Road Trip & Boise 70.3 Weekend – June 9th
My road trip began with a 9 hour drive into Salt Lake City
where I decided to stay the night before continuing on to Boise. This was my
first time ever to take a road trip alone for no reason other than to do it. I
was really bored in the beginning, but then decided to download some books on
my iPod and plug into the car and boy did time start going fast. I LOVED it..
On June 7th I arrived in Boise and was so excited
to see the Emmons J
4 days of nothing but laughs, smiling and great times with Marissa, Marcus,
Molly, Micah and the kiddos!! I even got the blessing of seeing Little Cameron
(well not so little anymore) and Brian …. Odd that sometimes relationships in
life don’t work out, but I truly am blessed that Tim brought all of these
amazing people into my life & I am very grateful for that. We had shopping
time, wine festival and great moments just hanging out all weekend.. Love my
Boise peeps!!
RACE DAY – Well….today was a day of realization that
sometimes things don’t go as planned, but you have to just go with the flow as
it is what it is!! Woke up early to
temps in the 40’s and raining outside. I prepared my transition bags, got my
nutrition together and mentally started to get prepared to race in the cold rain,
which really I was okay with if it was just light rain as I am not a fan of the
heat.
Marissa had stayed up late the night before to make a
beautiful sign for her, Ethan & Marcus to have along the course to support
me. I have never had something so fancy just for me at a triathlon and made me
feel so supported & special. Love them!! Marissa and I headed out, dropped
off my ‘run bag’ at T2 and then up to the canyon area where the race start and
T1 were at. As we were driving up there, the temperature gage in the car was
dropping and dropping and the weather was taking a turn for the worse. We got
to the top and it was raining hard/sleeting and windy. We later found out the
wind chill up there was 35 degrees.. BURRRR. I was dropped off, went out in the
rain and set up my bike and T1 area. I was getting colder and colder over the
next 2 hours and I was NOT dressed for this… who would have known in June that
it would be winter weather.
About an hour before race start (well my wave start) and 2
hours after I had arrived, they announced due to extreme weather that the bike
course would now be only 12 miles instead of 56 as they were concerned with wrecks
on the bike and hypothermia and didn’t want to take any risks for the safety of
the athletes!! A lot of people at this point grabbed their bikes and decided
against racing as no longer a ½ IM and also not worth getting sick. I continued
to shiver and hang out in a wetsuit – hot look – and never in my life wanted to
hang out in a porta-potty as it was warmer and dry in there J
Finally at the start, heading to the water, I lost my shoe..
someone came up behind me and said, “Ma’am you lost your shoe” – me looking
around was like ‘really, I had no idea’ – he did not like this answer (I later
realized he was an official race medic) as I had just run over gravel and didn’t
know as I couldn’t feel my feet or my body for that matter. About 15 min later
my lips turned blue, I stopped shaking, my fingers were so swollen that I
couldn’t bend them and guess I looked like a ghost. Needless to say I was
pulled for going into hypothermia and did not get to race that day.
For those of you that know me well, I am stubborn and was
not happy about this as not only did I pay for this, but I knew of others suffering
in a hospital with cancer and I was determined to do this in their honor, but
it was just not my day! After getting over it (took a while and some tears) I
warmed up, got better, watched pros and others ride their bikes in wetsuits
(which I have never seen) as it was so cold and then headed down in a shuttle
to the finish and get my run stuff and head back to my friends house. By the
way I had no phone, no way to reach anyone and they were out waiting on me on
the course.. Amazing how much technology is what we depend on and I had no way
to communicate.. Luckily it all worked out and I wasn’t stranded!! I ended up doing a little run and felt a bit
better later that night!
Time to leave Boise and decided to take a different route,
this time through Jackson Hole. I went to Grand Teton National Park for the
first time ever… WOW is all I can say – breathtaking!! I decided to stay the
night there and the next morning got up and did a long bike ride through Grand
Teton.. Breathtaking and so glad I made that choice before driving the rest of
the way home… 26 hours in a car alone and riding through beauty like I did
gives a lot of personal clarity. I have to say I loved it and feel a lot better
about a lot of things since this road trip!!! I am blessed with some amazing
friends in my life and health that I shouldn’t ever take for granted…
Now………….. time to get my butt into some MAJOR training and
forget about this set back and move on to the big day in August!!
