My wife Jennifer, Drew (our youngest child) and I followed John and Sherri Ankney up the road. It was Friday afternoon & we were off to New Hampshire. All of us hoped that the weather would be agreeable & that our training would pay off.
We made it into Connecticut before stopping for the evening to rest. Saturday morning the 5 of us were up first thing & on the road again. Heading into New Hampshire we went straight to our hotel, the Red Roof Inn, right down the road from the New Hampshire International Speedway. After unpacking, John & I went up to Lake Winnipesaukee to drop off our bikes & pick up our race packets.
Once we had pulled into the Timberman Festival John & I immediately headed to the packet pick up area & sat through the required pre-race meeting. Of particular concern were the drafting rules & the amount of time spent in the “drafting zone”. We found out we’d be allowed 20 seconds to overtake & pass our competitors. Given the large amount of athletes in the race, it was safe to assume that we would always be passing people or being passed depending on our own individual efforts.
When the meeting had concluded we headed out to the festival to see the vendors and their offerings. My own favorite stand was Team Hoyt. I picked up a copy of their book, looking forward to reading it. Team Hoyt’s story is extremely inspirational & worth checking out if you’re not familiar with them. They can be found on the web at http://www.TeamHoyt.com.
Team Hoyt
The Hoyt’s admirable personal crusade is to make sure that people with disabilities are included in everyday life. They race together in order to raise awareness. Son Rick Hoyt has Cerebral Palsy &nd is a non-vocal quadriplegic. Father Dick Hoyt operates as the other half of this winning team by pulling Rick on a raft for the 1.2 mile swimming leg, riding with him on a custom bike for the 56 mile cycling leg, & pushing his custom made wheel chair during the 13.1 miles running leg. Despite these challenges they never allow anything to slow them down. Racing together allows them to not only provide inspiration but raise awareness. I had a good feeling that they would be doing both the next day. It would be an honor to race with them the next day.
Having finished our shopping, we headed down to the park to drop off our bikes for the following morning. Pulling into the lot, the 2 of us decided to go for a short shake-down ride to make sure that everything was good to go. After riding a portion of the run course John & I headed back into the park to check our bikes in at the transition area. With relatively few delays we racked our bikes & prepared for the morning. Then we inspected the transition area and the entrance from the swim to see where we would be running. We also found the exit & planned our route for a smooth transition during the race.
