Prerace – Thursday

Thursday morning we woke up pretty early and walked down the beach to see the swim start.  After spending a few minutes down there we walked back to our room and I put on my wetsuit and we walked back down there for a swim.  I did one loop of the swim course “ trying to swim easy at what I felt would be my likely pace during the race.  The course is similar to Madison “ a giant rectangle.  Just before the end of the first long stretch of the course I reached out and felt something with my right hand, the next instant the left side of my face and neck “ from my cap to my wetsuit was on fire.  STUNG “ again, and this time it really, really hurt.  Not knowing what else to do “ and being 800m from shore, I just kept swimming.  I hit that 1k mark around 13:30 “ pretty fast, but it felt nice and easy.  I finished up the loop, scouting out shallow spots and the like on the way back that could be troublesome at the finish of the swim or the turn around.  I walked over to Mary and pulled a move straight from Tommy Boy “ œIs my neck red at all?

After the swim we walked back to the room.  I showered while Mary did some research about Jelly Fish stings on the internet “ she found that vinegar was the suggested treatment “ so off we went to Wal-Mart to get some.

Mary wanted to do a run “ so after eating some awesome homemade sandwiches “ we drove down to the state park and Mary did two loops of the circuit, while I road my bike with her.  We got a laugh out of a group of guys that went by and made a joke that I was lucky to have my disc cover on, otherwise I may not have been able to keep up with her running!!!!

We spent some time relaxing at the pool after that and then went to the pre-race dinner.