Bring on the Black Fly!

Dear Mother Nature, what did I do to you that was so wrong?

At 4:30, this morning, Mark and I got our stuff together, got the bikes set, headed to Dunkin Donuts, and then up to Bristol for the Mooseman. We anticipated that it was going to be not great weather, but we had no idea what we were in for! It started to rain halfway up to Bristol and then we arrived at the parking field. It must have rained much of the night up there because the field was already a mud pit that we were not looking forward to trying to get out of. Then, as we were trying to unload all our stuff and do the 1/2 mile walk to the start of the race, a massive thunder/lightening storm hit. EVERYTHING got soaked, but we still made the miserable trudge to the course. Once we were there, we found out the swim was cancelled completely and the race was delayed!

We surveyed the area, checked in with a few people we knew (although, I couldn't even get to the S2 tent because it was flooded every direction I stepped). The race wouldn't start until 9:00 (it was only 7:30 at this point) and we really couldn't find a great place to stay dry. The race would become a dualthon with a shortened bike course due to flooding on various parts of the course. This was not exactly what I had in mind for my first big race. The announcers even stated that the race could be cancelled depending on what happened with the weather. Mark and I made the difficult decision to pull out of the race and attempt to get his car out of the mud.

This was such a heartbreaking decision for me...I've trained for months and was psyched yesterday when I picked up my packet. I feel like a wimp, but I was just not comfortable biking that distance with everything soaked. I did not even know if they would actually hold the remainder of the race (of course, once we started driving home, the weather cleared up a little bit).

So I got home, unpacked some of my soaking wet gear, took a shower, signed up for The Black Fly International in July, and went to bed for a few hours.

So, Mooseman 2010 was a bust. Bring on the Black Fly and bring on Mooseman 2011 (I will complete that race!).