I've disappeared for the past couple of days..Hopefully this has not interrupted anyone's daily life:)! I've been hiding out in the beautiful little town of Rye, NY...in the guest bedroom at the Gormley home!
I finally arrived back in the good-ol'U-S-of-A on Monday afternoon...my flight from Frankfurt, Germany to Newark was only about an hour late. Only ONE hour is VERY impressive considering the date I was flying...9/11...and the location of my destination...the USA!
I must have gone through every - single - solitary type of security measure ever invented before boarding the plane in Germany. I went through 3 metal detectors, my bag was x-rayed three times, my laptop was examined twice, all liquids and gels were removed from my bag, I was patted down, wanded with a metal detector, and critically matched to my passport photo!
Finally, I got on the huge 747...and breathed a HUGE sigh of satisfaction when I realized that it was only going to be about 1/3 full for the flight. I immediately took claim to a middle row of 4 seats and settled in for a nice, long trans-Atlantic nap!
My nap was well deserved...it was the day after the Hamburg World Cup Triathlon! My race started at 2:30 in the afternoon on a beautiful sunny day in Germany. This was officially the LARGEST professional triathlon that I had ever competed in...79 women lined up on the starting line...and there were a reported 50,000 spectators lining the course in Hamburg!
The start was a mad house! I was number 42 and luckily chose a starting position very close to the left side (I might still be underwater if I was in the center of all 79 women!). By the time we rounded the first couple of buoys, I was in my traditional location: the lead:). The swim was fast...and probably a bit short...and I hoped on my bike with a small lead over 7 or 8 women.
They caught me during the first lap and I was fortunate to work with some of the most amazing women triathletes in the world right now...the names on the suits were: Fernandez, Tanner, Moffet, Blatchford, Bennett, etc! It was just mind-blowing to know that I was racing with these women!
It was also mind-blowing to know that I still had a 10K run to complete...and unfortunately, it was not as spectacular as I hoped. I dropped back about 25 places for my 33rd place finish...but the experience was unbeatable. That is the exact course for World Championships next year...very much my style...and now I am very familiar with every part.
Back to the present time - I'm in New York preparing for my 6th and final race of my 47 day "Europe/North East USA" trip. The Westchester Triathlon is on Sunday...start time of 7:25am. The city of Rye is fantastic, the race organizing committee is amazing, the Gormley family is unbelievable, I'm running out of descriptive words and I need to take an Economics Quiz online...LATER:)