Three Days and Counting...

I leave for Sun Moon Lake on Friday, and my triathlon starts at 8:00 on Saturday! I'm a mixture of excited and nervous. Part of the nervousness comes from the massive Chinese-ness of it all- like I have to get myself and my bike to Sun Moon Lake, and register, and know where I'm going, all in Chinese.

2 friends are coming down from Taipei on Friday night and hopefully waking up early to cheer me on. ;) Maybe I will bang around a lot and make them wake up? I have to be there on Fri. afternoon to sign in and everything. Then 8 am Sat. I will be in the water!

I have prepared as much as I can for the getting there stuff- I actually bought a bike bag to transport my bike, and I've asked multiple times at the Fong Yuan rail station if I can bring my bike on the train (30 min ride to the bus stop for Sun Moon Lake). The consensus seems to be yes, but some of them ask crazy things about whether it's a folding bike (I'm like, if it folded into a backpack, why would I be asking you about this?) The bus seems better- I've had a few people calling the bus company for me, but yesterday Jasmine called and they actually have a policy about bringing your bike on the bus now! Before it was like, uh, yeah, I guess so, but I was nervous that when I actually got there the bus driver would be like, no, go away.

I actually did a trial run of my route to the bus- I have to ride the train to the High Speed Rail station, then catch the bus from there. I just wanted to see where I get off the low-speed-train and where I get on the bus so I'd know what I was in for before I lug around a bike and suitcase. (I'm really hoping for one of those polite young Taiwanese men to help me carry my bike, but we'll see.) I wanted to buy a ticket because I was nervous the bus would fill up but you just have to buy one when you board. So it goes.

I feel pretty prepared for the race. I've tried so hard to get better at swimming but I'm still terrible but I know I can at least get through the swim portion. I will have fun on the bike although I will be too slow (pretty much no one could be fast enough on my bike) but the people said that's OK. And I know I can do the run. I just won't tell my time to anyone who knows how fast 5Ks should be run... :)

I had the best dream last night- I was registering and there were these really happy and really overweight foreign girls. They were like "You're doing the triathlon too? It's going to be so fun! As long as I finish in 3 hours I'll be happy!" And I was so happy because I knew I wouldn't be last (seriously my fear) and the girls were so nice. Then I woke up and realized my friends and I will be the overweight foreigners there! But hopefully the happy ones too.