Pre-race PANIC

So the weekend started out with packet pickup on Saturday in Wisconsin. When I finally got to the site (trip took much longer than expected due to HEAVY construction..EVERYWHERE), I saw people with their bikes and people with medals around their neck. My first thought was "HOLY COW I MISSED THE RACE!!!" Then I realized they were kiddos-- there was the Junior Race that day and the adults race on Sunday. But the bikes were adult bikes. I saw they had set up transition and people were racking their bikes early. I had seen this as an OPTION while perusing the website in prior weeks, but didn't think many people would ACTUALLY do it-- the risk of theft and rain deterred me, not to mention the lack of control I would feel if my precious bike were a whole state away with nothing but a measly metal fence protecting it. No thank you! I chose to leave my steed in the safety of my basement (actually living room because they were drywalling the basement and I hadn't put it back yet. Whoops). I'd emailed the race coordinator upon signing up for the race just to make sure that it wasn't required for participants to rack their bikes on Saturday and received an email back saying that I could bring my bike on race morning. Wonderful. BUT-- a LOT of people were racking their bikes-- transition was starting to look FULL. This made me nervous. So when I picked up my packet I asked the kind volunteer if bike check in was mandatory TODAY (Saturday) or if participants could bring their bikes on race morning. He looked at me with disappointed eyes and said "Well, I think it has to be today..." It was like someone flipped a switch in me-- PANIC! ALARM! NONONONO! While I'm sure my face twitched a little bit and I KNOW my eyebrows shot up into my scalp, I think that outwardly I remained fairly calm as I said "Oh... really? I emailed and asked and someone told me I can bring it tomorrow..." So he went and got the head race lady who gave me the SAME disappointed look and said "You can bring it tomorrow, but you best be here very early." Psh-- no problem-- does she knooow who she's talking to??? No, she doesn't but that was a relief.
I looked at some of the booths at the Expo while I waited for the Course Talk. These expos are the place to go to get new gear because it's usually super discounted. I need new triathlon shorts and a new top to race in (a topic for a later post: "Team in Training POSER"). I found shorts marked down from $65 to $25 which is absolutely fantastic-- but they had FLOWERS on them. C'mon people, just because I'm female doesn't mean I want flowers on my shorts. So I passed on the shorts and found a top for $30 which again is a fantastic price, it was marked down from $75. So I broke down and got it. Still waiting for the course talk, I looked through the packet they gave us (which included a HOODIE (instead of a t-shirt) and a water bottle- far superior to the memorabilia from the two sprints I did earlier in the summer), and saw parking details, etc. Of course I'd looked at this on the website before, but was told it'd been changed within the past 48 hours when I arrived to the Expo. Changes: 1)Parking would be far away from the transition area, and 2) While there would be a shuttle from parking TO transition, no bikes would be allowed on it. Balls. This caused me a lot more stress than it should have (hindsight's a bear). I had barely been able to arrive at the race site in broad daylight by car, how was I supposed to FIND a new parking venue in the dark, and then BIKE to the race site from there-- IN THE DARK. So from then until I actually arrived to transition the next morning-- my anxiety level was through the roof. I spent a good two hours on googlemaps trying to figure it all out. This giant knife was twisted by the MAJOR construction EVERYWHERE and that they closed SEVERAL roads FOR the race! Aye carumba, I'm certain that I obtained an ulcer. I thought to myself 'Well, you'll just have to leave even earlier.' Then I remembered I had reserved my Zipcar for 3am--a measly ONE HOUR before I needed to be at transition. So foolish. I packed my bag and filled my water bottles-- got everything ready. I went to pump up my bike tires and was mortified to learn that due to the drywalling in the basement, my landlord moved his bike pump that I've been ...borrowing. I resorted to visiting the promised bike tent that would be at transition and after going through my checklist seventeen times-- went to bed and had ZERO problems falling asleep even though it was only 7:30pm. Six and a half hours later I was up at 2, and I got out the door by 2:45 to arrive to my Zipcar by 2:55. When I'd reserved the car (a Honda Civic) it said on the site that the seats fold down-- a HUGE factor in my decision. However as I went to load my bike I was rudely met with the fact that no-- the seats don't fold. First ping of panic. So I SHOVED my bike into the backseat. I considered taking of the quick release front wheel but just KNEW that if I took it off, I wouldn't be able to get it back on, because that is how my life goes. So I pushed and pushed with all the adrenaline that was racing through me. I had less than an hour now to make a normal 1hr and 15min journey that would already be lengthened by construction and darkNESS. Definitely ready for the PLEASANT part of this race.
Good thing about the car is that it had an iPod adapter and an I-Pass so I didn't have to stop and/or pay at any tolls. So I cranked the tunes and drove like the wind. The lack of traffic saved me. Through the construction zone there is a 16 mile stretch that is ONE LANE that is sooo narrow. I arrived to PARKING (barely) by 4:05am. LATE. I jumped out and went to retrieve the bike I'd so carelessly wedged in the back seat. It wasn't budging. I went from both sides-- pushing and pulling with all my might-- panic level increasing EXPONENTIALLY with every second that I wasted trying to get the damned thing out. A car pulled up next to me and I thought 'maybe they'll help!' But no, after a good 5 minutes of them dawdling, the girl comes up to me and as I looked at her (SWEATING profusely ALREADY-- it was uber humid) she says "Will you take our picture??" Omg I wanted to spit on her shoes (she may have been one of those super perky always great, good at everything, absolutely gorgeous, probably really really nice.. people you love to hate). So I snapped the photo and was a bit standoffish and went back to my project. By the power of divine intervention ONLY I got it out. I quickly grabbed my bag and scurried over to a parking-guy to ask how to get to transition. He looked at me like I was nutso (appropriately) replying "Umm that-away, Miss." As he pointed into the darkness. I told him 'thank you' and muttered 'for nothing' when he was out of earshot. I boarded my bike rather unsteadily at 4:15am and rode into the darkness to where I thought transition would be. Proof that God exists and is sooo gracious: Not even a minute later I rode up to a group of volunteers on their way to transition. Praise the LORD. There is no way I would have found it without following them. Once I arrived at transition my anxiety decreased SIGNIFICANTLY. I put more worry into actually GETTING to the race than the race itself. It's kind of ridiculous.

What is more ridiculous is the length of this post and I haven't even gotten to the race. And my computer battery is knocking on death's door, so I'll do more later.