This morning I woke up very excited to race this weekend. In fact, I've been walking around doing the happy dance in my head thinking about the fact that I'm doing the BAM triathlon in 2 days. I think that my anxiety issues are somewhat resolved, or at least manageable, so I've been working on my game plan for race day. I'm thinking that if I get it written down this morning, then I'll have all day to think about it and tweak it as necessary. I can also start visualization stuff, which seemed to really help me during my last race.
Friday afternoon, my mom and I will drive down to Midway to the Soldier Hollow Legacy Park (http://www.soldierhollow.com/this is the park from the Olympics 2002 where they did the cross-country skiing stuff) and head to packet pick-up. I'll pick up my packet and timing chip and then spend some time at the expo. Trisports.com will have a booth there, so I'm looking forward to checking all of their stuff out. After packet pick-up, we're going to head over to T-1 at Island Bay http://www.bamtriathlon.com/pdfs/SwimMap.pdf to drop off my bike, to check out the lake and temperature, and to get a good idea of what T-1 looks like. From the picture, it looks like there's a good uphill run from the lake to T-1 so, that should give me plenty of time to get my wetsuit off. After we take care of all of that, we're going to drive the bike course http://www.bamtriathlon.com/pdfs/BAMBikeCourseMap.jpg. I feel like if I do this, that I'll at least know where the hills are and where I am along the course. At some point, we're going to stop off to see some friends in Heber, which is in the same valley as Midway. Friday evening, we're staying with my aunt and uncle in American Fork (about 45 min. from the venue), so we'll go out to dinner, and then I'm hoping to be in bed nice and early. I'm pretty sure that I'll struggle with the sleeping thing, but at least I'll have some good things to think about.
Saturday morning, I'll wake up at 4am, get dressed, grab my stuff and my mom, and head back up to Midway. I will eat my 2 poptarts (since it's a longer race) and sip on some water...maybe I'll even get down the entire bottle. The temperature is supposed to be between 45 and 50, so it will be nice and chilly. I told my mom to make sure that she's dressed in layers. We'll drive up to Soldier Hollow, set up my T-2 area (it seems so weird to have to two different transition areas), and then catch the shuttle up to Island Bay. Once we arrive there, I'll go check out my bike, make sure the tires are inflated, set up my T-1 area and then at some point don the wetsuit (fun times...NOT) and head to the water for a short warm-up (it will probably be a freezing cold cooldown). I'll also need to get my dry clothes off and into my "dry" gear bag that will get shuttled back to T-2.
The pros and elites start at 6:30am, and then my wave goes at 6:35am. Since I'm in the second wave, I know that I'll be getting passed by all sorts of men, but oh well. Hopefully, they don't swim over the top of me. I'm thinking that for the swim, I'll push myself of course (my dad says I just need to swim faster than the guys so that I don't get mowed over), but I'll probably take the buoys wide and swim a little bit longer. I think that will help me to not feel as claustrophobic or whatever. After the 1500 m. swim (goal time - 32 min), I'll hop out of the water, start stripping the wetsuit off (maybe they'll have wetsuit strippers?), and head to T-1.
In T-1, I'll get my wetsuit off and into my "wet" gear bag. I'll grab my arm warmers, all rolled down and ready to put on, my sunglasses, my helmet, and I'll pull on my shoes. Then, I'll grab my bike, and start running out of transition and head out for the 22.9 mile ride through Midway.
During the bike, I have a few things that I want to accomplish. I would like to carry 18 mph again, but we'll see how the course goes. It looks like the last 4-5 miles are uphill, so that might be tricky. I want to make sure and take in at least 1 bottle of water and some sort of liquid nutrition. I was thinking of a slimfast shake, but I'm a little worried about the dairy. I may just end up doing Heed, which sits well in my stomach and tastes good. I'm actually in the minority on that opinion, but oh well. I've been working on drinking on the bike, so I think this will be a good opportunity to put that to the test. After the bike (goal time - 1:20:00), I'll head into T-2 with a smile on my face because I'll be happy to not be sitting.
In T-2, I'll drop off my bike, take off my helmet and arm warmers (probably), slip off my running shoes (hopefully not bloody this time), slip on my running shoes, grab my visor and race number, and head off to the run course.
The run course follows the cross country ski trails in Soldier Hollow and from what I can tell, it looks like it's all up and down http://www.bamtriathlon.com/pdfs/RunMap.gif. I enjoy running hills, so this may be a good course for me. Of course, I may not enjoy running hills after cycling for 22 miles, but we'll see how it goes. I'll be taking in water and Heed along the run course, and I may take a gel with me, but we'll see how it goes. Sometimes the gels don't sit well, so I'm hoping to get enough nutrition in on the bike to help carry me through the run. The last part of the run is a downhill and then an uphill into the Soldier Hollow stadium, so I'll finish there with a big huge grin on my face!
So, there's my plan for race day. I need to work out what I would like to take in on the bike to get the calories I need, but I think that's the only unknown that I can think of right now. I will probably edit this again tonight and possibly again in the morning, but like I mentioned earlier, I'm totally stoked to try out this race and distance, so it will be good times!
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