Plan Ahead by JP Donovan

Plan Ahead do a dry run, practice transitions, get all of your gear ready the night before:

I flew in the night before for the XTERRA Tahoe City with all my gear. I was planning on doing the sprint race, but decided to do the longer one because I found out that they only way to get points was by doing the Olympic distance. I forgot my helmet, only realizing after I parked in Tahoe city an hour before the race. After bumming around for fifteen minutes, some really cool guy let me borrow his kid’s helmet that he had in his car.

It gets worse; I went to the transition to set up my stuff, when I got there I noticed that I had only brought my Speedo, and had also left my wetsuit at home. I was dumbfounded, Lake Tahoe can be chilly in June; then, someone yelled five minutes until the start … I jumped into my Speedo, and ran down to the start, you are given a swim cap for participating . During the bike leg, I reached down for my water bottle, can you guess? Lol. I had forgotten to put a water bottle in the holder on my bike. I didn’t get any water until the very end of the bike. Don’t worry, I finished, gad a great time, and raced that race again, but it was a real suffer fest I brought upon myself. Go to the race clinic, do a dry run, plan ahead!

Nov 06 2014