Tennessee Bellas Dee Davis, Abby Olson, and Missy Hulbert are Training (and we do mean training with a capital "T") for Ironman Floria 2008 on November 1 in Panama City Beach, FL. This is Abby's race report from their second half-Ironman of the Year, the Muncie Endurathon in Muncie, IN. These women are made of some tough stuff!
The pic above shows their fellow Ironman trainee Jere Pope, Missy and Abby enjoying post race brews.
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"Pope picked me and Missy up from the church where we slept... amazingly we didn't burn it down or cuss in front of the pastor. Pope warned us that the weather was going to get dicey in the middle of the day, but we all figured that it was no big deal since it would be towards the end of the event.
As everyone was setting up, the race director called a meeting to let everyone know that a weather front was moving through around 10am. He said there would be hail, damaging winds, lightening, heavy rain... fun stuff. The plan was to put the start waves in the water 3 minutes apart instead of 5 minutes in an attempt to get everyone out of the water before the storm hit. After that, we would be on our own i.e. seek your own shelter when you are on the course and sky opens on you.
I was thinking, ok... I'll go ahead and swim, no big deal. And I figured I would be far enough on the bike that it wouldn't bother me. After coming around the last buoy, about halfway in, I tried to site the shore and suddenly couldn't see anything that far away because the rain was so heavy visibility was almost zero. Then I heard the thunder. I froze up because I thought I was going to die... just waiting for the jolt to hit.
When I didn't get shocked, I swam like hell for the shore hoping to make it out before the next hit- and I did. As soon as I cleared the water, BOOM! I started wondering if this was all worth it... and I did so I got on the bike. I only went 12 miles before I realized after almost wrecking with someone, sliding through a turn and getting blown sideways, that this was not a good idea. That is the story of my DNF. Yeah!!"
Tennessee Bella Olga Weeks (see photo by Marsha White) is leading the Cat 1-4 Women in the latest standings from the NashvilleCyclist.com crit series. In addition to leading this category, Olga is also ranked in the Cat 4 Men's races.
