Our first flight was scheduled to take off at 11:30 on Friday morning. We left the runway at 12:45. Our connection was scheduled to take off at 3:50. It left Miami at 3:52. We deplaned in Miami at 3:55. Alrighty, time to get comfy at Miami International! Next flight to New Orleans wasn’t until 10:45. So Chrissie, Jesse, and I set up camp in a nice little corner of MIA, and had a good ol’ time people watching. When 10:15 (advertised boarding time) rolled around and there was no plane attached to the gate, we kissed good-bye to the anticipated 12:30 bedtime. At 10:45 the airline attendant announced that there was a delay… Duh! We finally made our way to New Orleans and crawled into bed around 1:30am.

Meanwhile, Tim, who’d taken a later flight, was delayed in Boston due to thunderstorms and wound up missing his 8pm connection out of Dallas by 5 minutes. His next chance for a flight? 7am. While I would have been throwing a fruitless tantrum, Tim found himself a cot and some blankets and truly set up camp!

A reenactment.

I tried to sleep as long as possible, but was up and wired at 6:30 Saturday morning. I put my bike together (with a little help from good old Wheeler), and headed up to the airport with the Snows (senior) to collect Tim. We met our fellow QT2-ers at Harrah’s Casino around 9:30 for a lovely breakfast buffet, where we enjoyed a good number of pancakes and some more people watching (we would come to find that this city was an IDEAL people watching venue!). Then it was back to the hotel to get the bikes ready before the race briefing. I had a momentary panic attack when my sweet new American Classic disk would not free-wheel, but was put at ease when we realized I’d married He-Man and the cassette was just a tad too snug. After the briefing we dropped off the bikes, made sure everything was good to go for the morning, had a little pasta, and were in bed by 8.

RACE

I was awake at 3am. I tried to go back to sleep but really just faked it until the alarm went off at 4. Time for applesauce! Woop woop! We scarfed down our oh-so-delicious pre-race breakfast and then headed for the race site. Just before we got out of the car, Chrissie yelped, “My wetsuit! I forgot my wetsuit!” Luckily she had plenty of time before her wave (there were about 25 waves in this race!) and we were traveling with the Snows. They do anything and everything to take care of us when we travel for races! They high-tailed it back to the hotel, and she was over to the swim start before any other athlete. Good work Mr. Snow!

We all dropped off our dry-clothes bags, hit up the porta-potties before the 18 that they had for all 3200 athletes (not exaggerating – they only had 18 by the swim start!) were too mangled, and jumped in the water for a quick warm-up. Two minutes after the men took off, the women got the go-ahead and began the point-to-point swim that must have looked like an EKG from above. I was locked onto feet the whole time, which was great, but I’m certain we zig-zagged an extra half mile out of that lake. Luckily there was no clock at the swim exit because I would have been quite shagrinned to see how long that “1.2″ took. I made my way through transition, stripping off my wetsuit along the way, and was out on the bike before I knew it. The first segment of the ride was on a concrete highway, with expansion spaces every 10 feet. That gets old quick! But every cross road was blocked off, so it was super-safe and easy to focus. And that I did! Right on that power-meter for the next two and half hours. The goal was 200 watts at 90 rpm. I did 199 at 88. This was the first time that I actually held my own on the bike! Woop woop! That right there is a whole bunch of bike-focused training and a sweet new ride paying off!! Here’s the chariot:

Guru Crono, Oval Carbon Base Bar with S-Bends, American Classic Carbon 58 & TT Disk

I have to admit, there were a couple things that pulled my attention away from the wattage. Among these items were the rotted out skeleton of a Bronco chillin’ in he Irish Buyou, the numerous snake carcasses all over the course, and the wind. Holy schnikies!! It just didn’t let up! To combat this, I just snuggled into my Oval bars, and tried to stay as aero as possible. I tried to emulate little Natasha, who just seems to scoot right under the wind!

My split may not have been quite as quick as that of the “Swiss Miss”, but it was huge improvement for me, and I was psyched! Off to the run! “Oh, wow! What happened to my legs?!” My calves felt like they were going to explode and I had a very difficult time going out at the goal pace – neither of which I’m used to. Then I remembered! I’d just pushed myself on the bike and started the run in 14^th among a stellar field. Of course the run is going to be a bit tougher! “Just hang in there and run as hard as you can for as long as you can!” The temperature and humidity were up there and there wasn’t a sponge to be found (I love those ice sponges they usually have!!), but around mile 4 the legs started to come back, and I began catching some of the other girls. Somehow I got down two caffeinated PowerGels over the course of the run, and came plowing into Jackson Square in 4^th place! Holy Crap! I can’t believe the women that I’m actually competing with (not just hanging out with at the start line)! I’m pumped!!

POST-RACE

Reach for the Sky the movie Sunday evening we checked out Bourbon Street. Oh, my! I always thought of this area as a cute, little, jazz-music-playing, bring-the-whole-family kind of place. NOPE! To my complete shock there were barely dressed women (and male women) and inappropriate photos all over the place. My goodness! I can’t believe you’re not carded just to walk down that street!! It was quite entertaining, but I was ready for my Cold Stone! Nine of us piled into the mini-van, and Mr. Snow careened his way across the city with George and his huge hippocampus navigating the way. We passed through various levels of the economic scale, almost hit a late-night jogger, happened upon a preacher giving a sermon to no one in particular in the middle of the street, and missed some stop signs (only a couple!) on our adventure to ice cream heaven. They close at 10. We pulled up at 9:45. Phew! That was a little close!

The flight home just put the icing on the cake (mmmm… I like cake!) in terms of the weekend’s air travel. Somehow we got all of the bikes on the plane for free, which was great. And we departed NO and landed in Dallas on time. Then we had a 2 hour delay for our flight to Boston. Ok, fine. The candy on the icing on the cake? The landing at Logan. We hit the ground, did a little bounce, landed for real, hit the breaks (I thought we might go tail over cockpit), and then the power went out. Yup! Pitch black! We just laughed. What an adventure!

The Ladies: Lauren, Michelle, Me, Chrissy

• Starsky & Hutch move

We departed from the Salmon residence (NICE house) around 8:30 in the morning and at approximately 8:32 we were cleaning up the debris of a downed rider. Yup, Michelle was attacked by a Kamakazi water bottle! She and her bike did a nice somersault, cracking her helmet, destroying the water bottle, and doing a number on her back side. Here she is sporting the aero helmet Andy lent her so that she could do the other 5:58 of the ride, and giving us a good look at one side of the carnage:

The group fluctuated in size throughout the day, with people peeling off and jumping on all over the place, but the core group of 9 (including tough-as-nails Michelle) rolled back onto Bella Rosa Ave around 3pm, and headed out for transition runs of varying lengths. Check out my new American Classic, lighter-than-a-toe-nail wheels:

Mirror Mirror rip

• The Jackal download

• The Blues Brothers film

Ya like those, don’t ya?

For recovery, Salmon served up pizza and beer. Those of us with the metabolism of an elephant (at least they have good memories) stuck with endurox and salad. After a lively discussion about Andy’s carbon footprint (T-Rex would be humbled!), we headed home, and pretty much straight to bed.

Sunday was a rainy, raw day with two runs and a recovery ride. Despite the weather, things went well, and we were enjoying our smoothies by 3pm. 5 days to New Orleans! I’m so psyched for our first tri of the season! We’ve been hitting the bike HARD, and seeing some good indicators. Here’s the plan: get to NO Friday, veg all day Saturday (after a big ol’ pancake breakfast, of course), execute the plan on Sunday morning, savor Cold Stone Sunday evening (there are 2 within 9 miles of the race site)! Woop woop!