Wildflower Long Course Race Report

WILDFLOWER RACE REPORT
I had a blast as usual. I highly recommend this triathlon for anyone who hasn’t done it before. It takes place in Lake San Antonio (freshwater swim!) near Paso Robles. Lots of camping, beer, and good friends.

The days leading up to the race were normal, with me trying to set a record for most weight gained in a week. What WASN’T normal was getting run off the road while on my bike by some pinhead in a car. I went head-first over the handlebars, which makes 3 times for me. I messed up my knee but I just rubbed some dirt in it and kept going.

Oh yea, also Brian tried to run a disabled person off the road. There was consequently some damage to our trusty RV.

This year I was doing the Wildflower “Long Course”, which I think is about a mile less than a half-ironman. It is supposed to be a very tough course, with a hill at mile 40 of the bike that is known as “Nasty Grade”. I only assumed that it was named that due to the toughness of the hill and not some sort of cleanliness factor.

THE SWIM:1.2 miles
Since I swam 1:27 at Arizona Ironman, my goal was to break 40 minutes on this swim. I put on my manly neon-pink swim cap, joined the rest of my wave and awaited my 8:55am start time.
After a short warm-up swim, the horn sounds and off we go. The swim was horrible. Usually I have about 3 minutes of people fighting me, then it thins out a bit and I can swim ahead unmolested. Not this time. I was fighting people the entire swim, and it was difficult to get into a good solid stroke. I was punched, kicked, elbowed in the eye, you name it.
I did get a good laugh halfway through the swim: At one point when I took a breath on my left side, I noticed someone towards my left was angled towards me and approaching fairly fast. 3 strokes later, as I was breathing off my right side, I noticed someone towards my right was angled towards me and approaching fast. Sensing danger, I immediately stopped and those 2 guys bonked heads right in front of me. It was just like in the cartoons, only there was no coconut-like sound when their heads bonked.
I completed the rest of the swim and climbed out of the water and ran up the boat ramp to the transition area. My swim time was 0:40:43; I missed my goal by 43 seconds but it was a PR (personal record); my prior best time for this distance was 0:45:00 so I best my prior best by over 4 minutes.

T1
I wasn’t really looking forward to the bike ride, so I took it slow in T1. As you can see from the picture, I slapped on some sunscreen without worrying about rubbing it in too much. My T1 time ended up being 5:17, which actually didn’t turn out to be too bad vs. the rest of the field.

THE BIKE:55-ish Miles
During the bike, I was suffering most of the time, as usual. I suspect that my triathlon bike isn’t fit to me properly which makes me lose power. Also, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I had finished the bike at Vineman (hilly course, 2600’ of climb) in 3:26 and SOMA (flat course) in 3:10 but this course had 1500 feet of climbing more than Vineman (see profile elevation map). I decided to just take it slow and save all my energy for the dreaded “Nasty Grade”.
That first hill at Mile 1 was tough, since we had just came out of the swim and had cold legs and high heart rates. After that there was a bunch of rolling hills. I was taking it nice and easy, which is psychologically tough because people were passing me left and right. Around Mile 10 my friend Homa (who is on the Team in Training ACE team with me) passed me by and we rode together for awhile. He told me to just take it easy and have a good time and don’t worry about the clock (translation: stop being such a whiny bitch and just suck it up). I took his advice to heart and chatted with people as they passed me by.
I noticed that I myself didn’t pass a single person until Mile 15…next person I passed was at Mile 28. So much for the bike being my strongest discipline…
Around Mile 30 we took a right turn and right into a ~10mph headwind, which really wasn’t too bad. Finally at Mile 40 I reached the bottom of “Nasty Grade”. I had been drinking plenty of water on the bike, to make sure I didn’t have a DNF repeat of Ironman so I was feeling pretty good; unfortunately this meant I really had to use “the facilities”. There was an aid station at the bottom of the hill so I used the restroom, drank some water, poured water on myself to cool off, ate a GU and some salt tabs, then took off up the hill.
I guess it was good that I stopped because I flew up that hill without any problems. It was a piece of cake! The hill wasn’t nearly as steep or as long as I expected, and I still had a full tank of gas, so I flew through the last 16 miles and finished in 3:55:30. Slower than I wanted to go, but I was happy to have finished a bike course that other people have been telling me is very tough.

T2
As soon as I got off the bike, I felt my knee twinge where I had fallen. I chose to ignore it, threw on my running shoes and ran out of the transition area. T2 time = 0:03:59, nothing to write home about but it ended up being my best ranking of the day (see rankings below).

THE RUN-13 miles
Readers of my blog know 3 things about me: 1) I am a horrible runner, 2) I go too hard on the bike, leaving nothing for the run, and 3) I don’t drink enough on the bike which makes me cramp up on the run. So 1+2+3 means a lousy run time, and this course is very hilly (see elevation profile).
However, I have been working very hard on my running (kudos to coach Felipe of Breakaway Training, and my running partner Steve), I took it easy on the bike and I was careful to get enough hydration and fuel, so I was primed for this run. Plus it was a cool day.

Like I said, my knee was bothering me in T2, but the pain must have subsided quickly because I forgot about it for awhile (about mile 10 I realized “oh yea, my knee is supposed to be hurting”).
Other than that initial pain, everything went right on the run. Each aid station I took a cup of water (poured on my head), then drank 6oz water and 6oz Gatorade. At mile 5 I started eating caffeinated GUs. I walked up all hills. Some of the downhills were painful on my knee, and I was afraid it would give out and I would go tumbling down the hill so I had to take it a bit slower down the hills. But I was able to maintain solid 11-12 min/mile pace most of the flats, while walking up hills and walking through aid stations.
Total run time = 2:51:57. Another PR! I blew away my prior best run time in a half-ironman (3:26:31) by over 34 minutes!
Total race time = 7:37:29, which I am pleased with. I took an extremely tough course and almost completed it faster than I completed SOMA last October. I’m hoping to break 7 hours at Vineman this July (unless it is over 100 degrees again).

THE AFTERMATH

6 days later I am still a bit sore, but my knee is better and I got a professional bike fitting. Looking forward to next year!!

Rankings
Swim 0:40:43 1263 out of 1743
T1 0:05:17 1236 out of 1743
Bike 3:55:30 1525 out of 1743
T2 0:03:59 1155 out of 1743
Run 2:51:57 1455 out of 1743

Things to note:
This was my first tri where I did it like it is SUPPOSED to be done, i.e. the bike split is longer than the run
I beat almost 300 people on the run, as opposed to Vineman, where I think I beat 7