Turkey day 4 – Supporting, Briefing, Racking and Worrying

Another fitful night with just a little sleep and Day 4 was upon me. I didn’t feel great but I had a busy day ahead of me so had to get on with it.

Breakfast at the hotel doesn’t start until 8am and I had to be down at the race centre before that in order to support Andrea and the rest of Team-GB in the Standard distance race. I had therefore asked for a breakfast box at reception which I collected at around 5:30. It contained some bread, ham, cheese, tomato, cucumber, a boiled egg and some honey. I wolfed it down, had a shower, got my bag ready for the day and headed off on the half hour walk into the race area.

The roads were all fenced off now so seeing as I hadn’t yet seen the second half of the run route I followed the barriers around the course as it weaved it’s way through the streets of Alanya. There is a short steep climb on the run out of the harbour area but it is then a gentle descent through the town and thankfully much of it was in shade through the town as well.

Once down by the transition area I soon met up with the others and waited for Andrea to exit the swim. The rest of the morning was spent rushing from place to place to cheer her on along with cheering for all the other athletes as they went from swim to bike to run.

20130616-071808.jpg

20130616-071832.jpg

Her race went well, but I only had my little pont and shoot camera with me so the photos from the Olympic event weren’t great and I only took a few.

20130616-072054.jpg

20130616-072113.jpg

20130616-072138.jpg

After the race we started making our way back towards the hotels, stopping off at a restaurant for lunch. The rest of us then had to head to the Culture Centre for a race briefing and Team Photo while Andrea could at last relax and have a beer with Frank. We tried to avoid her now as we had to focus on our race tomorrow.

The race briefing was the usual fare but it was my first chance to see just how big Team-GB was. It was huge!

I then headed back to the hotel but soon had to turn around and get my bike and kit all the way back into the transition area again in in order to get my bike, kit and helmet checked over and to rack the bike in the transition area ready for tomorrow’s race. This took a while thanks to the sheer number of competitors but all was in order and I left my bike there with the tyres deflated so that they wouldn’t burst in the heat and hoped that no one tampered with it.

20130616-072451.jpg

I then had to make the walk back to the hotel yet again. So much for resting with my feet up the day before a race, I’d been walking back and forth all day and must have covered miles. The pre-race nerves were now beginning to set in though so we all went out separate ways and tried to prepare.

I did go for a quick swim in the sea with Roger before dinner at the hotel where I tried not to eat too much. I then borrowed a kettle from Roger and Sally so that I could have my usual pre-race breakfast of pot porridge and coffee. It may be silly but having a race morning routine really helps and not being able to keep to this would have thrown me, so I hope Roger and Sally realise just how grateful I am that they let me borrow their kettle. I did have it back to them before 4:30am on race day though so hopefully it wasn’t too much of an inconvenience to them.

It was then off to bed ready for an early start in the morning. I even managed to fall asleep by 10:30pm, so maybe something good had come from all the rushing back and forth. It didn’t last long though as I was awake again at midnight, and that’s the way I stayed. I was expecting an early start but midnight was a little too early even for me. There was nothing I could do about it though, race day had begun…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Avatar forComment Author

Alan Cole

Alan is a Freelance Website Designer, Sports & Exercise Science Lab Technician and full time Dad & husband with far too many hobbies: Triathlete, Swimming, Cycling, Running, MTBing, Surfing, Windsurfing, SUPing, Gardening, Photography.... The list goes on.

You may also like...