Sunday, August 16, 2009

Lake Stevens 70.3 Race Report – Part I

Preface

I debated over how candid I wanted to be in my race report.  You know, we all like to leave details out sometimes, right?  I couldn’t be honest about the race if I didn’t detail it properly though, and perhaps other people can learn from my mistake.  I truly believe it was one mistake that led to my downfall on this race.  It probably isn’t even so much of a mistake as opposed to a “who knew?” kind of thing.  Anyhow, be forewarned, that some of this may be a little bit TMI…

Pre-Race

It has been an interesting few days in Seattle, some of which I hinted at yesterday.  I discovered Saturday afternoon that my left cleat was falling apart so I quickly found a bike shop to get it replaced.

This morning I put my team tri top on and realized that the stitching was coming apart near the bottom of the zipper.

Then as I was bending over to put some things away in my bag my mom inadvertently noticed that a hole had developed in the rear seam of my tri shorts.  A pair of Zoot shorts that I have ONLY used to race in.  Seriously, I was apparently just falling apart all over the place.  Omen?  Luckily I had brought along a spare pair of shorts so no one was getting a show on the bike. ;)

Because my pre-race nutrition strategy had worked well at GWN I did the same thing this morning.  A peanut butter and jam sandwich 2 hours before my start.  A banana a half an hour later.  A gel 30 minutes before getting in the water.  All systems looked like go for a good race.

Transition opened up at 4:30 am, pros were set to go at 6:30 and my wave was up at 6:50.  We left the hotel at 4:30, got to Lake Stevens by 5:00 and I had plenty of time to get everything done.  Bikes were checked in on Saturday afternoon, so I had minimal gear to haul Sunday morning.  We had the option to purchase “premium” parking for the race for the Lake Stevens Chamber of Commerce for $20.  I hummed and hawed over it, but ultimately I went for it.  If that took one less stressor out of the day, then it would be worth it.  It turns out that I was assigned to the lot closest to transition.  It was awesome and I was glad I spent the $20.

Before the race I noticed a familiar face in front of me heading towards transition.  Biggest Loser Matt Hoover was racing today.  I had heard that he will be racing Kona this year and he’s been doing some tune up races for the big day.  I guess Lake Stevens was one of them.

The swim start was delayed about 20 minutes as there was still a fair bit of fog on the water.  Not the best to swim in, but it definitely looked amazing.  After watching the pro men go I got into my wetsuit, then headed near the water for a quick warm up swim.  Pretty soon they were calling my wave to line up on the dock so it was go time!!

2 comments:

Lindsay said...

oh boy, wardrobe malfunctions already! not very good for calming the nerves but it sounds like you caught them all early enough to take care of them...

so the biggest loser people, and others who have lost a lot of weight, are inspiration for how they have turned their lives around... but dang it why do some of them have to be more ripped than me? i never weighed 300 lbs and i can't get tone-ness going on. so not fair! ok, gripe over :)

Marlene said...

Not another mishap! Crap, Leana, things weren't going your way, were they? Good news on the spare shorts.

On to the next part...