Two DNF's and a DFL - all in one weekend...

Wow, Adventure Race on Saturday, Sprint Tri on Sunday and an Ice Cream eating contest Sunday afternoon, with and option of going to the BMX track to race later Sunday afternoon. What the *(&^@#*&$^@#&^$ was I thinking? Crapshoot weekend, so decided to post here instead of doing actual race reports.

I went to bed early Friday night feeling really good about just showing up and having fun with my sister and brother-in-law in Saturday's AR (Project 70 in Hanover, PA). Woke up Satruday morning feeling like poo and puking my guts out. Showed up to do the race anyway. My sister was racing solo and my BIL and I were a team. Race starts off with a run and I made it about a quarter mile before I couldn't breathe so we started walking. Took me another mile and a half to get my breath back and even then didn't feel so good. An hour and change for a 4 mile train slog... I love this race because you have to go through an obstacle course in order to get out of transition (vertical plywood wall, tire run, over-under-over-under track hurdles and two cargo nets this year ) I thought I was going to hurl flinging myself over the second cargo net. Get in the canoe and my sister was coming back in off the lake as we were going out. After a mile and change of paddling, we get to the island where check point two is supposed to be, but there's no check point. We wasted 20 minutes dragging the canoe around the island (and paddling around the perimeter) looking for the &^%@#^$% check point and never did - only to find out later that the check point had already been taken down. Once on shore another roll through the obstacle course. Definitely wasn't feeling good then, so I took my DNF rather than take a chance of puking on someone else or the bouldering mats on the landing side of the walls and cargo nets. My BIL had fun in his first adventure race, even if we didn't do the MTB portion and my sister was less than 10 minutes off the podium.

Got a couple hours of sleep Saturday night between getting up to puke or potty (at this point I'm thinking a bad 24 hour flu or food poisoning) and rolling around in a fever sweat. A normal and sane person would stay home right? Not this dummy - no siree. Rolled out of bed at 4:14AM for a 7 o'clock tri start. Was feeling a little better, but I was really hungry since I hadn't kept anything in my stomach since Friday afternoon. Figured I better not tempt fate and headed off to the race (Catfish Triathlon in Harrisburg, PA) without eating anything. Got my stuff set up, walked up to the North end of the island for the swim start. Got in and swam around a little bit and didn't feel too badly, but the congestion in my chest and sinuses didn't make me feel like I was getting a topped off lung full of air with each breath. The race started, I started swimming, got kick in the head a couple of times by people swimming across me (seriously, how *&^@#&*^@$# hard is it to swim in a straight *&^@#&^$&@#^$#@ line in open water - especially when the mild current is taking you downstream?). Checked my watch at the halfway point and I was on pace to beat last year's swim time by 5 minutes (19 minutes for just under 1100 yards would be a record for me in any case) and then that feeling came. Yep dry heaves. Sooooo glad I didn't eat any breakfast. I spent the next 18 minutes walking, dry heaving, floating and slacker-breaststroking the rest of the swim. Crossed the timing mat and turned in my chip. I'd had enough. Sucks too because I was going to ride my fixie Oh well, next year.

The last race of the weekend (well, second to last race - was going to go to the BMX track, but you'll see in a minute why I didn't) was an ice cream eating contest. What the ^*&^*&^@#$ was I thinking? I HATE ice cream. Mmmmmmm frozen milk fat, yummy - NOT! In twelve minutes I manage to cram three pints and a few ounces of vanilla ice cream (blech) down my trap and keep it down. How did I do? DFL. The winner downed a few ounces shy of 8 pints. WTF? We only had one person *pop* - thank goodness I had already barfed as much as I was going to that weekend and couldn't have done it if I needed to I've never felt that full in my life and figured that going to the BMX track would have been stooopit. So, went to the river with some friends and had a nice end to a crazy weekend.

So what's the lessen here? You can never do too many races in one weekend, especially if you are sick. Wait, no, that's not it...

-Frank

Edited by scuba-punk 2007-08-13 4:39 PM