Wildblogger, Day 1

And the adventure begins...

I arrived at the Wildflower campground around 4:30 or so. There were plenty of sites available, and I found a beautiful location: it was on top of a small hill, perfectly flat, with several tall trees providing ample shade. I started unpacking my car when a guy from the next site came over and said to me "yeah, we looked at this site too until we saw the giant bees nest up in the tree and didn't want to disturb them. Ah. Good thinking.

There were still many other quiet, isolated places but then I was thinking that maybe I shouldn't be isolated. I can't impress people with my split times, but maybe I can make an impression with my branding, So I picked essentially the very first site as you enter the camping area. Pretty much everybody in this section of the park has to walk past my site on their way to the event. Good PR.

I unpacked the tent and layed it on the ground in an enormous rectangle. I put together the 3 pole assemblies. And then just stared at them. How do you use 3 poles to build a rectangular tent? Not only that, the poles didn't fit into the metal "cap" at the peak of the tent. I stared. And stared. And panicked. After maybe 30-45 minutes I called IronmAnnie, thinking that she would enjoy this story. She did. She told Tri Team Gerald, and 60 seconds later he called me with advice.

I tried to describe the problem but wasn't very good at it. He went online and looked up the instructions for my tent. (As he pointed out, it was very "24" of us, although it took much longer than it does for Jack Bauer.) Gerald confirmed that yes, the tent needs four poles. Those morons at the rental place must have mispacked my tent.

I called 411 to get the phone number for the rental place to read them the riot act. I continued to unpack my car as the phone was ringing when I found the 4th pole. Oops. I also found the instruction sheet which clearly showed that I was connecting the poles upside down.I tried for another 20 minutes to put the tent together but it isn't a 1-person job, I finally grabbed two neightboring campers and they helped me put it together. It isn't pretty, but it's a tent.

Unfortunately, while all this was going on I was watching lots of people going out for runs and rides, stretching out before the big day Saturday. That's what I was supposed to be doing tonight, then I could take tomorrow off. Now I feel I have to do at least a light run tomorrow just to stay limber (I haven't run in 4 or 5 days.)

I know things will get better, but right now I really hate it here. I hate living out of a tent. I hate the feeling of being unprepared for the race. I hate the enormous weekend guide, which makes it impossible to find all the information you need.