Last SECOND Racing!

Lausanne, Switzerland
Wednesday morning started out very early. My alarm rang at 5:30am so that I had just enough time to eat a bowl of cereal, get dressed, and walk to the front desk to catch the shuttle to the Frankfurt airport. Our driver was INSANE! He averaged over 200 kilometers per hour on the autobahn and maxed out at 240!! It was a bit scary but exciting at the same time because that’s officially the fastest I’ve ever traveled in a car. The trip to the airport usually takes about an hour and we got there in 40 minutes! I actually put on 2 seatbelts in the back seat because I could see my life flashing in front of my eyes (it might have been the other cars flashing by as we passed them, but no matter what, it was still scary:).
I had a short 9:30am flight from Frankfurt to Geneva (we only spent about 40 minutes in the air)…then took a 50 minute train ride right from the airport to the city of Lausanne…then hopped in a taxi from the train station to the Hotel Royal Savoy. The hotel building is very beautiful, it’s a chateau, and it’s very expensive to stay here for a night…but the rooms are NOT worth the price!! I’m very unimpressed! But I’m not paying the bill and I do appreciate USA Triathlon choosing a hotel that is so close to the race site (we actually bike right by the hotel:).
After I check into my room and tossed my bags on the floor, Manny and I walked down the hill to the lake for a swim. We saw Coach Cliff at the water and suddenly started talking about the World Aquathlon Championships that started in 3 hours. There were about 3 women entered in the race and there was decent prize money up for grabs! I was VERY tempted to enter and race…so with Cliff’s permission I walked back to the hotel, found Katie Baker and asked her to put my name on the start list!!
I had 2 hours to grab some lunch, lie down in my room, and then head back to the lake to warm up for the 1 kilometer swim (with a wetsuit) followed by a 5k run. My bike box had my racing shoes and my wetsuit inside…and the box was on a truck somewhere between Sembach and Lausanne! I had spare shoes to run in and the Orca guys had a new wetsuit for me to test out…fortunately the truck arrived before the race so I got my gear…but I did get my new Orca Apex 2 wetsuit right before the race!
The women’s race started at 4:15pm…not a very big field of women…only 9 ladies on the start line and 3 of them were juniors:)! The starting horn sounded and I dove in the water and immediately took the lead because my new Apex 2 slid through the water like a torpedo:)! The race course was just one lap in the water and 2 laps of the run course…I excited the water with over a 1 minute lead on the next girl. Quick run to my shoes, rip off the wetsuit, slide on my shoes and hat and take off running!!
After lap one, Cliff called out my split time and said the other competitors were not gaining very much…that was nice to know because I was able to take it easy on the second lap and save some energy for the IMPORTANT race on Sunday morning. I crossed the finish line about 55 seconds ahead of 2nd place and now I’m the 2006 Women’s World Aquathlon Champion!!!
I wasn’t too sore after the race…stood around and cheered for the men’s race which started at 5:15pm…and then went to a local pizzeria for dinner with some friends. I didn’t have a hard time falling asleep around 9pm after such an eventful day:)