![\"LJ,](\"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/970607_10152504145011531_1745052553_n-1.jpg\")
<\/a>LJ, Steve, Nick, Chad, Tracy…Ready to Rumble!<\/p><\/div>\n
After check in, we headed over to drop our bikes.\u00a0 Then on to the beach for a practice swim.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Fortunately the water had warmed up considerably from the day before. \u00a0I plunged right into the 64 degree water and told them to stop being a bunch of pansies.\u00a0 \u00a0They said, \u201cNo really, it was so much colder yesterday!\u201d Uh-huh, sure.\u00a0 (I actually do believe them, I just like to give them grief) \u00a0The water was smooth, we could see the bottom, sighting was easy, the temp was great, and everything was falling into place.\u00a0 I swam toward Chad, Tracy and Steve out by the buoy.\u00a0 When I popped up, I sprayed Chad and exclaimed loudly, \u201cYeeeah! Lindsey learned how to SWIM!\u201d\u00a0 I was pumped, this was gonna be a good race.\u00a0Nick eventually made his way out to join us in full wetsuit attire.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 We grabbed some take-out pasta, brought it back to the hotel and had dinner on the Marriott patio, which Nick dedicated the \u201cGoat Garden\u201d.\u00a0 Who knew the Marriott had a room just for goats?\u00a0 Oh, wait, that sign says Coat Room\u2026nevermind.\u00a0 We laughed a lot, which broke the tension we were all feeling from the nerves and fear.\u00a0 I fielded many \u201cGood Luck\u201d texts and messages throughout the day, to most of which I responded that I was feeling \u201cnervous and scared and very excited!\u201d\u00a0 A great mix of emotions.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 But we all had a hard time falling asleep.\u00a0 As we lay there in the dark, I broke the silence after a few minutes, \u201cUmm, I have a dumb question\u2026\u201d\u00a0 I don\u2019t even remember what I asked, probably something about transition.\u00a0 Followed by several more rookie questions.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The excited, nervous chatter started immediately, even though we still didn\u2019t move from the beds.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 What\u2019s wrong with this picture?!\u00a0 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.\u00a0 We drove over to the course, found parking and trekked our stuff to T1 to set up our transition areas.<\/p>\n
On the way into the transition area we got our body markings.\u00a0 Lack of coffee caused me to say, \u201cI\u2019m number 316, no, wait, that\u2019s wrong, I\u2019m 613.\u201d 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, \u201cNo fair, I\u2019m an October birthday\u201d.\u00a0 But she assured me it\u2019s an even bigger accomplishment the older you are.\u00a0 So, I said, \u201cOk, if we\u2019re talking accomplishments, then can you also write on there that I\u2019m a single mom of 3?\u201d\u00a0 She laughed and said, \u201cHoney, I\u2019ll write anything you want.\u201d<\/p>\n