Race day came super quick. I got back from a long vacation and met up with a friend the following Friday to discuss her 70.3 experience that she had recently and I wanted to know what to expect. It was nice to talk to someone about it, especially a newbie like myself and it helped calm the nerves a bit. At this point the race was just over a week away and there really wasn't anything I could do, fitness-wise to help improve in any areas.
I went for one last ride after our lunch and a run on Saturday morning. The week leading up to the race I did some training on the stationary bike, Tuesday morning run and a lot of icing, heating, e-stim, foam rolling and stretching. I was focused on eating and hydrating while trying to make sure I got some sleep. Oh and it was the week of Halloween (a fav holiday of mine) so that at least helped take my mind off the race for a bit. I started packing up all of my stuff on Friday afternoon and that's when it really hit me that this was happening; holy crap I'm racing for 6 hours tomorrow!!! What the hell am I thinking?!
On Saturday afternoon I rode up with a buddy who was also racing to Santa Cruz and we got a hotel right across from the transition area. It was a typical pre-race day filled with relaxation, carbo-loading, and of course an excess amount of Sylvester Stallone movies (Rambo marathon? Don't mind if I do!) The race also conveniently coincided with turning back our clocks so we got an entire extra hour of much needed sleep.
I woke up a little before 5am and got some food in me; a banana and a Clif bar along with some Gatorade. I got all my gear together and we headed over to transition at 5:30am when it opened. The spots were numbered so we didn't have to fight for a good spot. It was pretty chilly when we got up so we headed back to the hotel to hang out for a bit after we dropped our stuff off and before we had to start getting ready. At 6:15am we went back over, I went for a quick jog and then started stuffing myself into my wetsuit. By 6:45am we were on our way to the beach for our instructions. I jumped into the water to get used to the temperature and warm up a bit beforehand. The water temp was warmer than the air so it actually felt great. There was a slight swell in the ocean but no chop and it looked like it was going to be a great morning for a swim.
Our "instructions" were given by an older woman trying to yell at over 200 people through a megaphone and only the lucky few standing directly in front of her could hear what the hell she was saying. There were no swim waves separated by age but instead everyone left at the same time and we were supposed to "seed ourselves" by what we were estimating for a swim time. At this point, no turning back and the next 6 hours of my life were going to be a huge test of my mental and physical capabilities.
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