Nationals Part 1- The Day Before the Day Before

Alright, this is my THIRD try. I am typing this in a word document so there is NO WAY I am going to lose this post.

Triathlon Nationals = photoshoot in my mother's eyes.
Upon arriving at packet pickup

Nationals is over and done with now. I would do a race recap, but right now I am just too tired. I have been so lazy that all of my texts have been short, sweet, and too the point, aside from a few. Anyway, I had a great time at Nationals. It was such a great experience and I learned so much. It was satisfying and fulfilling but a disappointing experience at the same time. I will elaborate more on this later.

So on to the trip! We left Wednesday afternoon and picked up one of our very good family friends to accompany us. My mom needed a “Sherpa buddy" if you will. She also needed another driver… I am no good to drive the day after a race. No bueno. On the way we had SO MUCH FUN. The most eventful part was probably when mom was telling the famous story of how she accidentally got in the EZ Pass lane and couldn’t get back over to pay cash on a toll road… AND THEN SHE DID IT AGAIN as she was telling the tory. Anyone who knows my mom probably understands how hilarious this was. Definitely one of those "had to be there" moments. We stayed the night in Basking Ridge, NJ. It was a quick trip and we were out the door by 9am. Though we made sure to get some gas and breakfast on the way out!

Getting our gas pumped in NJ!

Panera Round 2 of the trip. Blueberry and granola oatmeal with
peanut butter and banana! NOM NOM NOM. Totally recommend
oatmeal from Panera!!! Not disappointed at all.

I actually got to drive about 4 or 5 hours of the trip. We arrived in Burlington around 3:30pm. We stopped at our hotel in Shelburne, about 10 minutes away from the race site. I went ahead and did all the check in and packet pickup on Thursday. I knew it would definitely get busy on Friday. After check in and picking up course maps, I went ahead and did about 3.5 miles easy running of the run course. It’s a good thing I did because I totally went the wrong way for about half a mile… Woops! After I got done, we decided to go drive the bike course. Mom wanted to make sure she knew where she wanted to watch.

Reppin' TN after my shakeout run. Sorry bout it VA.
Staying true to my roots :) 

Turn around point for the bike! Going back to Shelburne!

We got back to the hotel around 7:30 and got dressed for a nice dinner, turns out the “nice dinner” was located in a Best Western. So we put Plan B in action and went to Outback…. Which was less than stellar. I just got the grilled chicken, baked potato and salad.

We went back to the hotel and went to sleep. And now this post has gotten quite long, so I will end it hear and talk about Friday a little later. I am going to go shut my eyes for a bit.  

BEAUTIFUL sunset on the water Thursday night