I headed up to race at Wildflower this weekend – WF is one
of the biggest & most famous triathlons in the world. This year was
its 30th anniversary -- it’s my 10th year racing there,
and it was the first tri I ever raced in ’03. I’ve done the Olympic race
there twice and the Half Ironman 7 times – I was supposed to do it again this
year, but I pulled the plug about a month ago since I’m fat and horribly out of
shape. I was heading up with a bunch of friends and we rented a house for
the weekend, so I decided to switch to the mountain bike sprint race instead –
no point in going up there and not racing at all, and the sprint & half
iron are both on Saturday (Olympic is Sunday), so we’d still have the next day
for wine tasting. I’d never done the sprint before, so it seemed like a
good time to see what it was all about.
I borrowed a mountain bike on Thursday (no cross bikes allowed) and was pretty much hoping to not crash, which is typically what happens when I’m on the dirt. Ate a ton of pasta at the house Friday night and had 4 or 5 glasses of wine – slept like crap and woke up with a headache, but that’s probably unrelated. The sprint race starts after the Half Iron, so I had a few hours to kill at the race site in the morning. I was in the third wave to start – simple swim course, just 200 yards out, around the buoy and then back. Swam through a lot of people for the first hundred yards, then found some open water and enjoyed the rest of it. Out in 6:30, which is how all tri’s should be – 6 minutes in the water is plenty…
Had an okay transition to the bike and figured I’d hit the
bike hard. I haven’t been running at all lately, so it seemed to silly to
save any energy for it. I locked out the front fork (Trek Superfly carbon
29’er) and started the ride. It rolls for the first two miles – all
paved. Then a long paved climb, gravel fireroad descent, back up the same
paved climb, then a dirt fireroad climb before the final mile straight down a
steep paved hill. This is pretty much my ideal mountain bike course – 70%
non-technical climbing and light on the descents. I rode all out on the
climbs & managed to not die on the gravel descent (one close call).
When you finish the descent and rejoin the paved road to hit the climb the
second time, you merge with the rest of the people just starting the
ride. I almost slammed in the back of six guys in ponchos & sombreros
(not everyone takes the racing side as seriously as Broadcom riders), but
that’s the beauty of the MTB division – I just hopped onto the dirt on the side
of the road and passed them. I wasn’t sure how I was doing after the swim
since it’s always a confusing mess out there, but at the end of the bike there
was only one bike already racked up in my area. The racks are huge at WF
(300 per row), so I couldn’t tell if that guy was in my division or not – or
maybe he never made it out of the water. I’d gotten passed by two people
– one was a 51 year old on a rigid frame, which means he started at least 3
minutes behind me – I never saw him again after the downhill, he was seriously
moving. Two guys passed me on the steep finishing descent but I passed
them back in transition – they were flying down that hill, which means they
were going at least 12 mph once you realize I was probably descending at 4 mph
with my brakes locked. Downhills suck.
I started the run thinking I might be in second, so that was
good motivation. The run is on the same first part of the bike – tiny
little steep rollers, so it’s tough to get a rhythm going. It was only 2
miles though, so I went as hard as I could. Never got passed, passed a
few young guys from the wave before me. Hammered the long finish chute
and finished in 1:00:12. I might give up this whole Ironman thing – one
hour races seem pretty much ideal. I figured I must have done decently
well since I didn’t get passed in the run. Checked the results and it
turns out I won my age group. No one was more surprised than me.
Maybe mountain bikers just can’t swim…
Got to stand on the top of the podium & scored a big ass
gold medal and a nice belt buckle. No need for the buckle any time soon –
belts are for skinny people, and my gut holds my pants up just fine, thank
you. Always a fun race – and the six or seven wineries we hit the next
day weren’t bad either. Wish I had brought a BRCM jersey to wear on the
podium, but getting a spot on there was a bit of a surprise…
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