Wildflower 2012 - Race Mojo :-)

This last weekend (May 5th/6th) I've been down at the 30th Wildflower Triathlon Festival at Lake San Antonio, near King City. 2 years ago I did my first half Ironman there in preparation for IM Switzerland. The next 2 years were just a bliss, with a sub 10h Ironman, a Kona slot, Kona and 2 AG 1st's last year. Some of you may have noticed that I was struggling to find the right kind of motivation for 2012. And after a disappointing sub-par performance at the Metro Duathlon some 2 weeks ago I had real issues getting pumped for this one. But I am happy to report that the tides have turned after this amazing race. So let's roll!

View of the lake with Olympic Distance race in progress

Brett and I drove down Friday afternoon, stopping to pick-up pre-ordered food at Olive Garden - genius! All went well with packet pick-up, pitching tent's, etc. It was quite nice to have GGTC and SFTri clubs right next to each other, good set-up. I did go to bed around 9.30, but somehow slept terrible - which lately always happens when I don't care too much about the race (oddly enough). 

Transition Area

Ah what am I boring you with my pre-race routine, let's just say all went well and at 8.30AM the horn blew for my wave start. First Triathlon swim of 2012 - let's see if all this time in the pool paid off. The lake was really nice and warm, a tad too warm for me even. And there it happened again, few hundred yards in I find myself questioning the whole Tri-thing and nothing I can think off get's the dark picture out of my mind. Yet given the options, I decided to continue. Stoked to come out of the water with the race clock under 1 hour, ie sub 30min swim for Stefan (for all of you that want to say that this was a fast swim - no it wasn't! It was the darn hours spent in the pool!!!!). This is where things really picked up for me and the good tri-vibes seem to come back after the big post 2011 nadir. 

Smooth transition onto the bike and out along the lake to go up the first big hill. Kaiser-style I motored up over it and out of the park. This was the one and only point where someone passed me all day on the bike, I tried to hang on, but quickly decided against it. So a lot is being said about these hills and how you should take them easy. I would disagree. I am not advocating to attack them (and I certainly would go at them differently on a training solo-bike ride), but let's face it, you need to put a good time in to be close to the top finishers. Enough said. The rest of the ride was a total blast, keeping food/fluids/HR/etc under control I was gobbling up people that started ahead of me at a constant pace. This is a tricky situation though as you feel so fast and you need to remind yourself constantly to ride aggressively to stay on pace. 'Nasty grade' comes and goes and I still haven't seen Brett, who I pictured either catching up to me before 'nasty grade' or not catching me during the bike. When I rolled down into transition I was shocked to see so few bikes back 'home'. Hummm, must have been a fast ride. Switch shoes, ready to run, out of T2. 

Felt good for the first couple of miles, although the downhill running already seemed to be incompatible with my legs. I really wanted to run a 7min/mile average, and held on to it until about mile 4, which harbors the big hill (really big hill). Wasn't too worried to go below that pace, since I figured I could make it up later. This is where I was passed by Kevin Coady, who just runs so amazingly fast (how?!?). Walking up the really big hill I passed to guys that said that 3rd place was just ahead. Darn - I knew it - he was the guy that I caught up to on the bike, until we jo-jo'd into transition (me-light-guy-uphill-fast <-> him-heavier-guy-downhill-bomb). I kept a constant distance until the wheels really fell off after the big descent at mile 6ish. Running through the campground I sucked no positive energy at all from the cheering crowd, it was pure pain. There were apparently people half-naked with beer and hotdogs, haven't seen anything. Finally mile 9 marks the turn into the pit, at the bottom of which, shortly after the turn-around I see Brett coasting down the hill yelling 'FINALLY'. I knew my day was doomed, but yet, somehow got a little bit of a push for the crawl out of 'the pit' and according to Brett actually pulled away on the flats. I felt like a carrot dangling in front of him, although he probably pictured a corn dog or something more substantial ;-) With about a mile to go, we enter the final stage, all downhill until the finish. I am running with everything I have - which looking at my watch was very little. I hear the tap-tap, tap-tap, and just shout out 'NOOOOO', turns out that's not Brett, it's Rich Viola, who just took 10mins out of me (how on earth can you swim so fast?!?), he asks if I am cramping - 'no' I say, just want to stay ahead ;-) But tap-tap, tap-tap again. Here he is, just yards behind me, the finish in sight, Brett catches up to me, we turn around <- no one in sight. ?Epic battle with potentially deadly outcome? Or just enjoy? We run side-by-side up until the finish line, where Brett takes the win he deserves, since he really slowed down to run with me for the final 200 yards. He was the stronger athlete and took 5th that day. Big congrats. That was the most fun racing I ever had. Beautiful!

Overall I am super happy with my result. Given the lack of focus, this turned out to be a great race. PR'd the course by almost 30mins compared to 2010. 6th AG, 23rd overall and 15th fastest bike split (courtesy of M2 and powercranks), outbiking my fellow team mates Brett and Virgilio (ups did I just say that). Now onto a revised training plan --> it's all downhill from here ;-)

Great weekend also for fellow athletes, Sandrine AG4th, Virgilio-Erika-Norman relay 2nd, etc ...

Brett and myself before the start of the race