These are not the words used to describe my travel experience this weekend. For the first time since the beginning of my campaign, I had to miss a race.
Portland, Oregon was going to represent state #30 today but on Saturday at 2 am, my flight was finally cancelled. It was originally supposed to depart on Friday at 8 pm but with the storms, got pushed. Delta was optimistic it would ultimately leave so although it was getting later and later, I would at least arrive in Oregon by sunrise....in plenty of time for the race. 8 pm turned into 9, then 10, 11, midnight, 1 am... only to be told that although the storms were over and traffic finally cleared, there was no pilot available. Delta was trying to find one. At 2 am, no pilot could be found and the clearance tower couldn't arrange for paperwork (whatever that means) and my flight was finally cancelled. The next flight I could get on was from Newark, through Detroit, through Salt Lake City, arriving in Portland at 8 pm on Saturday night. With a bike and race package to pick up on Saturday, that just wasn't enough time. So the race had to be scrapped.
I guess it's a numbers game. With approximately 60 triathlons under my belt in 29 states, and 4 cancelled flights this summer alone, this is the first race I had to miss due to logistics. I've said it before. The training and the racing isn't the hardest part of my campaign. It's the travel.
