The weekend of April 30 - May 1st was the 29th annual Wildflower triathlon. Known as the "Woodstock of triathlons", this festival has 3 different triathlon distances; Sunday's Olympic (and collegiate national championship) race, the sprint mountain bike which I have done for the past 3 years, and the long course triathlon, which consists of a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride and 13.1 mile run. This is my first year doing the long course, and my second time attempting a race of this length.
6:30 Saturday morning I woke up in my tent after an unusually cold night that made any actual sleep hard to come by. After deciding that next year I was going to rent a hotel room in near by Bradly, California, I got my bike and triathlon bag and headed down to the transition area to get ready for my 8:15 start time.
While setting up my transition area, I met with a few other athletes setting up around my area. For most of us, it was our first time taking on this specific triathlon. We talked about different things we heard about the race, the difficulty level, and what our goal times were. Looking back, I don't think any of us had any idea what we were in for. The swim started just like any other race. Water temp was 63 degrees, which was a little cool for this specific venue, but not that cold considering I was wearing a wet suit. There wasn't very much chop in the water, which made navigating the buoys easier than usual. Knowing what was waiting for me on shore, I took the swim at a pretty easy pace, and exited the water just under 45 minutes.
The bike was any thing but normal. Early into the race is a 1 mile climb that gains over 200 feet of elevation. After a quick set of rolling hills, the course takes me outside the park where I end up spending 15 minutes changing a flat tire, which is never fun during a race. The punishment continued with a 10 mile ride on a slight but constant up hill ride into a strong head wind, which made it feel like I was riding my bike though mud. I pushed really hard to keep up my speed though this section and make up for the time lost with my flat. This would haunt me later in the race, and was the first of my mistakes.
Miles 40 - 44 were the ones I've heard stories about, none of which does this difficult hill climb any justice. After spending a ton of energy battling the wind, I'm now required to climb over 700 feet up a grueling hill that never seemed to end. After reaching the top and riding down (reaching some frighteningly fast top speeds I might add) I'm welcomed only with a few more rolling hills before riding back into camp and getting myself ready to tackle the half marathon run.
As some of you may already know, running is my strength. It's what always saves my times in triathlons, and what I pride myself on. While I'm no professional marathon runner, I do like to finish above average for my age group. This however was not going to be my best running performance.
This 13.1 miles was the most difficult run I have ever faced. Looking back, I'm pretty sure that I would not have been able to beat 2 hours on this if I was running it with fresh legs, let alone after a soul crushing 56 mile bike ride and 1.2 mile swim. Many of the up hill climbs I ended up walking (the main one taking me up 500 feet in elevation over 2 miles), the whole time counting down the miles and just hoping to finish this race.
Finally, after 7 hours 26 minutes and 54 seconds of racing, I crossed the finish line. I felt incredibly tired exhausted, excited and accomplished all at the same time. I received my finishers medal, and quickly went to find some where to sit down. I was eaten up, spit out, pulled apart and torn down, but not defeated. I am officially a 2011 wildflower long course finisher.
Links:
Wildflower: http://www.tricalifornia.com/index.cfm/WildFlower2011-main.htm
Vulture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey_Vulture
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