The Bottle Incident

This is just a funny little side story in addition to yesterday's race report.

Hydration is important during the race, after the race, in the days before the race and in the morning before your race starts.

Since I crashed and burned a handful of times during races and training due to poor hydration (exhibit a and exhibit b, to name two occasions), I am trying to get better. So I started to make it a habit to have a large bottle of water always close by on my way to races and while setting up. When I go towards the start line, I just leave the bottle next to my stuff in transition to sip on it while transitioning from swim to bike and bike to run. This way, I don't "waste" the precious water in the bottles on the bike or in my handheld for the run.

And that's exactly what I did last Sunday... When we headed out of transition, I just left the bottle right next my shoes between my bike and the end of the rack, because I grabbed the first spot on the rack. Only when I got back from my swim, the bottle was gone... I thought, somebody might have kicked it by accident and didn't spend more time on the subject.

On my first mile on the bike, I saw the bottle laying on the side of the road... That was just the weirdest thing! This is not a bottle that you could have picked up by accident, because you thought it was yours.

Anyone remember "Walk to the Beach"? 

That's the bottle we received for reaching our first milestone.

When I was out on the run, I saw that it was still where it was earlier and for a split second I thought about picking it up on my way back in, but then I was so busy not being passed, that I didn't want to stop and pick it up.

At the finish line while talking to people, I mentioned the "bottle incident" and one actually said that he almost picked it up, because it was a nice bottle. I really didn't think it would still be there by the time we left (after chatting, awards and a shower it was after 12PM and we were almost dead last to leave) but sure enough my bottle was waiting for me at the side of the road when we headed out of the park.

I guess I'll never figure out what exactly happened! I wish the bottle could talk! ;-)

So long!