First, HilWoo wanted a picture of our racing outfits. We both wore tri shorts and tri tops. It makes things quite easy, as you swim, bike and run in them and avoid the hassle of trying to put on/take off any clothing other than shoes and headwear. Here they are, mine is the left outfit, if you couldn’t tell:
HilWoo at some point during this exercise came to the realization that Orca, the well-known triathlon, running, and wetsuit gear company, is also the name of a whale. So she’s now concerned about running in a bright pink, form-fitting top that screams “WHALE.” Hehehe.
Also an important note about something done before leaving for Asheville…I decided that if I were going to REALLY experience this thing, and dive headfirst into triathlon racing, then I needed to go all the way. And that meant:
Yes, that’s right, I am now smoooooth. My chest, my back, and my legs – in addition to my already bald head – are now hair-free. What an experience. It’s really quite spiritual. Okay, maybe that’s taking it too far, but I do actually kind of like the feeling.
The rationale for shaving amongst triathletes is two-fold. The first makes no difference to me: the argument that shaved skin is faster than hairy skin in the pool, and to a much lesser extent more aerodynamic on the bike. I’m slow and not extremely hairy to begin with, so no amount of shaving is going to make me faster. The second I totally buy: if you bike a lot, the inevitable road rash you will someday experience is much easier to clean and treat if you don’t have to get the hair out of it first.
In the end, I just wanted to experience the whole thing, so off came the hair. HilWoo helped by running the balding clippers I have used on my head from time to time on my back and chest, and I took care of the legs. Then it was into the shower, where I carefully shaved my chest and legs with a brand new Mach 3. Only one nick and it was a tiny one. I do that on my head most days.
Wow. I had no idea it was this nice. The sensation of putting on pants, or getting in between the sheets in bed, is something else after you have shaved. I now highly recommend all men try this at some point.
Moving on.
We packed up and headed for Asheville. The drive is quite enjoyable and beautiful. We live just below the Appalachian foothills, so we get to experience driving into them for the last half of the two-hour trip. HilWoo was working the camera on the way:
In honor of The Dark Knight which released in the theaters this weekend: “To the Bat Cave, Robin!”
And this is what a car full of triathlon stuff looks like:
We arrived in Asheville and drove right into the area of town where the race was to be held. The first thing we did was drive the 11.8 mile bike course.
Holy &*%$.
The description did no justice to what we were going to face. I’d looked at the elevation map a couple times on MapMyRun, and determined there were a couple decent hills, but you just don’t know until you’re there.
The first mile and a half was up, up, up hill with a monster incline of about a ¼ mile at the end of that gradual climb. Then it was up and down and around corners. Absolutely beautiful, but a bit intimidating when 30 mph feels fast in the Durango, and that’s what I’d be doing on my bike. We got out of town in a hurry, and the course felt very rural as it wound through the valley below a mountain range. Just gorgeous. I just wasn’t sure I’d be able to enjoy it on the bike.
Then we came to the monster of all hills. I had to stop and put the Durango in 4-wheel drive to get up it. Okay, not actually, but the engine definitely had to work to pull us up. HilWoo looked worried, I lied and told her it would be fine.
Then it was pretty much downhill, with a few pretty technical turns, all the way back to the transition area.
Whew.
At this point we headed to check into the motel and rest for a bit before heading to pick up our packets and go to the pre-race meeting.
We stayed at an awesome Days Inn.
Then we headed for check in and the meeting:
First look at the pool
Because this is a TrySports Development Series race, it’s geared toward first-timers and everyone is very helpful. It was exciting to pick up our packets and we got filled in at the meeting on all the little things like how the swim start would work, etiquette for passing in the pool and how to pass on the bike, how the transition area worked in the morning, etc.
A lot of this was pretty obvious, but I’ve done a lot of research and I’m sure for some people this was all new. I’m really glad we went as there was some pretty good information on traffic on the bike route, how the mount/dismount area was laid out, and where we queued for the swim that I would have had to figure out on the fly if I hadn’t been there.
After the meeting, the Woos grabbed a good dinner and headed back to the motel to get ready.
We had some cool stuff and some necessary stuff in our bags:
As you can see, there was quite a bit in our bags, though the important things were the numbers at the right. There’s the square one that’s just like any race number you’d get at a running race that you would pin to your shirt. Most triathletes use a race belt, which is just an elastic belt that you pin your number to that’s easy to get on for the run portion of the race. We both had a race belt.
The placard with two numbers folds over and is fastened to your bike.
The little tiny number goes on the front of our bike helmet.
So we got all of that set up for the next day and packed our backpacks that we’d take to the transition area.
Oh, the shirt wasn’t too bad, either. It’s made of technical fabric and the logo is kinda cool:
I tried to touch up my shaving, but with the disposable razor I had to work with, all I managed to do was irritate my chest. You can tell the middle of my chest here isn’t very happy:
We fell asleep somewhere between 11:00 and midnight, and were up a bit before 5:00 to head for the race site.
More to come in Part 2.
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