Maryland is filled with blunt names for various landmarks and places: for example there is Gunpowder Falls State Park with an associated Hammerman swim area. The swim of a popular tri over in Cambridge, MD occurs in the Choptank river... for months I'd hear people mention "getting ready for Eagleman... planning on a swim in the Choptank". I thought it was a natural wave machine. But no, it turns out that is the name of the river, the Choptank River. It may indeed be shallow and windy with lots of choppy waves.
So in the northeast corner of the state is a city named... North East, MD (amazing!) which puts on a sprint and olympic tri. Some friends signed up so I did too.
Six of us wound up going: four doing the sprint, two doing the olympic. What made this interesting is one friend, Amanda, loves to camp so she suggested we all stay at Elk Neck State Park and camp beforehand!
Now I like camping. I do. I also like to sleep in a real bed before an event. Plus I have no camping gear anymore, I had offloaded most of it to various friends before moving from Washington to Florida (I was NOT about to sleep on the ground in Florida!). But since everyone else was camping, I joined the group after some hesitation. I was able to rent a sleeping bag and split a tent so that was taken care of.
Me, Amanda, and Mike after we finished.
The event was fun and the weather was great - cloudy and cooler than normal. It sprinkled lightly and later that afternoon the skies opened up for heavy rain. But during the event it was fine and we all had a good time.
I did an overall 1:48:12, good for 10th out of 19th in my division.
The camping was fun as well - we munched on chips, lit a campfire and made smores, got to sleep early. However I think I'll go the luxurious route of getting a hotel room before future events.
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