Not that long ago, though it seemed ages, I found myself in a strange and foreign land. My kin and I had travelled over many leagues and passed through snow, fog, rain, and canine GI distress to arrive on this land's shores. For years, I had heard whisperings and rumbles of speech concerning this people and their ways. Finally, I had arrived to behold for myself the wonders of its hills: Wildflower!
I have been as of late reading The Lost Books of the Odyssey and the style of prose has rubbed off on me, apparent in my introductory paragraph. Great book! Totally unrelated to triathlon, though.
On Thursday, Mike, Shari and I set off from Bellevue for California. I could devote an entire blog just to the trip down and the trip in general, which I will, later. Let's talk about the race, though. First off, amazing vibrations! 8,000 triathletes, vendors, expo, music, beautiful views of Lake San Antonio, professional triathletes, golden hills of central California, pre-race nerves, all swirled together when we arrived on Friday afternoon for packet pick-up. Awesome.
Going into this race, I had mixed expectations. On the one hand, I really had done minimal training in November and December (and absolutely no swimming), and spent most of January with mono and then recovering from mono. By late February, I tested my fitness at an off-road duathlon and I have to say it was a pretty sobering experience--I really was so far away from where I had been in September of 2010. On the flip side, I felt like I had made phenomenal progress in March and April on all three sports, particularly in my bike muscular endurance, swim technique and run strength, courtesy of Tuesday night trail runs. But let's be realistic--8 weeks of solid training is great, but not enough to position me to qualify for ITU World's Long Distance--at Wildflower, that equates to about 4:40-4:45.
Suffice it to say that I tried to not get too focused on qualifying, rather just having a strong, well executed race. I held off on forming a specific time goal until a few miles into the run. That was wise. Wildflower is a tough mother.
The swim is done in waves, many waves--when you have 2,000 starters and the starting area is a boat ramp, it amounts for some close quarters. Not surprisingly, the swim was pretty gnarly. Quite a few hands slithering down my leg, legs kicking in my face, etc. I activated my forcefield, aka aggressive kicking and karate chop freestyle and soon found some clearer water. Honestly, I was a bit surprised to find myself a bit panicky in the first few minutes of the swim--all sorts of negative thoughts were flitting through my mind. But, they passed and I settled into an other-wise unremarkable swim. Smooth and strong, I finished.
Swim time: 28:22, a PR by about 8 seconds.
The bike starts out on a swoopy, kind of bumpy road along the lake before beginning a steady ascent out and away from the lake. I'll say just a few things about the bike course:
Scenic! I love the golden California hills, crested with oaks. I find few vistas as refreshing.
Windy!! There was a pretty fresh breeze--or at least it got fresh with me. For one stretch it had all of us wayyyy leaned over.
Bumpy, very bumpy!!! I'd rename the bike course "How to lower your sperm count through vibration"
Pretty hilly. Nasty Grade wasn't quite the devourer of children and master of chaos that it was in my mind, but still plenty tough, especially at mile 42.
Wattage-heavy. While I did not set any PRs on this bike course, my wattage levels were totally jacked. Haven't downloaded my data yet but I'd venture a guess at 275 AP, 290 NP.
During the bike, my left vastus medialus (the teardrop shaped muscle on your quad) started to really, really hurt. No idea why, but it was like a gnome was perched on my quad and was having a clog party. His clogs had little sharp metal knobs on the soles. And more and more of his gnome dawgs were arriving and joining him in his clog dancing. Their clogs had knobs, too.
Bike time: 2:47:35
Started the run feeling great! And I finished feeling great! Inbetween, I felt like, at various times:
the destroyer of dreams
a limp, dirty sock
a churning, burning, seething beast-man
dust
I have been as of late reading The Lost Books of the Odyssey and the style of prose has rubbed off on me, apparent in my introductory paragraph. Great book! Totally unrelated to triathlon, though.
On Thursday, Mike, Shari and I set off from Bellevue for California. I could devote an entire blog just to the trip down and the trip in general, which I will, later. Let's talk about the race, though. First off, amazing vibrations! 8,000 triathletes, vendors, expo, music, beautiful views of Lake San Antonio, professional triathletes, golden hills of central California, pre-race nerves, all swirled together when we arrived on Friday afternoon for packet pick-up. Awesome.
Going into this race, I had mixed expectations. On the one hand, I really had done minimal training in November and December (and absolutely no swimming), and spent most of January with mono and then recovering from mono. By late February, I tested my fitness at an off-road duathlon and I have to say it was a pretty sobering experience--I really was so far away from where I had been in September of 2010. On the flip side, I felt like I had made phenomenal progress in March and April on all three sports, particularly in my bike muscular endurance, swim technique and run strength, courtesy of Tuesday night trail runs. But let's be realistic--8 weeks of solid training is great, but not enough to position me to qualify for ITU World's Long Distance--at Wildflower, that equates to about 4:40-4:45.
Suffice it to say that I tried to not get too focused on qualifying, rather just having a strong, well executed race. I held off on forming a specific time goal until a few miles into the run. That was wise. Wildflower is a tough mother.
The swim is done in waves, many waves--when you have 2,000 starters and the starting area is a boat ramp, it amounts for some close quarters. Not surprisingly, the swim was pretty gnarly. Quite a few hands slithering down my leg, legs kicking in my face, etc. I activated my forcefield, aka aggressive kicking and karate chop freestyle and soon found some clearer water. Honestly, I was a bit surprised to find myself a bit panicky in the first few minutes of the swim--all sorts of negative thoughts were flitting through my mind. But, they passed and I settled into an other-wise unremarkable swim. Smooth and strong, I finished.
Swim time: 28:22, a PR by about 8 seconds.
The bike starts out on a swoopy, kind of bumpy road along the lake before beginning a steady ascent out and away from the lake. I'll say just a few things about the bike course:
Scenic! I love the golden California hills, crested with oaks. I find few vistas as refreshing.
Windy!! There was a pretty fresh breeze--or at least it got fresh with me. For one stretch it had all of us wayyyy leaned over.
Bumpy, very bumpy!!! I'd rename the bike course "How to lower your sperm count through vibration"
Pretty hilly. Nasty Grade wasn't quite the devourer of children and master of chaos that it was in my mind, but still plenty tough, especially at mile 42.
Wattage-heavy. While I did not set any PRs on this bike course, my wattage levels were totally jacked. Haven't downloaded my data yet but I'd venture a guess at 275 AP, 290 NP.
During the bike, my left vastus medialus (the teardrop shaped muscle on your quad) started to really, really hurt. No idea why, but it was like a gnome was perched on my quad and was having a clog party. His clogs had little sharp metal knobs on the soles. And more and more of his gnome dawgs were arriving and joining him in his clog dancing. Their clogs had knobs, too.
Bike time: 2:47:35
Started the run feeling great! And I finished feeling great! Inbetween, I felt like, at various times:
the destroyer of dreams
a limp, dirty sock
a churning, burning, seething beast-man
dust
The run starts out on the same road as the bike starts out on--swoopy and along the lake. Aftera mile or two, during which I attempted to keep my pace above 7:00 min/mile, somewhat successfully, we plunged onto a dusty, windy, hilly trail. Pretty tough going! I walked up some of the steeper hills to preserve my legs for the second half, a strategy that perhaps I employed slightly too much. In general, I didn't feel too hot for the first 6 miles. My mind was shifting into "hey maybe you're not too fast but you're still a good person" shtick.
Something quite remarkable happened; at about mile 7.5, a thousand small, invisible fairies congressed on my person and gave me powers of speed and lightness of being that I had hitherto not felt. Or, it could just be that we hit pavement, the double latte power gel finally kicked in, and I started catching up to some 'pace booty.'
And then I started passing said 'pace booty'! One female pro had her coach riding a bike alongside her. The coach advised, in stroke of brilliance, to "put your head down and run." This struck me with such force as wisdom that I took it upon myself to do just that. So I dropped that female pro and started passing more and more folks. I was churning!
The run course already lends itself pretty naturally to a negative split, but I really felt like my second half was really stellar compared to the first half. Felt great. The last mile or so is one loooong downhill and I did my best to lean forward, windmilll those legs and take advantage of gravity. I tried uber hard to catch this dude in front of me--didn't know if he was in my AG or not--came super close. Turns out he was! Oh well.
The one and only thing that I believe I could have done better on this race was just go a bit deeper into the pain cave. The ability to deal with and embrace the discomfort experienced in hard racing is vital to the pointy end of a field. It's what allows one to push hard in training, so that one is prepared to race fast; and it's what allows an athlete to push past the competition in racing. Physiologically, the pros probably aren't all that different; what allows one to win is that willingness and even eagerness to push, push, push, past pain and discomfort and instincts to back off, retreat, stop, whatever, but rather push to greater and greater effort until it's all been spent and left out on the course. Diatribe aside, looking at my HR data and reviewing the race mentally, I realize that I could have pushed a bit harder at a few key spots. Instead, maybe I went a bit easy on myself. This is something to work on in training--which I can do by simulating race conditions, training with folks who can push me, and building my mental library of positive, virtuous thoughts.
Run time: 1:32:12 Total time: 4:52:17 43rd Overall, 12th in AG.
Here is a link to training peaks file, with timex GPS data and powertap data.
Post-race highlights:
-Meeting my (and pretty much every other guy) crush: Desiree Ficker
-Talking to the folks from Endurance Conspiracy, specifically Tony DeBoom, brother of 2x Ironman World Champion Tim DeBoom and designer of the Pacific Aquathon Series t-shirt
-Catching up with a few peeps from Seattle
-Getting my tan on--side note:: holy crap, Mike got burned.
-Free massage
-In-n-Out burger!! Got them on the drive down to Shari's folks' house.
Finish strong,
Porter
2 comments:
I want some of those run fairies! Are they very expensive?
Nice description of the race, makes one feel almost there. Please counsel Mike on sunscreen - ouch!
@ Author:
Hopefully you are the same author that wrote the article about being the only Mormon race director and tri-coach...if so, I posted this comment on your article, but figured that it was not going to be seen as the article was written forever ago. so I am re-posting here. I would love to get in contact with you...
:Your one in a million status is just what I need. I am putting together a Triathlon organization that will help raise money to support individuals and families going through significant adversities.
I was a 4 year starting linebacker at BYU and under the direction of Coach Bronco Mendenhall we started a program called Thursday's Heros where we honored these families and individuals as our heros for persevering through their challenges.
After football I got into the world of Tri and am now working with Coach Mendenhall to expand the vision of the Thursday Heros program.
As a part of our expansion to the world of Tri we would like to hold two Tri events, one in San Diego and one in Utah each year to raise money for the organization.
I would be very interested to speak with you in regards to this. If you are interested please email me at mstaffieri@gmail.com.
For more information on Thursday's Heros and the success and stories we have been a part of, you can visit Broncomendenhall.com
Thank you,
Markell Staffieri"
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