Race Day Post 1

Yeehaw – we are finally here, no more waiting. The athletes are happy as they don’t have to repack or tighten this, or smooth out that. Whatever will be will be now. Most of us head to the race site where Jorge’s ladies have breakfast ready for us. There are pancakes, scrambled eggs, diced potatoes and some meat, toasted bread, I think some kind of porridge/oatmeal, coffee. We are to meet outside the Villa at 7:30 to head over to the pool which is about 1 mile away. Jorge leads the procession in his Suburban, all the athletes are on their bike following him and the bus that has all the crew follow.

It is a slow procession but we make it to the University pool where everyone grabs tables and chairs for the support crew area. We are situated at the other end from where Jorge’s timers sit at computers. I spot Israel who is one of Jorge’s helpers from last year. He assists Luis who is in charge of computers and timing. I ask him about his schooling and his girlfriend. He informs me that are no longer dating then he holds up his hand to show me they got married 2 months ago. He is a good guy, still in school, fixes computers part time and also works at a bank dealing with financing and the checking side (something like that).

Everyone is scurrying around as the race starts at 9:00 a.m. and it will be here soon. Michael and I get our end of the table ( 2.5 ft square tables donated by Coke) situated – he is a easy person to crew for. Some others have loads of gear and stuff to deal with. Marcel from Germany apparently wasn’t paying attention to the brief that Jorge gave as he dropped his shorts and was putting on his wetsuit, with his stuff hanging out. Helmut from Germany saw him and reminded him it was not to be done. Not 10 minutes later the security guard saw I spoke English and asked if I knew he was in charge of this group and told me what was wrong and he had seen Marcel with his stuff hangin out and it wasn’t to be done. This is a swimming facility and there were kids around, I told him we had already talked to him about it and I even went over at that point and reminded him. We have also had to watch out for him as in every group – someone has to be late and it seems to always be Marcel brining up the rear. Bad Marcel.

As usual a few people are late getting to the other end of the pool and the race starts almost at 9:00 (It was almost a minute late starting). Marcel was not in this group this time. Race is underway and it takes a few laps of jockeying for everyone to get in their groove and a distance between each other.

Most athletes have a plan of stopping so often and a lot do it on the hour, which Michael figured out. His plan was to stop at 10:15 and then every hour after that to get on his schedule. He is drinking two cups of Powerade and a snack bar. At 2:15 (5 hours into the race) he eats a plate of rice and a veggie/chicken mix and a piece of bread, along with two cups of Powerade. He is a little ahead of schedule, doing between 1:50 and two minute laps. Makes it easy for me to keep track of his schedule.

I will post the times for the Quintuples when the last of the six of them get out of the pool.