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Even though I shaved off 8:15 off my Wildflower swim time from last year, imagine if I actually swam straight! Here’s more of my swim bloopers, but at least I know what I need to work on these next few months! (red = my swim, dotted blue = what I was supposed to do)
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Earlier today I got an email from Avia Wildflower with an attachment called the Endorphin Report, a 34 page report, which has all the stats you could possibly think of during a race – pace, rank, strength of each stage, who you passed and when, who passed you, your splits, maps, you name it. Bar graphs, line graphs, pie charts… it’s a stat geek’s dream!
Basically shows how much I suck. No, really. Well, I don’t really care because I’m still a beginner triathlete, and that was no easy course. All that mattered to me is that I finished it! Here’s some general stats of my race:
Swim
Time: 00:58:00
Distance: 1.22 miles (1.96 KM, 2143 yards)
T1
Time: 00:06:37
Bike
Time: 04:01:33
Distance: 90.13 KM (56 miles)
T2
Time: 00:04:3
Run
Time: 02:40:27
Distance: 21.1 KM (13.1 miles)
Finish
Time: 7:51:11
Overall Rank: 1503 / 1729 (Top 86.9%)
Rank Among Males: 1151 / 1281 (Top 89.9%)
Rank Among All 30-34 Males: 224 / 245 (Top 91.4%)
Rank In Your Division: 211 / 232 (Top 90.9%)
Read my somewhat embarrassing report here.
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Since I DQ’ed at Desert Triathlon a few months ago, Wildflower Long Course was a big race for me. If I finished, I can officially call myself a “triathlete.” Although we were told that this was not our race (because Vineman is my big race), we were to treat this event as training. “Just another day at the office,” as Coach Brad would say. In more ways than one, I did though. I guess it’s from the years of marathons that I don’t get much of the pre-race jitters anymore. I’ve always looked at these events, even if it were my race I’ve been training for, as just another training, because there’s always going to be another one after that. Not too long ago, we had our training weekend here, but it was raining like crazy, so we didn’t really experience the full course, so I think that was probably the only thing I was concerned about.
Swim
We swam as a team the day before to get our preview of the lake. Each time I’ve entered the open water I’m a little more and more comfortable each time, so by the time the actual horns sounded that morning, I wasn’t so nervous. It was a wave start, and I was calmly walking at the back of the pack until it was deep enough to dive in. It was an L shaped route – up, right for a long straightaway, short right, then right for another long stretch, then left back to shore. First half was a bit tough to get used to the rhythm, plus I couldn’t get it out of my head that there was so much more swim to go. “Where’s the next buoy?!?”. Once I rounded the corner for the turnaround, I had my rhythm and was able to swim back pretty nicely. Water was rough and choppy, and at one point there was a bunch of debris I guess from all the choppiness, but I eventually got past it. The last turn back to shore, I was pretty much swimming and smiling because I knew then and there, I was DONE (with the swim). Out of the water, I was celebrating as if I finished the whole race!
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Back in March, the team went up to Lake San Antonio for our Wildflower Training Weekend. Remember that it was one tough weekend, rain, wind, cold – probably the worst camping experience I’ve ever had. Conditions were so bad that we had to modify the planned training bike and run routes for safety.
Last weekend the IronTEAM returned to Lake San Antonio with relatively much better conditions (no rain!). I carpooled with my teammate John W, headed out from the valley at 7:30am, and made it just in time to camp to set up our tents and join the team for a preview of the lake. When we got to the lake, we noticed how windy conditions were, so there was a little current in the lake with a little (actually a lot) of choppiness. We swam as a team with a nice easy pace to the first buoy about 100 yards. We hung out for a bit in the water getting some tips from our coaches, then we swam back.
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