Where to begin...I'll start just briefly by saying Thursday night I ate almost half of a large, deep dish, Domino's Pizza and then on Friday, for both lunch and Dinner I had my usual, a Moe's burrito. After teaching most of the day on Friday, Irfan and I jumped into the far and drove to Clermont. We completed the usual: race meeting, bike check-in, etc. Then as the sun was setting we left out on what would tomorrow's bike course. We had a difficult time early on trying to find the route in the dark. After losing and finding the route a few times, I gave it up. I was exhausted, ready to eat and had seen all I needed to see. The course was hilly! As we were driving along we would say, "Surely they won't have us biking up this hill". Um, yeah, I wish. We biked up hills WAY worse than we saw on Friday night.
Anyway, we drove 20 minutes south to our cheap hotel that was one of the sponsoring hotels ($40/night!). We settle into the room; I choke down my burrito that I didn't really want, went through all my gear, which I seem to have a lot of these days and then jumped into bed, only to find a sharp pain in my shoulder blade. It hurt to lay on my back and on my right side. How was I going to race? I laid on my left side and was asleep before I even realized it.
The alarm sounded, and eventually I was up and moving. The breakfast I had brought from home sent me pucking to the bathroom. I had one taste, the food had spoiled. I was now forced to go check out the continental breakfast. Irfan and I headed down to find a lovely treat awaiting. Well, as lovely as a good continental breakfast can be. I had a bagel with cream cheese, a little bit of instant oatmeal and 1 small microwaved pancake that was not good at all. I chased it with some gatorade when I got back to the room.
After lubing up in all the right places and covering myself in sunblock, except for my forgotten arms, which are now slightly burned, I packed all my gear up and hit the road at 6:25. By 6:45 I was out of the car headed to transition in drizzling rain. I struggled with all my stuff, perhaps I have too much. I had to carry it about 3 blocks. Finally as I laid my gear out, the drizzle turned to a steady rain. They announced the water would be wetsuit legal. Damn it! I still don't have a wetsuit. Oh well! There was nothing I could do now. I finished laying out my gear not only in the rain, but in the dark too. I didn't even bother to check my tire pressure, I was freezing and ready for everything to be over.
I got weighed in and headed for cover under the pavilion. I stood close to people just trying to get some heat. Irfan finally found me and we waited together as the start of the Great Floridian (full iron distance race) approached. We stood overlooking the beach as the gun sounded and they were off, moving slowly into the water; then, the relays started. Finally it was my turn. I walked slowly down to the beach, waded into the water for the first time and went back to the beach to stand with my fellow athletes. The countdown started and we were off, wading into the water and finally swimming.
The water was choppy, making it nearly impossible to stay on course. I got several mouthfuls of water when I went to breathe. I continued trying to site, but found my blue-tinted goggles were quite a hindrance to seeing the buoys. I occasionally lifted off my goggles to be sure I was swimming in the right direction. The swim was slow. I tried to do freestyle, but every time I did a few strokes and then would site, I found that I had turned a couple of strokes off to one side and would then have to swim back. I opted then for breaststroke a good portion of the time. It sucked overall. It was nice though being in fresh water.
(more later)
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