San Jose, California United States J&A Productions, LLC Sunny

Total Time = 3h 01m 34s Overall Rank = 217/308 Age Group = F 30-34 Age Group Rank = 47/64

Let's call the segment "A Comedy of Errors".
Woke up at 3:50, ate oatmeal and a banana, then headed for San Jose. I made the drive down the day before to the packet pick-up and so I would know the way in the morning. Things look really different at 5:15 in the morning. I got off on the wrong off ramp, and there was no on-ramp back on so I wandered through some scary parts of San Jose till I found an on-ramp going the other direction, got on, off at the next exit and luckily the on-ramp back to the right direction was on the other side of the underpass. Wheeew! Made it to the race site and on the walk from parking to transition it was sooooo freakin cold. Fear of the cold water was setting in and I was a nervous wreck. At the transition area I'm looking for racks that aren't reserved for all the billions of tri clubs representing and I find a nice quiet spot without too many people. Get out all my gear out, went to put the aero bottle on and I can only find one of the big black rubber bands that fasten the bottle to the aero bars. I dig through all my stuff again, and holy crap it's just not there. A little panic sets in, then I decide to improvise. I got out my biggest hair band and used that, worked like a charm.; Wheeew #2! I fill up the aero bottle with my Infinit mixture and I realized my big straw is at home sitting on my dish drying rack!!!! Holy freakin SH**!!!!
Here's what is so bad.... last night I removed both water bottle cages from the bike since I knew I only needed the amount that was in the aero bottle for the distance and I wanted to declutter. What an idiot. So, after burying my head in my hands for a minute I grabbed my wallet and headed to the expo area to see if any vendors were there where I could buy another aero bottle or water bottle cage, anything. No luck. I stopped at the Specialized bike booth where they were helping people with bike issues and asked if they had anything I could use. One guy ran to his truck and got a bottle with a straw in it and gave it to me. Ok, things are looking up, except the straw is too short. I rigged it to stay in place anyway and had a plan to refill at an aid station to keep the fluid level high enough for the short straw to reach. Wheeeeew #3!
Next stop the porta johns, since there weren't any lines I took advantage. I hold onto the handle so I don't have to sit down and while doing that I must have flipped it to the "vacant" sign and unlocked it. I was wearing my new one piece Orca race swimsuit so the whole thing was down to my ankles when wouldn't you know, someone opened the porta john door on me! Buck a$$ naked looking at the now crowded lines of people. Could this day be any more torturous? I was pretty frazzled by now and just made sure my transition area was set up right and headed for the swim start. I totally forgot to down a Gu and drink somemore water. I didn't give hoot at this point, just let me start racing my first Oly already!

At the swim I realized the water was warmer than the air temp., so that made me happy. I just tootled around in the water, and tried to listen to the announcer. Julie Moss happend to be one of the announcers!! The race started and I had about a twenty minute wait till my wave start, and I was thirsty. Not a super great feeling before the longest race swim I was about to do. I didn't want to leave to get some water cause I didn't want anything else to go wrong, maybe miss my wave for some odd reason!