A race day "plan" for Folsom International Tri/AquaBike

Posted by Katie

Friday night Matt and I decided to do the Folsom Lake International Triathalon (Aqua-Bike division for me). So Saturday morning (today) at 4am we piled our gear in the car and dove up to Folsom, CA. In the car (with very little caffeine consumed) I read an article about how to plan your race morning and I found it hilarrrrious because we were so comically unplanned and botching it at every turn.

Here is the sample race morning outline given in the article:

Sample race morning plan
Read more at http://triathlon.competitor.com/2015/05/training/why-a-pre-race-plan-is-a-must_115992#QV8TfCiJTrdDZQ20.99

4:45–5:00 a.m. Wake up and have breakfast 

5:00–5:30 a.m. Travel to race site

5:30–5:45 a.m. Foam rolling/stretching

5:45–6:00 a.m. Set up transition area

6:15–6:30 a.m. Visit Porta-Potty, put on wetsuit

6:30 a.m. Get in water and begin warm-up

6:45–6:50 a.m. Finish warm-up, stand by beach, stretching

7:00 a.m. Race start!

Sounds easy enough right? Here is Matt and I's actual race morning/night before:

Fri night plan: decide if we are doing the tri, sign up if yes and go to bed at 830pm
Fri night actual: Try to sign up online for race but get rejected, spend time trying to figure out if race-day reg is possible, figure out that it is, actually get to bed at 10pm.

4am. Wake up
4:15am Matt takes dog for a walk/jog, Katie makes bagels/coffee
4:35am Feed dog (who is confused that the humans are up so early but rolls with it)
4:40am Scramble to get all of our bike gear downstairs in less than 25 trips
4:45am Matt puts bikes on top of car, Katie continues to work on bagel shmearing
4:50am Run back upstairs for wallet
4:55am Leave the house!
4:55am-6:55am long drive to race
5:30am Realize how F-ing early it is and we have already been up for 1.5hrs.. drown sorrows in premade iced coffee

At 5:17am it seemed like a really great idea to take
this photo to prove to you how early and dark it was.

5:45am Realize we are about to run out of gas, find gas station which requires minimal stop time
5:50am Stop at gas station and accidentally activate fraud alert on our credit card (maybe their algorithm knows we don't get up this early on weekends....)
6:15am Browse facebook for entertainment (passenger, not the driver!) and find this hilarious article about having a race morning plan... ha! plan! what is that?
6:20am Realize that a cash parking fee is required at the start location and we have no cash... and I lost my debit card... luckily Matt has his
6:40am Stop at ATM where the door nearly does not work and get said cash
6:55am Arrive at race location, LET'S DO THIS!

7:10am Waltz over to registration table with bike and giant Ikea bag of race gear and attempt to register while balancing both
7:15am Confuse registration staff by writing 3 different checks for USAT, USAT and Reg combined

Have ikea bags... will travel. 

 7:20am Throw crap down in nearest open transition area rack, seek out bathroom
7:30am Hastily "set up" transition gear and find body markers
7:40am Matt borrows bike pump from other athlete but guy is in a rush and Matt doesn't get to pump up Katie's tires
7:42am Katie runs off to bike support tent in search of pump
7:45am In a hilariously awkward exchange... Matt picks up baby sunscreen from what looks like a support table, minutes later another athlete silently reclaims her sunscreen and puts it in her bag, leaving Katie... without sunscreen
7:47am Katie finds sunscreen at the Tshirt tent and applies (and will later get a ridiculous sunburn anyway)
7:55am Squish body parts into wetsuit and attempt to zip up fully without suffocation
7:57am Brisk walk down to start area which felt like 2 mi (actual distance 0.3mi)

I am standing ~30ft from T1, that tiny white dot
 is a lifegaurd chair by the waters edge...

7:58am Matt splashes water on his face in lieu of a warmup
7:59am Announcement of a 10 second countdown which proceeds in approximately 2 seconds
8:00am Matt's wave starts
8:02am Katie is confused why there are SO many aqua biker caps then realizes women 35+ for the tri also have orange... and their wave starts right ahead of us.... huh? not. enough. coffee.
8:05am Katie wades in deep enough to take a few strokes, feels suffiently cold, and gets out to wait for the start
8:12am aqua bike start goes off (early?)

So there you have it, an overly honest account of a real life race morning "plan". I hope you found our struggles comical. Stay tuned for Matt's race report and my return to regularly scheduled blogging.