Deb and I packed up and hit the road a little after 1:00 on Saturday to make the drive to Cambridge. When we arrived at the expo, it was a clusterf*ck. One line for the race waiver form. Another line for bib number. Another line for the bracelet. Yet another line for chip. Then onto a line for t-shirts, which.. they were out of all women's sizes except XS. Great. Put our names on a list to have one mailed (yeah, I'm holding my breath) and get into the final line for water bottles and socks. Phew. We spent a bit of time looking around the expo and stocking up on 70.3 merchandise before finally making our way to Great Marsh Park for bike racking and a practice swim.
Even a simple task like racking our bikes was difficult as several people in our rows didn't seem to know how to properly rack a bike and were taking up way too much room. Finally after talking to some race officials, we were able to rack our bike and headed down to the water. The water was NICE.. we only swam in the little protected area near the finish, but the current wasn't too bad, and the temperature was perfect. We finished our practice swim, met up with Maria (who I met at Eagleman AquaBike 2 years ago) and Brian, and headed to her place for the evening.
Maria was nice enough to let Deb and I borrow her car so we went to a local supermarket to pick up supplies (bagels, gatorade, bananas, etc) and then found a nice seafood restaurant for carb loading... is a dozen crabs considered carb loading?? Doesn't matter case they were good! After dinner, we made our way back, organized all of our race stuff and had no problem falling asleep.
We left Maria's at 5:30 and were dropped off at transition by 5:40 only to hear that the water temperature was a little *too* perfect. Wetsuits not allowed. WHAT??!!!!! The temperature measured at 79 degrees, which understandably is above the cutoff to receive awards, but let's face it.. I'm not in contention for any prize other than maybe DFL (Dead F'ing Last). But, the RD decided that it would be too hard to keep track of who was and wasn't wearing a wetsuit so made the call to ban them altogether. Great. And of course my planned ensemble, consisting of my bike jersey/tank, was not exactly swim ready. I mean, it would've been fine smashed under the wetsuit, but alone it was going to create a significant amount of drag. Oh well, nothing I can do about that now. On to set up transition, apply the body glide and make last minute checks....
The bathroom lines were insane. Not only that but after transition closed, with everything except your cap and goggles stored with your gear, you had to use the port-o-potty without shoes on... yuck. Lucky for me I ran out of time while waiting in the line and headed over to the swim start. With the 15 minute race delay my wave went off about 8:00 AM. The current was stronger in this part of the river, and this time of day. I felt like I wasn't moving at all and it took what seemed FOREVER to make it to the first buoy. I was getting kicked and grabbed and finally made my way to the side to avoid other swimmers... only I seem to have gone a little too much to the side because by the time I was even with the next buoy it was a good 50 meters to my right. And with the current, it seemed impossible to get back on track. This was by far my worst swim ever, both by feel and by time. As I rounded the 2nd orange buoy (finally), a girl kicked my wrist. Worried that she had stopped my watch timer, I glanced at it... 1:05 had passed already... WHAT??? I had done this exact swim 2 years earlier in 53 minutes, albeit with a wetsuit. No way I was going to make it back in time, but I kept moving forward.... even the second half of this swim was against the current, how can that be? I didn't feel like I was getting any closer to the shore. Finally, the water became shallow enough to stand and I realized many people were just standing up and running. I decided to do the same, and started running with another girl. I was in the water for 1:11 by this point, knowing the cutoff is 1:10.. the girl I was next to made a comment that it appeared they weren't enforcing the cutoff, as we were both past it.. and indeed, I was allowed to run up the shoot and proceed to my bike for a total swim time of 1:14. Pathetic.
I grabbed my bike, helmet, shoes, gloves and sunglasses and I was off. I really just never felt right on the bike. Nutrition-wise, it took awhile for my stomach to settle down, probably because I was so mad about that horrible swim. I was peddling like normal but didn't feel that I was getting any power at all.. in retrospect, I believe my tire was low and had been losing air for awhile, but this struggle on the bike made me even madder about my performance. Sadly, I didn't make the entire bike and ended up getting a lift back to transition by a nice cop who was working the race.... mind you, I got a ride back after sitting there for over half hour waiting for a race official.
I was dropped off at Great Marsh, loaded my bike onto the back of Deb's car and walked down to transition to look for my mom and find a place to cheer for Deb. I went into transition to pack up my stuff just to have one less thing to do later, and I see Deb standing around transition... wha?? I walked over and immediately she tells me she's been DQ'ed.. WHAT? What on earth did she do? She showed me the duct tape placed over her name on the bike rack and explained it was because she didn't make the swim cutoff.. Hmm... so I walk back over to my spot and sure enough, I'd been DQ'ed also.. WTF?! And how come they didn't catch us BEFORE the bike to save me a miserable 2.5 hours.. and for the first time all day I was pleased that I had a crappy bike.. but either way, what a sucky day. And worse for Deb because A) it was her first 70.3 triathlon and B) aside from a long swim, had an amazing bike (19mph) and was on target for a fantastic finish. //sigh//
Later we heard that the course was actually measured closer to 1.5 miles, and that nearly 40% of the field was DQ'ed... now sure, some of those numbers might be slightly off, but suffice it to say there were a lot of disappointed - and angry - racers! Luckily, Deb still had time to sign up for Rhode Island 70.3 so she'll at least get to finish one this summer. As for me, I'll be looking at Nations Triathlon in September as my new "A" race, and will refocus on the half ironman for next summer....
Might try to learn how to change a flat before September also :-)
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