Monday, July 21, 2008

Pre-Race

The weekend was too long and fun to try and condense into one race report, so I'll start with the days leading up to the race...

Thursday
After one last chiro appointment, Ken and I drove over the club to load up the trailer/van and head up to Lake Chelan with the Headhunter group. I was horribly naseous. To the extent that people were wondering if I even wanted to attempt the race. Thankfully it passed quickly. I think it was a combination of carsickness and too much coffee on an empty stomach. And, you know, maybe some nerves.

What do you get when you put 7 overhyrdated nervous athletes into one vehicle for a long road trip? Lots of stops! One of the best was at Java Jigglers. Hee hee.

After an entertaining handful of hours in the van, we arrived at our camp for the first night. It was a 1,000 Trails campground just outside of Leavenworth, WA. Thank you, Mikey's Dad for us being able to stay there!!! For those who can afford a membership to 1,000 Trails, it's totally worth it. Nice place. Upon arrival, we all noticed the plentiful "Bear Warning" signs posted all over the property. We didn't really pay much attention to them since almost all campgrounds have similar signage. After unloading the van and setting up camp, Brian cooked us up some yummy meat and we stuffed our faces before crawling into bed. I didn't realize how disturbed Nadine was by the bear signs until it was time to go to sleep and she began asking questions like "do we have any weapons in here?" I convinced her that the warnings were simply to persuade campers to keep their areas nice and tidy. That seemed to help.

Friday
Thump, thump, whack. I woke up to some strange noises outside. I assumed that people from the trailer were up and about. Then Brian whispered to me, "there's a bear on the picnic table." He also pointed to Nadine and gave me the universal "shhhh" signal. Eventually the bear plodded off in search of messier camps. So we did what most people would NOT do...we followed it with a camera. The next hour or so was spent snapping photos and trying to startle it enough to get a better shot. Some funny stuff ensued, but to avoid embarassment of certain people, we'll just leave it at that.

After breakfast (if you haven't noticed, this group is all about the food!) we mosied on over to the campground pool. It turned out to be a pretty nice facility and we all hopped in for a few laps and some horsing around. We decided to do a sprint race from one end to the other...and Ken won! By a body length! Here we are -- mostly seasoned triathletes. Numerous ironman. Swim coach. Ex-swim team people. And the dude who doesn't work out and hasn't swam in like 10 years schools us? That was dumb of him though, because Denise is giving us swim lessons as a wedding gift and now he has to get up at 4:30 am two days a week. Haha!

We packed up camp and spent a few hours in the super cute town of Leavenworth. I could have done without all of the walking prior to race day, but it really was a scenic place worth stopping at. And I even scored a cute leather handbag at a little shop in town.

We arrived in Chelan (after driving on some of the steep bike course) and went through packet pick-up and bike check-in. I had a few moments of "holy crap, I'm really going to do this." And then I sort of fell into my mental hell-hole for the next 12 hours. You know, that dark place where you don't want to talk. Or eat. Or sleep. Or sit still. Or do anything. It's a tortuous place, really. But I suppose all part of the fun.
You would have to be there to understand this. But it's K-Dawg in his true form:As we started getting ready to call it a night, we couldn't help but notice the strong winds that had picked up. They didn't show any sign of relenting soon, so we crawled into bed hoping we would wake up to calmer conditions. About an hour passed and we were all still laying there awake listening to the tent get pushed around by Mother Nature. Another hour passed and yes, we were still awake. Then another few hours passed and I think I might have slept for 10 or 15 minutes. A few laughs and sighs were exchanged as it became apparant we were in for a long night.
Saturday - RACE DAY!!!
Camp began to stir around 4:30am. Not many words were exchanged as people changed into tri clothes, filled water bottles, and tried to choke down breakfast. I knew I needed the calories, but it was so hard to swallow anything. I just concentrated on keeping the food down and hydrating as much as possible.

Around 5:50am we filed silently into the van and drove over to the race, for what was about to become a truly amazing day.