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Saturday, June 25, 2011

Here we go!!

I arrived in Coteau du Lac  around dinner time last night after a long drive and lots of traffic delays. I was lucky enough to catch a ride with fellow triathlete, Angela Quick, and her mom, Donna, along with the rest of the Regional Training Centre (RTC) Guelph athletes. Yesterday was St. Jean Baptiste Day, so Ang and I navigated through the ensuing parade and people lining the streets to get in our 20ish minute "shake the legs out" run in before dinner. We certainly got quite a few puzzled looks from the crowd. It was nice to see so much Quebec spirit even in the pouring rain!

This morning (once again in the rain) we headed over to the race site to get familiar with the technical 6 lap bike course. There are a couple of dicey corners and 180 degree turn that we have to do on narrow, rough roads on each lap, so if it rains tomorrow, which is in the forecast, it will prove to be a very tactical bike race. I'm going to have to keep my wits about me and stay focused for the entire 40km ride. I think I might even showcase my flying bike mount for the very first time tomorrow:)

After getting familiar with the bike course, I headed over to the swim area. We'll be swimming in a closed off canal, and starting from a pontoon. It's all very official, because we will be corraled at the top of the stairs leading down to the water. Once our name is announced we have to jog down the stairs and jog to our selected starting position. Once everyone is lined up, we'll be asked to "take your mark", where we will then step forward into our starting positions, and then the horn will blare signaling our start. Everyone will dive in for a 1km loop, and then swim up a ramp back onto the pontoon, run across the pontoon, and then dive back in the water for a 2nd loop of 500m. We'll exit the ramp again, and run up the stairs to find our bikes in T1. I'm so glad that we came up yesterday, so that I got the chance today to practice diving off the pontoon, swimming up that ramp, and doing running dives a bunch of times. I even got to practice with fellow competitor from Sherwood Park, Alberta, Kristina Schultz. We practiced the jostling that MIGHT occur swimming up the ramp, and then the elbowing that MIGHT follow running along the pontoon, and then finally diving really close to one another without actually diving on each others heads! It was actually a lot of fun practicing that, but I'm quite sure that it won't be so civil tomorrow!

Ming arrived early this afternoon, so now I'll have a photographer, coach, and cheering squad for tomorrow, yay! Now, it's time to put my feet up (compression clad, of course), and just relax until it's time to put my game face on tomorrow at 12:30!

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