September 11 - ALMOST RACE DAY!

Rode my old steel bike to work, calmly to avoid sweating. It was heavy, but it worked just fine. My newer race bike is on a truck somewhere on its way to D.C. Getting a bit anxious about packing everything up: the amount of triathlon gear is surprising when you set it all out together on a bed! We are told to take everything for the race in our carryon luggage, just in case, and it may be hard to fit it all into a carryon size bag. I'll know tonight.
Basic weekend schedule: FR: fly to Baltimore, bus to D.C. (I thought we should take the train, but TnT staff made this decision). Go to race safety meeting. Pick up race packet with numbers & goody bag. Pick up Christina at train station in late afternoon. Dinner as a family (minus Katie, but plus her boyfriend, Dave, who lives in D.C.)
SA: morning free, about noon, team will travel to Transition to unload & rack bikes, and to see the layout, hear a talk by Dave Scott (legendary Ironman Triathlon multi-winner), and take a swim in the Potomac to see what's up with that. My swim will be without wetsuit, probably, b/c I don't want it wet on SU when I try to put it on.
SUN: RACE DAY! awake 5am, bus to transition with the team; get timing chip, get body marked. Elite racers start: 7am. Men 50+ start: 8:34 or 8:38 am. In between, waves of 60 or so swimmers start every four minutes. There are about 3500 participants in the race. Starting at 8:40, I would be thrilled to finish by 11:20 - 11:30. We'll see. Weather is supposed to be pretty warm & muggy, with 20% chance of rain. Rain would really slow down the bike portion of the race, and probably make finishing under 3 hours unlikely.