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Wildflower Trialthlon - Long Course
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Wildflower Trialthlon - Long Course - Triathlon1/2 Ironman
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 Swim
Comments: Due to water levels the course was a bit different than in the past. Used to be you lined up on the right dock and it's a straight shot to the first buoy. Now the first buoy was a dogleg off the left dock, so I lined up front row far left. Not sure why as I had no intent to hammer the swim but there you go. Horn sounded and off we went. Immediately felt as if my timing chip was hanging off my leg, so moved left to find clean water and give it a check. Nope, secure, so I carried on. Was swimming way too far left so forced myself to the right and found some decent feet. Helped navigate through the waves of earlier swimmers as well, and there were a lot. Never put myself in a bad spot here, just swam fairly easy but steady the whole way. As we neared the exit, I kicked a bit more and increased my stroke rate just to get some blood flowing Exited and saw 31:XX, a bit slower than I'd like but as I was just pacing myself thru the day I wasn't concerned.  Transition 1
Comments: Loooooong boat ramp due to low water temps. Just moved slowly and steadily. Painful concrete and asphalt.  Bike
Comments: Goal here was to get off the bike ready to ride. Not sure what that meant as I hadn't ridden 56 miles recently, but kept power to 200 or so on the flats and below 260 on the climbs. Mostly successful. First 6 miles and last 15 miles are tough, everything else is fairly easy. Took the Beach Road climb as easy as I could, let people ride away, don't really care. Be prepared for the 2 or 3 hills left to get out of the park, then smooth sailing. Felt very comfortable on the bike the first 25 miles. There are mile markers every damn mile, so you can never forget how far you've come and how far you have to go. Around mile 20 a friend passed me... that had started earlier than me. He ended up killing me on the bike and run but that felt good :) First turn on Jolon came pretty quickly and we headed south. Ths is where the pavement got so bad it shook the tops off my BTS bottle (volunteers, who were awesome by the way, hadn't screwed them on all the way), and all the water splashed out. But with 7 or so aid stations water was always close at hand. Right turn on Nacimiento and head to Nasty Grade, still feeling good, but getting warm. Rolled up the arm coolers and started splashing water on them, and into the helmet vents as I was wearing a head cooler as well. Worked great. Nasty is not as steep as Beach but longer, so you just settle in. Had to check a mechanical squeaking in the front wheel at the top, dd NOT want descend the big hill with an iffy wheel). All was good however so I carried on to the big downhill that scares the crap out of me. Honestly of the entire race I knew once I got past this I could relax, Still 10 miles to go to T2, with a few climbs left, but was still feeling great and ready to run. Ticked off the miles and sure enough was in T2 pretty quickly I did not have a running time or a watch so had no idea what my time was Nutrition - 900 or so kcals of Infinit, one gel. AP 172, NP 199, IF .72, VI 1.16 Transition 2
Comments: Run in, bike shit off run shit on, the way it goes.  Run
Comments: Goal was to run 9;45-10 pace until the big hill, walk that, thn run 10 or so pace in Welllll..... First mile went fine at 9:40, but every mile after that has some steep hill or incline meriting a walk, sometimes several. I had forgotten about these...Just basically bam , bam , bam... then you get to mile 4 which is 300+ feet of climbing, and all but relay runners and a few Agers were running. So by the time you get to mile 6, you fel like you've run 10, and have 7 to go. I tried to just run a consistent pace and only walk inclines, think I did pretty well as the second half was 8 minutes faster than the first, and I caught several people that ran away from me in mile 2 and 3, and ran away from many 50-54s I had been leap frogging in the hills. At mile 7 the course goes into the campground, so everyone there watching their athletes or getting ready for Sunday races are there, and its' a huge shot in the arm. Felt great through 9, which is the top of the Pit. The Pit runs you down into, well a pit, for a mile or so, then you turn around and run back out. THis year there was a headwind going down, meaning a bit of an oven coming up. I stuck to a plan, and set my walk and run points and kept to them. At the top I ran to the last little rise, and walked about 100 yard. From there, ran all the way in, including the last painful mile downhill on Lynch. It did get hot but I carried a hand botle and filled it every station, and used it to douse myself constantly. Never felt overheated or beyond my limits, which was my big concern. After the race I had 4 or 5 people say they were "racing me" some caught me, some didn't. LOL Nutrition - in the heat I just wasn't that hungry so I had probably 6 or 7 servings of gatorade and two gels. Starving at the end though! Post race
Warm down: Headed to the lake to soak in cold water. Event comments: Glad I made the trek back, looking forward to next year. Last updated: 2018-05-09 12:00 AM
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 2018-05-09 7:38 PM |
 Subject: Wildflower Trialthlon - Long Course |
| 2018-05-09 9:23 PM in reply to: #5243081 |
Master  2485    Atlanta, Georgia | Subject: RE: Wildflower Trialthlon - Long Course Congrats on your day...I always thought Wildflower sounded really cool. |
| 2018-05-10 9:49 AM in reply to: alltom1 |
Master 4118 Toronto Bronze member | Subject: RE: Wildflower Trialthlon - Long Course Nice job out there Chris! |
| General Discussion-> Race Reports! |
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United States
85F / 29C
Sunny
Overall Rank = 362/
Age Group = M50-54
Age Group Rank = 29/88
It feels like I haven't written a race report in ages.... Probably because it had been ages.... I had done the WF long course as a relay in 2006, did the long course in 2007, mountain bike in 2008, long course in 2009, and Olympic n 2013. When the lake dried up I didn't go back, due to various reasons. It was now back to its full glory with the swim, bike and run back in their proper places, so a group of us decided to make the trek. So glad we did.
Rolled in around 10 am Friday and was able to secure with a friend 3 sites in Loop E for the 10 or so of us in our group. Nice shady spots, fairly close to the top of Lynch Road. After the group arrived we shuttled down to the expo to pick up packets, swim in the lake, etc. Shuttled back up and had pasta dinner with strawberry shortcake (made by yours truly) for dessert. One beer to calm the nerves :)
Got up around 6. One good thing about WF is the late start, I didn't start until 8;55, making for a relaxing morning. One bad thing is on a hot day you are basically racing into the heat. The temp forecast had hovered in the 80s all week, from low of 82 to high of 88 or so. No idea what it ended up being but it was warm for sure.
Bagel and coffee and soon enough getting ready to ride down Lynch to transition. Except I couldn't get the power meter to sync to the garmin. Light was out, dead battery. I had even considered getting some spares (definitely next time) but figured they were new. Was bummed as I was using the ride to test some power info for Canada, but resigned to using just HR. Figuring I had nearly an hour decided to see if I could find any. All the expo booths, no one had any batteries. Eventually found myself in front of the general store, which was open (!) had batteries (!) and was willing to take my race number in exchange for payment after the race (knowing I'd forget, on the walk down to the swim I asked a friend to cover my tab for me while we raced :) )
Got in the water as the wave before us went off and swam about a bit..