Tracking me as I Race Across America!

Quick run down of this race:

• I am on an 8 person team that is supporting the Shepherd Center in Atlanta.
• Between the 8 of us, we will race over 3000 miles.
• We will be racing continuously, as the clock never stops in RAAM!
• The race for us starts on June 16th at noon.
• We hope to be done in 6-ish days!
• We have 5 vehicles that are travelling as a part of our team.
• We are in four teams of 2, and each team will be taking a 5 hour shift ON (riding), and a 15 hour shift off!

Here is the tracking information:

The ACTUAL race website is here, and they do a variety of tracking and web videos about the race. George and I love following this website every year, and this year I will be on it! So great :

http://www.raceacrossamerica.org/raam/raam.php?N_webcat_id=1

My team will have an ongoing blog that is ONLY about our team! There are great pictures and updates throughout the race, and you can find that here!:

http://teamshepherd2012.wordpress.com/

My personal updates will be on my blog, my facebook, and my twitter accounts!

Blog: http://kacietri-ing.blogspot.com/

Facebook (if you want to follow me here, feel FREE to friend me!): http://www.facebook.com/kacie.darden 

Twitter (same with twitter!): https://twitter.com/#!/kacie_tri_ing

Donations to the Shepherd center can be made at this website. We and the patients there appreciate anything you are willing to or able to give!

http://www.shepherd.org/resources/raam

Cheers! And thanks for following my crazy adventures!

RAANDOM RAAM Updates--Pre-departure

Yesterday, we packed up all of our bikes and gear into four vans that I will see again in Oceanside on Wednesday!

Our Race Across America team is officially ready!

Leading into this packing day, I was training myself into the ground. So much so that I spent most of the day today just watching TV, napping, and finding more food to eat! I think that means that you came to the end of your training cycle and broke yourself down as much as possible.

Yesterday, we packed up, and our team blog has some great pictures that I am stealing about how our vans look:

Anne sparkles and I worked really hard with all of the tools and stuff. hehehehe. Our Team blog called it strategizing!

I was worried that I would be really sad saying goodbye to my bikes, but I mostly just wanted some fro yo and some sleep...which I got promptly after packing!

A little trippy that it is backwards, but here is our team shirt:

And the back has a great picture of Blaze!

And here is our team kit:

But we also have a team post up about the roster of people who are a part of this team!

Mostly, I like that Anne's picture is from my double iron:

And that Sparkles' picture does not disappoint:

Mine is from Rev3 Knoxville:

So the thing I can't stop thinking about right now is that Leslie's tubs of gear (Leslie is a friend who is also a racer on the team) have hot pink zebra print duct tape on them. And mine don't. I think I need to pull myself together before this race starts.

I had dinner with my good friends Jill and Colleen this week, which was a blast.  We had a great time, tons of food, and lots of laughs! Colleen's husband has raced RAAM twice with Team Type 1, who are super fast! She gave me the most thoughtful gift of "things I didn't know I would need" for RAAM, including pink earplugs and a sleeping mask! Brilliant! Thanks you two!

And my wonderful husband George gave me these sunglasses as a "RAAM Present."

Why yes, they DO match the helmet I am wearing in this picture EXACTLY!

I also bought this guy for our van's dashboard:

Double Tri-anasaurous Rex Attack: Rev 3 Quassy

And we were BACK!

I finished post planning at school, ran home, threw some stuff in the car, and the road trip began!



We were heading north! To Middlebury, CT to race in Rev3's olympic relay, half iron relay, and George was racing the Aquabike!

I might lose my friend jill over this photo, but I really think that it displays how we were feeling about Saturday's race. 

It was raining, we were cold, we were feeling a little iffy, but you know what? She put on that wetsuit, we raced, and we got second place in the relay division!

And then Sunday came......

Sunday was the day of the technical issues for our family!

First, our car got stuck in the mud. And we just left it, and went to race...



Then, I had some issues with my chain and had to get off my bike twice. George had TWO flats IN transitions! Yikes!

All in all though, everyone had a great, and fun race! We all put in an awesome effort, and we were so glad to have done it!

And then our car was still stuck in the mud. Thanks to some REALLY nice people, we were able to get it out, get coated in mud (at one point, George was face first in the mud!), and then we drove that beauty to Manhattan to have dinner with some friends!

Luckily for us it rained, which we thought would help that car. No luck. But it did cause a double rainbow!



So we had a great dinner in Manhattan, and drove straight home through the night!!!

What an adventure of a weekend!!