first attempt

It's been over a week since my first scheduled triathlon of the summer. So much and so little has happened in that time.

We woke up around 4:00 a.m. Sunday May 6th. It had been raining overnight but showed signs of clearing as we headed 70 miles to the east for the triathlon. It was cloudy at 6:00 a.m., but no rain.

We show up at Lake Olathe and I start to feel a bit panicky. First, I noticed that a lot of the athletes were ripped.  Square jaws, the bulging muscles and the flat stomach.

I show up looking like a pudgy marshmallow.  

Then, while putting my Trek 920 mountain bike (the single most expensive purchase I made when I was 21 at $600) in racks with bikes that cost $4000. 
I started seriously questioning why I was there.

But, nonetheless, I had worked my butt off to get to this point and I was doing it.

They started the half-ironman first. (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike and 13.1 mile run)

I was NOT in that group. I had to wait until 8:00 to start my sprint.

Now, I'm not sure who coined that term "sprint," but I don't think it applies to a race that takes, on average, 2 hours. It's as wrong a term for this race as is "reception" for the army. I show up at Fort Jackson for "reception" and expect hors d'oeuvres and cocktails. Oh no. Just lots of push-ups.

I digress.

It's 7:45. We're on the shore waiting to start. Next thing we know, we're being told to head for cover.

We head back to the car and around 7:30, someone comes around telling us the race had been cancelled.

I can't even begin to describe the huge disappointment this was. I don't mean to compare, but it was like loosing a baby you've been expecting and anticipating for months. It hurt in my gut that I couldn't do this. Don't mind the nearly $200 I had put into this race alone with fees and renting a wetsuit.


We drive home and I have nervous energy all day. I clean.

Then I discover, after nearly 10 inches of rain, why there is a levee behind our house.

There is a TINY stream in the woods behind our house. I realized, that cute little stream can do some pretty mean flooding. That levee kept our house from flooding .

I let a couple days go by to see if megaphone man (the race director) would send out an apology.

Instead, what we got was an e-mail with LOTS OF SENTENCES YELLING AT US. Apparently he had already taken some flack. He kept saying, "WE SAVED LIVES BY CANCELLING."

Well, I don't argue with that. The lighting was striking all around us. And I wasn't about to get on a lighting rod with two wheels.

And I knew we wouldn't get refunds. As he said, "It was clearly stated in the race agreement that there would be NO REFUNDS!"

But I was a little shocked that this big organization called KLM, which runs a LOT of races, couldn't even offer a simple, "This sucks for all of us. Sorry about that folks. Here's a little 10% on the registration fee for another race this summer."

So I e-mailed him and told him thusly. I also mentioned that I was a bit offended that they never responded to an e-mail I had sent another e-mail in April asking about wetsuits and mentioned that I was a tri-newbie.

He replied that *he* was offended that *I* was offended. How dare I question him? Again, no apology. No, "I'm so sorry we didn't respond. That's our bad. We'll try better next time."

This man needs some SERIOUS PR help.

But I tried to tri. And mother nature said "nope."

Tri again on June 3.