gellerche wrote:
This one isn't so much the "what" as the "why". I was doing a HIM and stayed the night before in a very nice hotel. Unfortunately there was group of people who were celebrating an upcoming wedding. And these people were not only pure trash, but in a room across the hall. They were yelling in the hallways and woke me up at 11.
Then at midnight.
Then at 1 AM (but the smell of the dope they were smoking offset things somewhat)
Finally at 2 I was greeted with the glorious sight of the sheriff's department (with a German Shepherd in tow) telling them they were being evicted.
Finally fell asleep at 3, had to be up at 5, and went through the whole race in kind of an exhausted stupor.
That's near identical to my experience before Steelhead 2016. I never understood the yelling in the hallway part. I'm lucky that I haven't had many "things" happen before races. Here's a couple odd ones I have seen happen to others though:
1) Tri-Rock Lake Geneva 2011 or 2012. The group that organized the first two years were awful. It was local to me and I wrote a long, but polite, letter on ideas to improve things afterwards. No response. I know they received it because that same email address had responded to something before the race. It was stuff like not having lights when the sunrise wasn't until nearly 7a (September in Wisconsin), the odd 7a race start time (which maybe was dictated by the locals, but it's cold and dark in WI that early in September), and several things related to safety and convenience. Only one light in the entire area was the strangest one, especially when they had music pumping throughout transition starting at 5a. Anyhow, year #2 was the same $***show with no changes, an hour delay, no lights, etc. Two people collided warming up in the dark and neither one got to race. That was definitely a "thing" that should have been preventable.
2) ITU Olympic triathlon Chicago 2014. This was the first year and M30-34 got to lead the day off at 6a. I showed up to the swim just a few minutes before the start. There's dozens of people ready to go and one person was in a wetsuit backwards. It wasn't some weird front zip design, it was literally the same one I was wearing and it looked pretty tight. I gently asked if he knew the wetsuit was on backwards and he told me it was his first triathlon and he borrowed it from a friend. I'm surprised nobody else mentioned it, but I probably should have kept my mouth shut. It was about 3 minutes until the start and he said it would probably take him longer than that to take it off and put it back on, so he would just roll with it. He seemed to have a pretty good attitude about the whole thing. I hope he did well! If it were my first race, my freak out meter would have gone from 10 to 11 after somebody told me my wetsuit was on backwards.
