Collegiate Nationals Day 3

Race Day!!

That always means a 0400 wakeup, but last night’s business, lots on my mind, nervousness over the race—oh, and the smoke alarm beeping, random phone rings, and the garbage truck at 0200—led to a restless night for me.

We lost the keys to a car, so it was a tight trip to the race area. Every coin has two sides—having to make 2 trips back to the hotel meant I could pick up a coffee on the 2nd trip! Coffee isn’t so much a treat for me, it’s more a necessity. Especially today. I got 2.

I helped the TriCats get their tires pumped, brakes adjusted, and strategies developed and wished them each good luck and fast feet. Then they were off.

The race was exciting to watch. There were some of the sport’s top athletes in the field—including pros, amateur champions, and then the few first timers all in one race. Very cool. I felt like a proud dad with everyone out there. I have a stack of photos and a hoarse voice to go with my sunburn.
We as a team had a great race. We of course, had some cramping and small hiccups, but we had fun and succeeded in our goals of having fun and enjoying the day. Lots of victories today: Kathy blasted the 2nd best bike of the day for the women to finish in 5th overall. We knew that was an achievable goal, but she had to have a perfect race in order to do that. She did. Alex had an unbelievable swim and a good solid run to finish in the top 50. Renee and Quack PR’d by 40 minutes. Kiley completed her first Olympic distance race. Andy(x2) had very solid evenly paced races and Makko had his best race of his career. Not all victories were apparent, however. Shawn’s race was plagued with cramping, but his attitude was impressive! I’m not mentioning everyone of the 20 athletes, but all finished! Nice work everyone!

After our race we got to stay and watch the pro women and men race for their spot in Beijing. Holy buckets they are fast! We bumped into the family of 3rd place finisher Sarah Groff during her race and rooted her on as family members. Then, in an amazing display of tactics and speed, newly-sworn American citizen Matt Reed broke away from a very fast men’s field to come in off the bike in the lead by 25 seconds…and held off the sport’s top runners! He high-5’d everyone in the front 2 rows bear the finish line and stayed for our cheering for a looong time. He was stoked! Congratulations and best of luck to you both in the Olympics!

We went to the awards ceremony to see Kathy get her hardware for her 5th overall and her 2nd among graduate students, and then went to dinner. We went to BBQ (what else in the south??) where we dined with Ohio athletes and hob-knobbed with Cal-Berkley and Montana. After that, ice cream and post race debrief with a few of the athletes and friends. Good times.