Jethro Throws a Triathlon - Prerace Dinner & Registration

Sorry this is soooo late, but since people still seem interested in last year's crazy race, I'll continue the story...trying to be brief...OK, less long-winded.

Prerace Dinner & Registration

Or, as we like to call it, "where would you like to go eat tonight".

When we get to the town for dinner at 5, we find the restaurant is "Under new ownership" and will open tomorrow. Tomorrow? The race is tomorrow. OK, there are restaurants around. We'll find something. Let's register and then we'll eat.

Registration is running late and won't be available until 7. I'm supposed to be in bed by 7. Ok, fine. We find some other racers and head on over to a hotel restaurant, which happens to be serving and Italian buffet with cook to order pasta. It was decent food and offered a beautiful view of the Harrison Lake (not to be confused with the lake we're swimming in). We met Luke, a professional, off-road triathlete and his Mom. Mom was running the 1/2 and Luke was there for support. They were both very nice and we had a great time with them. We even offered Luke a place to stay if he comes to Richmond for the Xterra again. 2007 at Richmond was his first top 10 finish.

So back to registration - not ready at 7. I'm not sure when it finally opened because what happened next was so appalling. We get into the room for registration and there's one guy sitting there with a laptop. I guess you could also call this the expo, since there were store nearby. No tri stores or running stores, mind you, but you could at least get some ice cream or a bumper sticker.

"The Guy" was our race "organizer" & director, Brent Kamenka. So we go up to "registration". He asks us our names. We give them to him. He says OK, thanks. That's it. That's registration. Naturally, we then had a few questions. Where are race numbers? Where are our timing chips? Where are our race shirts? Swim caps? Packets?

Come to the Bike to run transition at 5am and we'll give you your chips & numbers. WHAT!!!???? Oh, and we want to get everyone hoodies for the race, so we want to get everyone's sizes....yet they didn't ask for our sizes & when I volunteered mine, he didn't even write it down.

Not good.

Next - the actual race.