Well it certainly was a challenge! The weather was forecasted to be pretty chilly by Daytona standards, so I made sure to pack a lot of layers to choose from and definitely a wetsuit! They had a practice swim on Friday before the Sunday race, so I decided to take advantage. Good thing I did – water temp was 59.9, just under the 60 deg cutoff where wetsuits are mandatory. They had the lower part of the swim course open, where you’d go in, swim to the first buoy, cut across to the last buoy, and come back to the start. Not gonna lie it took me probably a solid 10-15min to actually start swimming 😛 it was so cold! I was watching all these other people just dive right in… maybe I just need to toughen up lol. Anyway I did finally start swimming, and my face physically hurt – but appendages were pretty numb by the first buoy, and the second lap felt better than the first! So I felt accomplished.

Fast forward to race day, they had cancelled the sprint swims the day before due to cold temps (combined air and water temp), and as I was driving into the infield at 6am race morning, they made the announcement that the swim was also cancelled for the middle distance! I was immediately relieved, although disappointed in general that it was too cold to swim. I had come pretty well prepared though – after the practice swim they were handing out mylar blankets. I took mine, cut it into two arm strips, two leg strips, two torso squares, and two toe squares. My plan was to tuck all those under my long pants, jacket, and cycling shoes. As it happened, they changed to just a bike-run, and sent us off in pairs a few seconds apart. The air temp was upper 40’s, so still a pretty decent chill out on the bike. I definitely still used the mylar shoe squares! Worked like a charm btw.

Bike course was as advertised – flat and fast! Well, I’m not very fast, but for people who are fast, they could go fast 😛 A couple small ups and downs out to the main part of the course, which was two out and back loops on a state highway. Excellent law enforcement support on the entire course. I was cruising right along, but my bike was making kind of a janky mechanical noise. Everything still seemed to be in working order so I didn’t stop. Well about 8 miles into this 56-mile bike, my chain snaps! I managed to not swerve into any other riders or cars, and was right by a cop. So he and I proceeded to become bff’s for the next hour while we waited for the bike support guy to make his way out. He was amazing and got me rolling in just a few minutes after he arrived. I wasn’t super excited about continuing at this point, but I had put so much effort into getting to the race in the first place that I wasn’t going to quit unless I physically or mechanically couldn’t continue. So powered along and was still well within the bike cutoff (the road crew was totally picking up cones on the other side of the road on my last loop!) Be warned – right before transition, you go through one of the tunnels that take you back to the infield of the speedway. I’m not sure what the grade is but you’ll want to be in a small gear and don’t hit the brakes on the way down so you can keep some speed! I may have almost fallen off my bike 😛

I was less than excited about running a half marathon at this point, but the great thing about the run is it’s completely contained within the speedway, so there’s no hard time cutoff. So I knew I didn’t have to hurry, just get er done. Plenty of aid stations, just about or more than every mile. I wore a hydration pack with probably a liter+ of water and a few scoops of tailwind, then also took water and coke at every aid station. Drank my entire pack so was very happy I had that in addition to what was at the aid stations. Really enjoyed the out and back under the stadium, they had it decorated with Christmas lights and had Christmas music playing! So that was fun.

I did finally make it to the finish line! Great swag, and there was still food left! Racing on the speedway was definitely really cool – awesome venue for an event and I loved going back to Daytona. Our vacation rental was amazing – perfect location, super clean, all updated, etc. Will definitely stay there again if we go back to Daytona!