Wildflower 2008 - The Story

There isn't a whole lot to report on Wildflower this year. For the most part, ever since my number was called in the Escape from Alcatraz lottery, I was treating Wildflower as a practice race.

Still, that didn't prevent me from getting both nervous and excited...

I convinced My Guy to join us for the weekend at Wildflower. I figure that he's heard me complain enough about all this training for the past few months, he might as well see it be put to use. It helps that Wildflower involves camping -My Guy cannot resist camping. So on Saturday afternoon, AER (who sadly had to drop out of the Long Course due to knee problems) and her guy, JH (who was also doing the Olympic Course with me) piled into the car to head to Lake San Antonio.

The day was marked by a series of unfortunate events for both JH and myself, including, but not limited to: front derailer issues despite having just been taken into the shop to be fixed (JH) and forgetting a wallet that contained the form of identification needed to pick up one's number for racing (Nic). We finally made it to the park around 6PM. Much later than we had hoped...

AER and JH had opted to stay in a hotel, so they dropped JCB and me off and we found a camp spot. Even though we managed to forget some additional camping necessities (like matches - not sure where our brains were Saturday morning...) we successfully cooked some dinner and crawled into our tent to get a good night's sleep. I love sleeping outside under the stars...

By 6AM, I was wide awake and ready to get moving. JCB took a little more convincing that it was time to get going, but we somehow cleaned up, ate breakfast, and made it into the transition area with plenty of time to spare. I met up with JH, wished him luck, and soon he was off into the water. I had another hour to go before it was my turn, so I stretched and made friends with the people around me.

I was lucky to see AER and JCB right before my wave started, so they wished me luck, and then the horn blew, and I was off into the water. Which was SO FREAKING WARM compared to the Bay which I had been practicing in. I almost wanted to swim slowly so that I could enjoy myself, but since this was a race, I pushed myself along. The swim felt great the entire time - very different from last year. And when I made it back to land, I realized I was coming out of the water pretty early for my age group.

My goal for the swim this year was to improve upon my performance last year - without knowing my time, I already felt successful. Later on, when I realized I had knocked five minutes off of my time, I was overjoyed.

So onto the bike. The Wildlfower bike course is notoriously difficult - lots of rolling hills and very few flats. But since I train in San Francisco, I am used to hills. So I charged when I could, and eased back when possible, trying to recover as much as possible on the downhills. The highlight of the bike is that I reached 43.2 mph while cruising down one of the downhills. I don't know if I have ever gone that fast in my life. It was so much fun!

My goal for the bike this year was also to improve upon my time from last year. With a side goal of not getting a flat tire or having to fix my chain. No flat tire, no chain issues, and a time about a minute faster than last year - I'll take it!

Now, if only triathlons didn't include running. Hard to actually acknowledge myself saying that, considering a couple years ago that marathoning was my favorite sport. But seriously, I just hate running after riding a bike. I decided to start slow, so as not to kill myself, as the Wildflower run is nearly all uphill. But right away, I started noticing so many people were passing me. I DIDN'T CARE. I just wanted to finish the damn race at this point, for all the excitement (Swimming in a warm late! Riding my bike at 43.2 mph!) was over.

I put one foot in front of the other for 10 kilometers, the entire time not able to shake the following two thoughts:

1) I am NEVER doing the Long Course
2) I am screwed - the run for Alcatraz is 8 miles!

I definitely forgot to stay positive during this last part of the race. And my time shows it. I finished the 10K in about 56:33. I don't think I have ever ran a 10K that slowly. I know it is just over 9:00 min/mile pace, and that really, that is a good pace for me on hills after swimming and biking, but it just felt terrible.

When I crossed the finish line in 3:05:44, I was happy. To be finished, yes. And to have marginally improved upon my time from last year, too. 5 minutes better if five minutes better. I'm positioned to break three hours next time around... And let's be honest. Despite all of my complaining about training this year, we all know there will be a next time.