At 4:30am the morning after Tessa's wedding, I went to the airport to catch a plane to Austin, TX to compete in my first triathlon. Despite running on three hours of sleep, I was so amped about the race, there was no way I was going to be able to fall asleep. I finished my book and then I re-read all of the rules and race info for the triathlon. When I finally arrived in Austin, Tara picked me up and we headed to the hotel to check in. Throughout the afternoon, Tara and I would look at each other and just laugh, not quite believing what we were about to do.
After we settled into our hotel room, we went to get a bite to eat and see a bit of the city. First stop, the Capital, where Tara gave me a quick history lesson on the state of Texas.
As we were leaving the Capital, the rain started to come down...a very light rain at first, but the weather forecast was predicting a much stormier weekend. As we drove back to the hotel, we got pretty excited as we drove past a few of these:
By the time we went back to the hotel to pick up our race packets and check our bikes in, the rain was coming down pretty hard and we got drenched when we took our bikes to the transition area! But, when I asked one of the volunteers if we would race in this kind of weather the next day, he said, "Oh, yeah. We'll race in this. If there is lightning, then the bike will be cancelled, but the race will still be on." I thought to myself, "Oh, no. Don't cancel the bike, that's my best event!"
Tara and I went to get a little carb-loading in at Hula Hut, a place my friend Heidi, former resident of Austin, recommended. But, by then, the pit in my stomach had grown, and I was almost too nervous to eat! I did manage to drink about a liter of diet coke, though. The restaurant must be quite popular, because the wait for a table was over an hour and a half!
As we were getting ready to go to bed, I got a text from the race officials saying the race was set to proceed as scheduled. Ohmigosh, by then the butterflies in my stomach were out of control! But, by some miracle, I finally fell asleep around midnight. Unfortunately, that didn't last long, and I was up again at 4am...ugh. Not exactly the night's sleep I was hoping for before the tri. At 5:39, when the olympic distance racers were preparing to check in (their race started at 7am), I got another text that said to "stay tuned, stay dry, more updates to come". I went to look out the window and it looked like a torrential downpour! However, there was no lightning, so I thought I would at least still get to do the bike. Shortly thereafter, at 6:09, I got yet another text that said the swim was cancelled and that the event cancellation would be decided at 7:30am. By this time, Tara and I are wide awake and starting to fear the worst. To be honest, the swim is easily my weakest event, so I was slightly relieved. But, the swim was also the part of the race that I was most excited to prove to myself that I could do, so I was also pretty upset. At 6:43am, the final blow came when the text arrived that the triathlon had been cancelled. I was honestly too shocked to really believe the news.
This is what Town Lake had turned into because of all the run-off from the storm. When we checked into the hotel the day before, we had a great view of the beautiful blue Town Lake. When we woke up, and it got light enough to see the water, this is what it looked like. Sick. Yeah, good call on cancelling the swim.
We went down to the lobby of the hotel, where all the other racers were waiting for another update. The doppler radar didn't lie--all of Austin was completely covered by the storm. We went to pick up our bikes from the transition area and the entire field was covered with about a foot of water...our feet were completely submerged as we ran to get our bikes...but, it was no use, we got completely soaked!
I was totally crushed. I mean, talk about taking the wind out of someone's sails! Three and a half months of training--dragging myself out of bed at 5:30am to go to the gym before work and then going right back to the gym after work, despite wanting to do anything but, and finally feeling ready and getting all they way down to Austin, and they cancel the race?!?! I still get pretty worked up about it, so I will stop before I go on another tirade. Team Tar is currently exploring other options to complete a triathlon before the summer is over. Hopefully we will have better luck next time.
