Was really a Savage weekend? Did it really live up to all the hype? Yes, and yes.
It started out tame enough, though. I got up early and got to work by 7, so that I could head over to Mere's by 3:30 and get on the road as early as possible. I left work a skosh early. We were able to be on the road by 4/4:15 and hit traffic just on the other side of the American Legion Bridge. Since there were two of us in the car, we were quite happy to see the HOV-2 sign and made good time until the HOV-2 lane disappeared. We stopped for lunch in Frederick and continued on. The stop combined with rush hour traffic put us into Deep Creek around 9 (quite a bit longer than anticipated). We got settled in and went to bed.
Saturday morning, we go up and had a small bite to eat before heading over to the state park for a long ride. I chose to do the 47 mile ride, which cut out the hardest 9-10 miles as it skirted around the Westernport climb. It was a cool to chilly ride almost the whole way, as the sun taunted us by coming out for short periods before racing back behind the clouds. It was a tough challenging ride that I was looking forward to the end for the last 10 or so miles. The views were magnificent, as were the descents. I haven't decided if I am going to attempt the half or the oly next year.
In the days leading up to the weekend, I had organized a group swim for about 2 PM on Saturday. My hope was to get something to eat between the ride and the swim, and since we didn't finish the 47 miles until 1 PM, I was easily talked into bagging the swim in favor of lunch. Unfortunately, I had ZERO cell phone coverage all weekend in western Maryland (until about half way back down I-70). So, I had no way of letting my fellow swimmers that went off and did their own things prior to swimming (or not swimming).
We (Mere and I) were also supposed to have lunch with my parents that night before the race. And with zero cell coverage, we were not able to coordinate a meet time or place. Also, I was not thinking clearly and did not ask to used Mere's phone, which had coverage at the house and at the race start/finish. So, we ended up getting some veggies, pasta, and protein and making a small dinner at the house we were staying at.
Sunday morning, we get up and have a small bit to eat before heading over to the race start. We got to the race site and got all checked in. We may have been running a little late, because we didn't futz around much and after the wet suit was on and we were heading into the water, they announced 10 seconds to start, and started counting down. They had be periodically announcing how much time to race start (i.e. 10 minutes to go...5 minutes to go...etc). Going in, I thought this was just going to be an easy swim in a rather calm lake. How in the world could they actually make the swim savage? 
Well, somehow, they found a way.They got some help with the first part. Since the air temperature was so much cooler than the water temperature, there was a nice solid fog bank on the lake. Usually, there isn't much need to do a scout of the swim course by swimming it before hand. There are a few exceptions, and this happened to be one of them. Had I gone ahead and swam the day before, I might have been confident enough in knowing where I was going (visibility was probably less then 10 feet, let alone being able to spot the next buoy), that I wouldn't have had to take so much time trying to orient myself. About half way to the buoy, we were still packed tightly enough together, that I could trust the people around me, and sight off of them. Unfortunately, after the group had dispersed some, I found it difficult to sight and had to stop and take off the goggles to figure out if I was still close enough to staying on course. When I got to the turn around buoy, I was on the wrong side and had to swim across the path of people turning around to go around the buoy correctly. On the way back in, I still had trouble sighting and was close to a couple head on collisions since I was about 20-30 feet too far to the right. I made it back to shore in a respectable 38 min and change. The savagery on the swim didn't stop there however. We had to run up a relatively steep hill, topped by stairs that was about 100-150 meters long, and had to continue around the transition area to enter at the far side before handing off to my relay partner.
I spent the rest of the race cheering people into transition and down at the Team Z tent cheering on the runners.
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