Wildblogger Day 2

I am exhausted. I didn't sleep well last night (damn crickets) and then this morning I did a 7-mile bike, 20-minute run, and a 15-minute swim. Wiped me out. Part of the problem is that although Wildflower is known for being a hilly course, the campground is hilly too. I made four trips down the mountain to the festival area and back today.

I was struggling to put on my wetsuit and I couldn't figure out why it felt so tight. I have been doing a lot of biking the past six months but surely my legs couldn't have bulked up THAT much, could they? No, idiot that I am, I put my wetsuit on backwards. Not inside-out, backwards. There were plenty of people around so I'm sure somebody saw what I was doing.

I like to wear signs on my jersey and made a new one for Wildflower. I print them out on special fabric paper that you can load right into an inkjet printer. Because fabric handles ink differently than paper, it took me a couple tries to get it right. I had my good version in the tent and my sweaty jersey fell on top of it. Ruined. I do have an earlier version which I am going to use but I'm not happy with it.

The Axis of Evil showed up this afternoon, so it was good to see some familiar faces. We went to I had the special "carb load pasta dinner" for $10. Rip-off. I am well known for eating very small portions and even I thought it was a skimpy portion. It didn't even come with a drink. For one dollar more people got a big chicken dinner. Total waste.

Speaking of food, here's something odd: I packed bread to make lunch sandwiches. I took 3 Ziploc bags, put two slices of Wonder in each, and placed them in my cooler to stay fresh. Somehow, in all 3 bags, one slice is stale and the other is soaking wet. I cannot explain it at all.

I know I will not finish Wildflower slower than my predicted time. I should be starting the bike around 9:45 and allowed myself 5 hours to finish at 2:45. As it turns out, that's the cut-off time for the bike. So I pretty much have no choice; it's all or nothing.

The campground vibe tonight reminds me of the movie 300. There are basically a bunch of overly-athletic people preparing their gear for a great battle in the morning. I guess I'm the hunchback. Even the wind is picking up for that nice dramatic touch.

I strangely do not feel very nervous about the race. I'm actually more worried about the weather. And even then I'm not concerned about the weather affecting my time, I simply don't want to be cold. I'm dreading the cold at 6am when I have to go to the transition area in my shorts. 4-5 hours on the bike is going to be miserable if there's a cold wind.

There are two phases of a race: nervousness, and misery. The nervousness is the worse. All I need to do is get into the water; once my race starts I'm no longer nervous, just miserable. And I can handle that.