“Fatigue makes cowards of us all.”  -Vince Lombardi

Racing is a great way to guide us in our training…it highlights what we need to work on, feeds our competitive desires, makes us laugh (and on occasion, at ourselves), and can humble us beyond imagination.  Disney 70.3 did not let me down. 

The race day conditions were milder than last year, and the highlight of my morning…warm water!  My goal for the race was to have a better day than California and put the DNF demons to rest.

Upon finishing the race, one of the first phone calls I made was to one of my close friends who, after congratulating me on my finish and listening to me discuss my strengths and weaknesses in the race, proceeded to ask me, “What were you doing in transition?”  I seemed to have overlooked ‘transitions’ when analyzing my race, but she was not going to let me off the hook!  T2 was simple…Mother Nature called, and I made a necessary stop.  She let me slide on that one, but kept pushing to hear about T1.  A bit embarrassed I explained that yes, I failed to listen to the advice of ‘practice your transitions and never try something new on race day.’  Let’s just say…putting on a top when wet proved to be a bit of a challenge for me.  And, yes…I had to laugh at myself. 

But, that was not the only chuckle I had from the race…the surprise came when I realized I suffered (yes, that is the correct term to be used if you saw the size of this ‘wound’) a huge papercut on my backside.  During the first lap of the run my race number was already hanging by one loop on my race belt.  Unfortunately during lap number two (of three), the number fell off.  Thank goodness some participants who were heading the other way saw it happen and gave me a heads up.  The last thing you want to do when you are running is re-trace your steps…but I did not want to be penalized for ‘abandoning equipment’ and so I went back to pick up my number.  Without thinking, I stuck the race number in the back of my shorts.  Well, the good news…no penalty…the bad news…OUCH!
Happy Training.