This weekend I returned to a race that began it all. This time three years ago I was nervously getting ready for my first triathlon. This time around it was much different. After dropping the dog off at the kennel, and cramming my race gear along with the baby’s stuff, we were off to the KOA in Oscoda.

I knew we weren’t going to make the packet pick-up Friday night, so I wasn’t in too much of a hurry to get up there. We stopped to eat in Bay City and noticed there was quite a stench in the air (something to do with farmers and sugar beets).

We got to the campground after the office closed, but they had a bag with our name on it and a key to the cabin we reserved. According to some people a cabin isn’t “camping”, but it was great to have running water and power, especially with a three month old baby!

I went to put my trisuit on race morning and was having difficulty getting the zipper up. It looks like it got off track at the bottom and the more I tried, the more it started to tear the fabric. I ended up racing with it all the way zipped down.

Saturday morning was a busy one, we found a spot to park near the finish line and I headed over to packet pick-up. I managed to get my race number and swim cap moments before they shut down and proceeded to set up transition and headed over to body marking.

The swim had been moved to inside the harbor due to a storm producing 3-4 foot whitecaps, it actually worked out quite well. There were a few sprinkles before the sprint race started and it seemed pretty cold until I got in the water.

I had a decent swim, but am pretty bummed that someone managed to grab my Garmin 310XT and rip it off its wrist strap. The swim exit to T1 was a bit of a run and I was struggling to get the top half of my wetsuit down. Once I got into transition, it was around my waist and I somehow managed to blow right past where my bike was racked in.

I quickly had the wetsuit down to my ankles, but struggled a bit to get it off. I put on my wet bike shoes, helmet, and wanted to wear my sunglasses, but they insta-fogged after I put them on and I couldn’t really see anything so I left them behind.

I really wanted to push the bike and try to hang on during the run. I think I accomplished that… I passed a lot of people and was only passed by two people on the bike. The second person that passed me, I was able to catch them in T2.

That leaves us with the run. Without a watch to keep my run two minutes, walk one minute pace… I did A LOT of counting. It seemed to work out pretty well, overall I finished fourteen minutes faster than the last time I did this race!

After I finished and had some much needed bananas and cookies, we headed back to the cabin for a quick shower and change of clothes. We went back to get my gear and I packed up my wet stuff as best I could.

The sun started to come out and the skies turned blue, so we headed out to the state park and took a look at a lighthouse (missing the last tour of the day by 30 minutes :(). After a quick walk out to the fog horn and a glimpse of the beach, we were on our way back to the campground.

The blue skies turned gray and we had a quick down-pouring soon after. Our plan was to have a campfire and cook dinner; unfortunately I had to make a run for food because I couldn’t get the fire going. The air was extremely humid and I was having a hard time even getting the newspaper to stay burning. I also bought a bag of charcoal so I could at least cook some breakfast in the morning.

The bag of charcoal I had bought was a small one that you light on fire. It said no lighter fluid needed, but I wanted to have a camp breakfast, so I gave it a healthy dousing. After breakfast, we packed up, snapped a couple of pictures and were off!