What is With This Race??

Everything about this race has a ‘last minute’ feel! The invitation, the race entry, the plane ticket, the bike building…and now the packing. It’s 11pm on Wednesday night and I started packing about 30 minutes ago. But I’ve got it all finished…even the bike is in my bike box!
And that was hard…the time trial bars do not want to cooperate and fit in a friendly way like my drop bars. I’m hoping that the airplane people are not extremely violent and when I open my box in Minnesota tomorrow everything is still in one piece. Because earlier today, it was NOT in one piece…I decided to stop by the bike shop and cut down my fork and my aero bars before my 1 hour training ride. So there I am in the shop, with my bike upside down on the stand, with a hacksaw in my hand, sawing away at my fork and wondering why it’s taking so long to get through a bit of carbon. Then I look through the open end of the fork and realize that I’m actually sawing right through the metal headset bolt that holds the fork on the bike! Oh boy…talk about a stressful moment, I’m thinking my bike is completely unrideable…but then the local mechanic told me I can get a replacement piece at a local bike shop!
So my bike ride was postponed while I threw my bike in my car and rushed over to Colorado Cyclist…fortunately, they kindly helped me with a replacement part and I was ready to ride (except that the rain clouds had just showed up…so more postponement!).
Eventually, I got all my training finished which puts me to this moment in time…where I’ve just finished packing up for the Life Time Fitness Triathlon this weekend! I get in tomorrow around 1:30pm…just enough time to take the train to the hotel, hopefully get a run or swim to loosen up, and then rush to the pro meeting at 3:30pm. This is an important meeting because they officially announce the “Equalizer” time…how much time the men start after the women start! Last year is was 9 minutes and 32 seconds…but a man won the race. So this year I think they will be giving the women more of a head start…or so I hope:)!
My dad is making a short trip up to Minnesota on Friday to watch me race on Saturday morning! It will be fun to have a family cheering section at the race…only other race my family has seen this year was St. Anthony’s (because they were racing in the relay:). I hope that I have a good race to justify him coming all the way from Florida to watch…but if I don’t, I’ve got a bag of stuff that he needs to take home to my mom, so that will justify the trip too:) Haha…just kidding, I can’t wait to see my Dad…only the second time this year I’ve seen him…I barely recognize him in the Grand Canyon photo below (but then again, he’s got 4 days of scruff on his face!).
I’m going to ‘hold my breath’ on the hotel in Minnesota having free internet…so maybe I’ll have updates for you before I get back to COS! See you at the next post.