Ready or not here it comes

At the "first timers" meeting at Timberman, the guy asked the crowd "How many people here is this their first 70.3 distance race?" Nearly everyone raised their hand. Then they asked "How many people here is this their first triathlon?" Surprisingly, quite a few people raised their hands again. I was a bit flabbergasted at the idea of people doing 70.3 races as their first tri. Then there's Sparfy, who did Ironman Canada as his first, so I guess people do it. 

That leads me to this weekends mountain bike race. I've ridden the mountain bike exactly twice to this point, and while I'll be taking another short jaunt on it today to get the legs going again, I won't be getting another chance to ride the trails out at Wompatuck before race day. The brakes have gone out on my truck, and that means I'll be using Zipcar to get to the race site on Sunday, and nixing my plans of going the day before. 

Thankfully, I'm doing this for the chance to compete, and not worried about winning. At one point I thought I was going to get an automatic medal, because only 3 folks including myself had pre-registered. That number has now jumped to 8, so if I am to get a medal on Sunday, it will have to be earned and not just by finishing. Either way it's going to be fun, I'm just hopeful it isn't too rainy between now and Sunday, because mountain bike racing in the mud isn't something I'm thinking I want to try my first time.