Hello again everyone. I'd a lovely report typed up yesterday and just as I clicked on 'Pulish Post', the connectivity went! Another typical day in the Blue village so this evening I'm in the Green village where comms are far less of an issue. Yesterday we had our race brief which was very professional. In lieu of a cycle in the moonlight, 4 buses departed from our athlete village to travel the 1hr 40min to our race venue at 06:00hrs. Our body clocks have adapted well so this was no hardship for anyone. The fact that our location was Copacabana beach may also have had something to do with the lack of grumbling triathletes. While we waited for everyone to take their seats, ITU replays of races were shown on a large screen. It was an interestlingly noisey brief with over 50 countries being represented in this race, transalations for many languages were constant. While this race is an ITU event, no one will be taken off the course if they are lapped on the bike. Yay, thankfully this is one less worry for me. There was some raised concerns from triathletes about providing there military ID. (Obviously, these were the concerns of the Professional triathletes - a category which Team Ireland does not fall into.) It is to be a beach start for a 2 lap swim, followed by an 8 lap bike course followed by a 4 lap run. The bike falls short of 40km and comes in at 38.4km. The other intersting thing about this race is the penalties. Each team is allocated a boxed position to start on, on the beach. If any member of the team goes before the cannon blast or after the cannon blast a 15 second penalty is awarded to each member of the team. This will not affect me as I am the only female triathlete on team Ireland but there are 3 male members so it will have more bearing on their race. Believe it or not, the weather is taking a turn for the worst, so 1 hour before the race begins, they will find out if the water tempeture is below 22 degrees. If it is, it'll be a wetsuit swim. I was disappointed by this as I was looking foward to having a non wetsuit swim but this was just my naviety shinning through. We went onto the swim course then and I rapidly changed my mind.
The only way I can describe the conditions is a warmer Hell of the West swim. These waves where fairly big. I thought it was in my mind that I was feeling sea sick on the first lap but the second lap told me, it certainly wasn't in my mind, more likely my stomach. We practised running in and out then and I was really surprised at how tiring this is on the legs. Maybe if it is a wetsuit swim, it won't be as bad.
After this, it was time to soak up some welcome rays on the beach. All in all it was a very relaxing day. Today is a rest day so no early morning start although I was up and about at 06:30hrs. I made my way over to watch Terry's competition. He didn't do as well as he'd have liked but being a non shooter myself, I was very impressed.
As for the weather, it is a bit cold and even raining. Tomorrow is forecast the same and the wetsuit is looking very possible. Chat soon and enjoy The Beast. Take care and as I said to the kids on the phone, only 5 more sleeps until I'm home. :-)
