Wildflower

After catching up on work and sleep the past several days, wanted to catch up on the Wildflower experience this past weekend. My first triathlon was pretty demanding as I felt like I was climbing the hills of Monterey County, California, 99% of the day. Although my swimming has loads of improvement ahead, I did make it out of the water! It was quite a different experience than swimming laps in the pool with all those bodies in the water - dodging arms and kicks :) I stayed patient and got through it though. BG's were spot on out of the water at 125. During the ride, the BG's stayed pretty level and under 200. "Nasty Hill," at mile 43 took its victims and brought a few participants to tears from what I saw. It was a beast of a grade at that stage of the race and I think took a lot of my legs with it for the run. At mile 50, I developed a flat at a place that had no shoulder to give me room to change it. Thanks to the CHP officer for providing me some cover on that rather blind hill. My coach had instructed me to walk the first few miles of the run back in March when we discussed strategies for Wildflower - knowing this would be my first tri. Like I could of run, anyway :) I was pretty gassed at the start of the run and some rising BG's (260 about a half hour in), I think, started to impact my endurance and performance. Bolusing was something I didn't want to do, so I took an alternative approach and basically stopped fueling for an hour, going with just water. By the half way point of the run, BG's were coming back down to where I wanted them and the nasty hills on the run/walk were behind me. That was about the juncture where we ran through the campgrounds that held 20K or 30K people, and that has a way of motivating you to step it up. Continual cheering from the crowd definitely helped. I was able to run the last 2-3 miles straight thru as I regained some energy. Finished up with a BG of 130, as the pic shows here. I realized following the race that I had some gas left in the tank and have felt really good this week so far. As I wasn't concerned about time at all, it gives me some confidence heading out to Kona in a couple of weeks. I don't think I'll be racing a more challenging course than Wildflower. It does feel good to have a 70.3 under my belt, though.

Lake San Antonio is an awesome spot to hold such a storied event and I'm fortunate to have been able to participate. Thanks to teammate Anne, friends Shannon, James, Jill and Tomas for their experience in guiding me through a memorable Wildflower weekend and hearing so many funny stories. Great to catch up with Erin and Tony on Saturday night as well! It was awesome to catch up with many of our Triabetes sponsors, including Polar, FLUID and TriSports. The folks from FLUID put a tent up with a crowd at about mile 6 of the run and were rowdy enough to keep me going for several additional miles... thanks gang! We've got the greatest group of sponsors. For those of you who know Wildflower and have asked about the nude aid station, I think the kids from Cal Poly SLO have done away with that. Rather, they now streak the campground at about 7PM on Saturday evening as everyone is grilling out after the race :)

Huge props to Anne for legging out the cycling leg with a relay team... only three months following her horrific crit crash. Awesome job, Anne!!

Out for a run now and seeing what I can do to improve performance at Kona.