A little too cold...

Tiff, Joe and I met up for the fall beast, which was in fact in the snow. Here is a little bit of a recap on the day...

I woke up at 4:30am and headed down the I5 corridor to meet them at a Bellevue park and ride at 6:30. Once we were all there, we piled into the Explorer and started down to the Lake Youngs Park East of Renton. Heading up the hill we were all hoping that it would continue to snow, rather than rain, we weren't so lucky. Getting there at 7:30ish, we were going through the mandatory gear and realized Tiff didn't have a light, so we drove down to Albertsons and Tiff came back with this monster yellow flashlight, laughing "it was all they had".

The race started around 9:45, once things were said and done and it was winding and wet... yeah, no snow a steady rain. To seperate the teams a little they did a Lemond start having to run about 1/2 mile circle back to the starting line where our bikes were awaiting us. Already having ice blocks as feet we hopped on the bikes and took off. It was interesting to see the different race strategies that the teams used (communication, moving away from cp, etc.). We most having been doing decent because we passed quite a few teams, but the rain and wind wouldn't quit and didn't show signs of letting up. We nailed most all of the controls, only missing a couple by about 50 meters (probably 2 minutes per). We were racing together enjoying the company, but were in definite pain, due to the cold weather. After one of the cp's that Joe went back to look for Tiff and I got together and were on the same page... "We are done." We finished the first bike section in just about 2 hours, it looked like we were in somewhat of a respectful position when we pulled out. It took us a good 30 minutes + to warm up enough to think about where we would eat and catch the rest of the Hawks game.

At lunch we cheered with the hardcores and discussed goals for 2008. One thing that we all agreed on was GETTING (not trying to) together once a month for a long training day, most likely a weekend. Tiff mentioned a bike test and kayak day, Joe trekking the 3 peaks in North Bend (Si, don't know the others) and I recommended a mini-race type setup, that is almost complete.

Looking forward to the next one "hopefully a little drier"