Spokane, Washington United States Troika 85F / 29C Sunny

Total Time = 4h 42m 43s Overall Rank = 2/54 Age Group = F25-29 Age Group Rank = 1/10

Arrived in Spokane just in time for the packet pickup at 3pm on Saturday. For some reason, they didn’t have a pre-race meeting. I found that to be weird. Even though it always seems annoying to listen to the same thing over and over again at each race, without a pre-race meeting it seemed like a part of the race experience was missing. Maybe I just like to check out the competition :-)
After picking up the race packet I headed to Medical Lake to drive the bike course. I did Troika 2 years ago, but the course was changed due to construction in the park and one of the roads being freshly cheap-sealed, so I wanted to see what to expect. Like the original course, the updated one has lots of rollers in the beginning including a beautiful twisty road around Clear Lake which wasn't part of the course 2 years ago. One of the added hills had a pretty nasty grade, I was glad I got to see it the day before. I rode my bike on the trail part of the course that wasn't accessible by car which gave me a chance to ride my bike one last time before the race, go through all the gears, etc. Overall, the new course doesn't lose quite as much elevation in the middle section, but on the plus side the climb out of the park back into town wasn't as long.
It was dinner time when I finished, so I headed to Olive Garden. Apparently, so did the rest of the 200 racers, because the wait for one was 45 min. Thankfully, there was an Italian-American Grill place around the corner that had no wait and a selection of pastas on their menu. Their grilled veggie pasta turned out to be just perfect for me.
The rest of the evening was spent making sure all the gear is ready to go and going through my race plan and visualizing the race. I was in bed by 9:30 and asleep shortly after.


Woke up at 3:45, went through my usual race morning routine. My breakfast consisted of a scone, OJ and coffee. At 4:30, I headed out to the parking lot where the shuttles were supposed to pick us up. There were a bunch of other athletes there, but no buses. At 5am our bus driver walked over from the Red Lion Hotel across the street and said they were told to wait there. Funny thing, some of the people in the parking lot, actually stayed at that hotel, but came to the parking lot where athletes were told to wait at. Once we boarded the bus and headed over to Medical Lake, the bus driver asked us "Does anyone know exactly where that Waterfront Park is?" Of course, most of us knew how to get there, but still hilarious that they told the bus drivers to go to the wrong parking lot and didn't even tell them where they were supposed to take us.
At Troika, it does matter when you get to the transition, because the bike rack space is on the first come first serve basis, so the closest spots to the swim exit and bike exit are gone fast. We arrived to the transition at about 5:30am and I still got a pretty decent spot. With it being a point to point course, they give you a big garbage bag, in which you are to put your wetsuit and all your morning stuff once you are ready to go on the bike. This forces to pack lightly and not bring lots of extra stuff "just in case" (the less stuff you have to put in the bag, the faster the transition). Less stuff to mess with in transition also meant faster prep time. I had everything ready to go, visited the bathroom twice and it was still 30 min till race start. This never happens to me! I sat at a picnic table overlooking the swim and studied the swim course. It was great to have this quiet time.