Cedar Point FullRev: Pre-Race
Monday, September 20th, 2010
10 years of dreaming, four years of racing, nine months of training and 12 hours of driving later, I arrived at Cedar Point amusement park, the site of my first iron distance triathlon.
HELLO SANDUSKY, OHIO!
I rolled in to town on Friday afternoon so that I’d have plenty of time to get all my gear set up and organized so I’d have as little as possible to do the day before the race. As I checked into my hotel room, a nice big FedEx was waiting for me, a brand new set of Zipp 606′s for race day thanks to Race Day Wheels. Doesn’t Victoria look pretty with her new hoops? I love how they look and love how they ride even more. Now if they weren’t so damn expensive and I could afford to own them instead of just rent them…
Next up on the schedule was some last minute nutrition advice from the man behind the kick-ass nutrition that I’ve been fueling up with all year, Robert Kunz. It is great having him sponsor the team and being able to pick his brain with last minute race advice. He is a wicked smaht dude. It was a big confidence boost getting a little bit of extra validation that my nutrition plan for race day was solid.
And of course, a road trip to the roller coaster capital of the world just wouldn’t be right without some good ‘ol fashioned adrenaline pumping speed. I figured it wasn’t a good idea to attempt riding any coasters on the day before the race, so I got in as many as I could back-to-back on Friday night.
With some of my Trakkers teammates heading into the park.
This one was by far my favorite. Simple, but awesome.
Top Thrill Dragster: 0-125 mph then STRAIGHT up
Sunday morning brought some more team duties volunteering at the practice swim and handing out SBR Sports products. The ladies were armed with Tri-Slide and offering to lube up anyone who would take ‘em. Seriously, who would turn down this classy bunch of athletes?
The swim itself was pretty insane. It was really windy and the chop on the water was some of the worst I’d every swam in. It felt like I was back on the roller coasters. Dolphin diving through the surf was fun, but once you got out into the water, it was a big challenge just to time my breathing at the top of each wave and sight the next buoy let alone keep any sort of reasonable pace.
The weather report said that the wind was going to shift and calm down, but nothing is guaranteed. Thankfully the Rev3 folks had a backup swim plan so it wouldn’t turn into a duathlon, because if race day conditions were like Saturday, there would be a lot of DNFs before people even made it to T1.
The thing is that I was pretty excited for the possibilities of a really rough swim. Instead of scary, I figured that it would be epic. Actually nothing at all that day got my nerves giong. I was pretty cool, calm and collected the whole time. For less than 24 hours away from the biggest race I had ever attempted, I was pretty surprised .
That was at least until I started organizing my special needs bags. I don’t know if it was that it was a big enough signal to make it all feel real or that I’d never done a race long enough to need special needs bags, but I was freaking out BIG TIME. Pacing around the room, moving stuff aimlessly from one pile to another, talking out loud to myself, the whole 9. Thankfully Sam was there to help calm me down and that was my first and only pre-race freak out.
After kicking my feet up, a chicken dinner and plenty of hydration with EFS, it was bed time.
Up next, the full race report.
Tags: cedar point, rev3 cedar point, revolution 3 triathlon | Posted in Ironman, Nutrition, Race Reports, Triathlon | 1 Comment »
