Another Funny Tri Story or, The DQ

let't see, I posted a story about my goggles breaking, about my DNF at Tupper lake and the evil hotel owners there, and for some unknown reason this other funny story popped into mind this morning so here I go again. I'll call this one the DQ.

The women's Danskin is a 2 day event, a real pain in the butt when you have to work on saturday. I loaded up my van to go straight to the race from work, taking out a bench so my bike could be locked in. After work I ran into a local health club (of which I was NOT a member!) showered, and made the 2 hour drive to the race site. I met up with 2 friends who had left earlier in the day. I gave them a note so they could get my race packet for me. The race was held on an old, mostly closed Army base. The hotel was rehabbed and still open and C said that's where we were staying. So we head over there......no reservation. C checks her notes, sure enough, we're at a place 30 minutes away, and there is no place closer.

We took it easy that night, got a good night's sleep and headed over to the race in the morning. I take my stuff out of the van and damn if I don't have a flat tire. The back one no less. It takes me about an hour to change this thing, with both C and K helping me. I am so frustrated I want to scream but I am determined to do it myself, and not see if there is a mechanic at the race site, which we still have to walk about a half mile to get to. So here I am, 2 cups of coffee later, trying to fix a flat, and not a porta potty in sight.

C isn't racing, she's a field hockey ref and has a game in the same town, so she leaves and K and I head over to the transition area. I drop my stuff and get in this huge line for the porta potty. Well, after being there about 10 minutes, the crazed RD comes over and starts yelling at us to move, we're in the way of the people coming out of the water! Uhmmmm.....well maybe the porta potty shouldn't have been put here?? There is no way in hell I'm moving now, but almost everyone else does, so I sneak in. This RD was crazed, and I've yet to do another of his races.

Anyhow, the bike leg is poorly marked, I take wrong turn and I'm following plenty of other racers. I know I'm in trouble as we head over the first mat AGAIN and back onto the bike course. K later tells me she knew I was in trouble because we should not have passed each other where we did. Overall, I was pretty disgusted with the race; the pond was at the bottom of a huge hill that we had to run up to get to the transition area so I opted to skip the wetsuit. That was a mistake. Then there was the bike course fiasco, and to top it all off, the run course was short.

I get home later and check the results to find that I am the proud owner of a DQ!! I guess it was the wrong turn that caused that, but they did a horrible job of marking the course. I can't help but think that the flat tire was trying to tell me something and I need to pay more attention to stuff like that!

But the real lesson for me is.....know the bike course. Ride it or drive it, but know the damn thing.