Nations Triathlon

Well, add another DNS to this horrific year of racing... Nations Triathlon was a bust!

Saturday night was the Toby Keith concert which I simply could not miss... but I was good, had 2 Mike's lemonades at the show (oh right, and 2 drinks at dinner) and then switched to Gatorade. We got home around midnight and after my last minute checks (Timex watch, bike gloves, Infinit bottles.... I really think I do better at races where I stay at a hotel), got to bed around 1AM. You can imagine how tired I was when the alarm went off at 4:35, just 3.5 hours later.... ugh. Here's the rest of the time line for the morning:

4:45 AM - load up on Dayquil, zicam, and any other cold medicine I could find because I haven't been able to kick this damn cold that I caught Friday evening... applied the body glide, got dressed, ate breakfast and was ready to roll...

4:50 AM - step out of house and notice ground is wet - I guess it rained? I run back into the house and grab a garbage bag so that my stuff doesn't get all wet at transition. Get into Jon's car (had to drive his so that he could use my jeep with bike rack to pick me and the bike up later at the race finish) to go meet Joann and Deb at Original Pancake House (location of our post-race breakfast)

4:55 AM - go wake up Jon to figure out how the %&#$ to start his car... no key?? wha??? Hmm... turns out you don't need a key as long as the key fob thingy is with you... who knew?!

5:30 AM - get to Original Pancake House where Joann is already waiting.. I grab my transition bag and get in the car. We're both f'ing tired.. where's Deb?

5:35 AM - text from Deb: "omg just woke up! go ahead - I'll get a cab" - we start driving into the city, and it starts to rain. As we cross over the Key bridge and attempt to take our exit, the police decide that's the perfect time to close the road... seriously? Luckily there were 2 other cars obviously attempting the same thing, so we follow them on a short detour...

5:50 AM - Joann drops me off next to Lincoln memorial. The rain starts to pick up as I make my way around the memorial to the transition area. I go to the timing chip line, get my chip and proceed to my bike area. The girls racked next to me are really nice and we just stand there looking around like we have no idea what the heck we're doing.... really raining hard at this point... and freezing.

6:00 AM - I start pulling stuff out of my transition bag and organizing it into the garbage bag I'd luckily remembered to grab.. I pull out my phone and saw 2 texts from Joann saying "Maybe I should come back to get you?" and "I'm worried about you- F racing today" - but of course I'm stubborn and just send out a text to let my friends know how miserable it was and what a crazy friend they have that's actually preparing for a race during a thunderstorm.. yep, thunderstorm.. the announcers are on the loud speakers telling everyone to take cover. Um... WHERE? We're in the middle of West Potomac Park, no shelter to be found... ugh.

6:10 AM - Deb shows up and we talk more about what a mess it is.. she tells me that there's over an inch of water and mud closer to where she is racked in the transition. People are slipping and sliding everywhere just trying to walk around.
6:20 AM - I finish setting up my transition area, everything secure in my garbage bag, and I even put on my wetsuit because I'm so freaking cold.

6:30 AM - The announcers come on the loud speakers again and say that people can get warm by sitting in the shuttle buses that are parked near the swim start. Deb and I walk over to the swim start and try to get on a bus... except the bus driver says they're leaving.. huh? So now we're just standing around watching sooo many people pull their bikes out of transition and calling it a day..

6:45 AM - The rain is somewhat letting up a little and the announcers tell us there's going to be a half hour delay to the start and that transition will close in about 20 minutes. Deb and I realize that we need to make a decision - I'm about 50/50.. really want to do the race, but am a little nervous about biking in the rain, especially since I'm using Deb's bike which I've only ridden once before.. ugh, what to do?! Deb finally makes the call... we're outta there.

7:00 AM - Finished collecting all of our stuff and are taking our bikes out of transition... turn in our bracelets and chips and are officially out of the race.. //sigh//.. now how the heck are we gonna get home? I send a text out to a few people in the hopes that someone is awake... but of course nobody is. We decide to bike over to Arlington Cemetery..... we hear the start of the first wave go off

7:30 AM - Arrive at Arlington Cemetery to catch the metro, which of course doesn't open until 8:00, so wait for half an hour... then once we get inside, the next train is 25 minutes out... geez.

8:30 AM - Finally arrive in Pentagon City, only what now? We still don't have a car... after walking around for awhile hoping to find a mini-van cab that can hold our bikes, we decide that Deb will take a regular cab to her place and get her car and come back for me and the bikes...

9:10 AM - Deb finally returns to pick me up and drive me home...... it's still raining and I'm sooooo cold and wet.. I actually got into the shower with all of my clothes still on just because I needed to get warm.

What a morning. Took a nap and ended up going to breakfast with Jon, Joann, Sweeney and PD (yum.. crepes with nutella!) and to get Jon's car home... spend the rest of the day on the couch and in my bed... ahhhhh :-) Still sick as a dog though... it's now Tuesday and I'm just *finally* feeling a little bit better.

It's frustrating that of all my races this year I only crossed one finish line (and am probably not going to do Baltimore half marathon either), but.... well, next year is another year... Florida 70.3 is in May and it will be a new start.