Racing Racine: A Recap, Part I: Getting to the Start

There is a magnet stuck on my fridge at home with a quote from William James.  It says, “Where ever you are it is your friends who make your world.”  Last weekend proved that to me once again.

On Friday, after work, I began my solitary road trip to Racine, WI, knowing that I had several friends waiting for me at my destination.  But the destination was really just a starting point to our weekend adventure.  Just before midnight, I pulled into the Racine Marriott parking lot, packed with cars decorated with empty bike racks, where Steve, Nick and Nick’s girlfriend Jenny were all waiting up for me, watching Storage Wars.  (Remember a few months ago I shared the text exchange with my anonymous friend “Mick”?  Well, if you didn’t figure it out then, it was really Nick, and Jenny was the mystery woman) Jenny came along last weekend as moral support, Sherpa, cheerleader and troubleshooter.  She has completed not only 70.3, but a full 140.6…Twice!  Her expertise and encouragement were priceless.

On Saturday morning, we took our time getting up and had breakfast of omelets and waffles at the Marriott buffet amidst many athletes dressed in technical gear, announcing bragging rights from previous races.  Then we made our way to downtown Racine where we would make it official.  We checked in, signed waivers, got wristbands, packets and timing chips, freaked out a little and ran into lots of friends including Chad and Tracy, who had an additional surprise…Tracy was sporting a little extra bling on her left ring finger.  What a way to make a big weekend even bigger!  Congrats guys!

LJ, Steve, Nick, Chad, Tracy...Ready to Rumble!

LJ, Steve, Nick, Chad, Tracy…Ready to Rumble!

After check in, we headed over to drop our bikes.  Then on to the beach for a practice swim.  The boys had me scared to death that I would be running into Icebergs along the course since it was a whopping 55 degrees on Friday and they declared the water was numbing.  Fortunately the water had warmed up considerably from the day before.  I plunged right into the 64 degree water and told them to stop being a bunch of pansies.   They said, “No really, it was so much colder yesterday!” Uh-huh, sure.  (I actually do believe them, I just like to give them grief)  The water was smooth, we could see the bottom, sighting was easy, the temp was great, and everything was falling into place.  I swam toward Chad, Tracy and Steve out by the buoy.  When I popped up, I sprayed Chad and exclaimed loudly, “Yeeeah! Lindsey learned how to SWIM!”  I was pumped, this was gonna be a good race. Nick eventually made his way out to join us in full wetsuit attire.

After lunch of peanut butter sandwiches by the car, we stopped by the Piggly Wiggly to get some supplies and spent the rest of Saturday lounging.  We grabbed some take-out pasta, brought it back to the hotel and had dinner on the Marriott patio, which Nick dedicated the “Goat Garden”.  Who knew the Marriott had a room just for goats?  Oh, wait, that sign says Coat Room…nevermind.  We laughed a lot, which broke the tension we were all feeling from the nerves and fear.  I fielded many “Good Luck” texts and messages throughout the day, to most of which I responded that I was feeling “nervous and scared and very excited!”  A great mix of emotions.

After we did race prep, like putting bib numbers on race belts and stickers on helmets, gathering all our gear, then double and triple checking that we had absolutely everything, we turned in for an early night.  But we all had a hard time falling asleep.  As we lay there in the dark, I broke the silence after a few minutes, “Umm, I have a dumb question…”  I don’t even remember what I asked, probably something about transition.  Followed by several more rookie questions.  Eventually we all drifted off to sleep and the next thing we knew, at least 3 alarms were beeping, buzzing or singing that it was 4:30am.  The excited, nervous chatter started immediately, even though we still didn’t move from the beds.  At 4:40am, Jenny exited the bathroom, the only of the 4 of us not racing that day, and found the 3 of us still lying in bed watching infomercials.  What’s wrong with this picture?!  We made our way out of bed still taking notes on great products like the Winbot, got dressed in racing gear, ate more peanut butter sandwiches, filled water bottles and made our way to the Pathfinder.  We drove over to the course, found parking and trekked our stuff to T1 to set up our transition areas.

On the way into the transition area we got our body markings.  Lack of coffee caused me to say, “I’m number 316, no, wait, that’s wrong, I’m 613.” Yeah, uh, probably need to get that right. Then she asked my age at the end of the year because that gets written on your calf, to which I replied, “No fair, I’m an October birthday”.  But she assured me it’s an even bigger accomplishment the older you are.  So, I said, “Ok, if we’re talking accomplishments, then can you also write on there that I’m a single mom of 3?”  She laughed and said, “Honey, I’ll write anything you want.”

RRG chatting it up with the Transition neighbor

RRG chatting it up with the Transition neighbor

Once inside T1, we saw friends, took pictures, filled tires, generally just tried to keep from freaking out.  At 6:30 they closed the transition area and evacuated all athletes.  On my way out, I saw Karen; we hugged and freaked out a little.  We assured each other we could do this, and then we hugged again.  And one more hug for the road before her parting word to me was “Ohmmm”.  Finally we separated, she headed to the start, I headed to the bathroom line.  It was long, but it seemed to be moving.  Less than an hour until my wave start.  Tracy and Chad walked by on their way to the
start, I said I’d be right behind them.

I got through the line, met back up with Jenny and the boys and we embarked upon the mile walk up the beach to the start line.  We looked out at the water and saw that it was considerably more choppy than the day before.  Choppy but not as bad as my swim in Lake Michigan the week before.  Not yet anyway.  My mom called to say good luck, she was on her way to watch me and she hoped to get there before I took off on the bike.  Steve guess-timated the bike would take me 3:30-45 (Ha! Boy did I show him!)  As we walked up the beach, the waves grew bigger and bigger.  I started to second guess my decision to ditch the wetsuit, especially as I saw that I was very possibly the ONLY person in the field of 2200 athletes who was not wearing one.  That’s ok; I’ve always been kind of a non-conformist.  I got one last hug from Nick, Jenny and Steve, kicked off my flip-flops and made my way through the crowd while the boys began the process of wetsuit robing.  Erin found me and we scanned the beach for Tracy, “She was just right here”, Erin said.  Then we heard an announcement for wave 7, women 35-39 to get in line.  I bolted and started pushing through the crowd knowing that people were probably wondering why I waited so long.  When I arrived at the start line wild-eyed and frantically searching the crowd of yellow swim-capped heads for a familiar face, I couldn’t have been happier to hear Tracy’s voice yelling my name.  She said I still had a couple minutes, so I should jump in the water to get acclimated.  I pulled my swim cap on, spit into my goggles, and marched out into the waves, aware of all the eyes on me wondering where my wetsuit was.  I looked at one guy with his mouth gaping open and said, “Yeah, that’s right, I’m that crazy girl.”  Then I dove into the water.  As I tried to get up to walk back to the shore, the force of the waves knocked me back down.  Oh my, this swim is going to be interesting.  Little did I know of the challenge I was in for…

It's official.  #613 is all checked in.

It’s official. #613 is all checked in.

2 thoughts on “Racing Racine: A Recap, Part I: Getting to the Start

  1. Steve

    I don’t think I could have made it through that weekend without the excessive number of peanut butter sandwiches we ate.

    Reply

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