2009 Wildflower Triathlon

Team Autobots! Transform!
Originally uploaded by queenjill

Because we had so much fun at the San Francisco Triathlon last November, Emily, Lisa and I signed up for the Wildflower Triathlon down in the King City area. Wildflower is apparently nicknamed the "Woodstock of Triathlons", probably because it's a huge draw and it's in the middle of nowhere.

Unfortunately Emily had been sick for weeks, and wasn't feeling up to going. So Lisa and I went down hoping to find someone else who could run. We shared a campsite with Dana and her friends, including Eric who volunteered to be our runner for the Olympic relay on Sunday. He didn't even seem daunted by our team name, "Autobots! Transform!"

The relay group was the last to start -- two hours after the first group started at 9 a.m. The lake was very low because of the lack of rain we've had over the past few years. This meant that Lisa's run out of the water and up into the transition area was even longer than usual. She still had a great time, and was up in the transition area within 25 minutes.

The bike course was approximately 25 miles, out and back. I had been nervous about the bike leg -- not only because I'm only recently back on the bike after about two months of achilles injury, but also because there was no room in the transition area for a trainer for warmup. Immediately out of the transition area, cyclists faced an uphill climb of about a mile. Fortunately, it wasn't as bad as I'd feared. I actually passed a lot of people on the climb, not because I'm such a fantastic climber so much as because a lot of them were Team-in-Training types who had just done the swim themselves (rather than taking a handoff from a swimmer).

Triathlon cycling is very different from bike racing. I played leapfrog for miles with several women whom I'd pass with ease on the uphills, and then be passed by on the flat. By mile 6 I was starting to despair, feeling like there was no way I could do another 18 miles. Fortunately I eventually warmed up and started feeling better. Hitting the turnaround helped, too -- at least I knew I was more than halfway done.

At last, after a long steady climb back into the park, I hit the final hill -- a fast descent back into the transition area (the same hill I'd climbed on the way out). I passed a lot of people on this hill -- a lot of runners, but some cyclists as well. Once back in the transition area, I had to run (on foot! barbaric!) to our rack number, where Eric grabbed the timing chip off my ankle, put it on his own, and started his run.

We all had good time splits -- I probably could have taken another minute or two off my time but for the most part I'm happy with it. Unfortunately, because Eric is a guy, it put us into the "mixed" category rather than all-women. I think we might have taken a podium spot in the all-women category, but alas -- we were something like 24th out of 50+ mixed teams. Oh well -- it was fun anyway.

Boring post -- apologies....