with us. That was nice since it made me a bit less nervous. Frances played in the sand and Johann walked (and bounced) on the beach chairs that had been flattened to provide some sort of crowd control. At one point he walked three chairs away. Arial had to run after him.

We got up close to the start, where the mob of people funneled down to a line. It was then that I started to crash from my gel-induced sugar high. That was not idea.

Soon, 35 minutes after the official start, Mrk was next in line to go. We said our good lucks and he was off.

3..2..1..

My race began.
mwz