I felt so nervous the couple of weeks before the race.  In fact, I even had a triathlon nightmare one night where I ran from the swim to the transition area (which happened to be in some school hallway) and someone had taken my bike.  I was extremely distressed.  But there was a bike left in my area.  The problem was, it was a little kid’s bike.  Wanting to finish the race so badly, I hopped on and started pedaling my heart out…I’m talkin’ cadence of 200rpm…with a speed of 5mph.  I just started crying as disappointment and then embarrassment set in.  I was so glad to wake up from that.

I continued to have these visions of race-day-disasters.  It ranged from:

the reasonable : cramping, getting kicked, flat tire, having to go to the bathroom, or stopping at any point before finishing, etc.

to

the completely irrational : slowly drowning in the open water and no one seeing me, forgetting where my transition area is, wiping out and totaling my bike, forgetting to take my bike helmet off during the run,  not being able to finish, or worse yet, finishing last.

So, I was somewhat of a wreck coming into the race.

I had set sponsorship goals with the hopes of raising more money for our Tread on Trafficking Team as well as to motivate me in my last few weeks of training.  Family and close friends were offered different sponsorship options ranging from Goodwill sponsorship – donating if I just wear the skin-tight tri uniform and show up on race day, to Platinum sponsorship – if I make it to the podium (HAHA!).   There was that fear of not meeting any of them (-I had no Goodwill sponsors anyway)!  Most of them chose to be Gold sponsors where they would donate $100 if I made top 10 in my age group.  Last year’s time to beat was 1:12:14.  Highly unlikely considering my personal goal coming into the race was 1:20.

I am acquainted with competition, but the sports I participated in were totally different.  In tennis, you win some games and you lose some games, but there is always time to regroup before you win the match.  You can consult with your coach.  You have breaks and can drink as much as you like.  All of the other sports I competed in were similar in that respect.  I knew there would be none of that here.  I guess I just didn’t know how I would handle the non-stop intensity of a sprint tri.  In training, I had never done all three portions (swim, bike, run) consecutively so I really didn’t know what to expect.  And yet for some compelling reason, I just couldn’t get myself to accept that just finishing the tri would be satisfying enough. 

Perhaps my expectations were too high.  I felt some comfort in reminding myself that I gave birth to my third child only a year and a half ago.  But then again, that really wasn’t a good enough excuse.  After all, women in Thailand have been known to be working in rice patties during labor, squat under a tree to give birth, then pass the baby on to a nurse and go right back to working, right?  For me, this race could very well symbolize a sort of personal redemption – that after dedicating 6 years to incubating, nurturing, and feeding 3 boys, I had reclaimed my body and was able to successfully train it for this race.  Not only that, in just one race lasting less than an hour and a half, I could potentially earn over $300 in donations for an amazing organization.  I totally wanted to do this but wasn’t sure if I could.  The suspense was kind of killing me. 

The day before the race, I got my final pep talk and some motivational words of wisdom from Chris.  Hilariously enough, during the race, those “words” were actually useful.  Tennille made some killer pasta shells for supper so we could carb up.  It made me feel much better talking things over and being with her.  She just seemed so excited and I so wanted to feel the excitement without the self-inflicted pressure.  We packed and organized our bags and made sure everything we needed was in place.  We had a photo shoot of our gear (-thanks, David!) and then we wrote our final fundraiser note on Facebook.  Our Gatorades was in the fridge and our bikes were waiting in the garage.  We ended up talking and stayed up late…

I woke up early.  I grabbed my phone and it was 4am.  I went back to bed.  I jerked awake again and grabbed my phone.  It was 5am.  Then again at 5:30am.  Then again at 5:40am.  Then again at 5:59am.  I stayed awake for the minute and my alarm went off at 6am.  I looked over at Israel and woke him up saying it was time.  I walked to the bathroom and the door squeaked open.  (This was Tennille’s cue to wake up.)

Ready or not, it was race day, baby.