Wildflower

Over the last couple of weeks I have been recovering from a minor calf strain that I sustained while I was out on an easy short run. The injury was a flare up of an old skiing injury that I acquired about 4 years ago. It had been fine for the last year but the stress of constant training took its toll. Also, it sounds like I had not been keeping up with my nutrition which contributed to the problem. So for the last 2 weeks I have not run while my leg recovered. To help things along I have also had several deep tissue massage sessions at PSOAS, and have been icing and stretching.
So with this behind me I headed down to the annual Wildflower event with Graeme to participate in an olympic distance triathlon (1.5 km swim, 40 km bike and 10 km run). Wildflower is a huge triathlon festival held in the middle of nowhere (40 miles SW of King City) at Lake San Antonio. Being about 1/2 way between SF and LA it attracts thousands of athletes from all over the state as well as many from all over the US and beyond. In addition to the olympic distance there is also a 1/2 ironman and a mountain bike event. In all, over 6000 athletes compete in events over the weekend.
Originally, I had also entered the 1/2 ironman in a relay team so that I could get some additional swim experience but we lost our runner to knee surgery last week, and I ended up being the only member of the team at the event. Fortunately, I had also entered the olympic distance as a secondary event just to get some more race experience. Graeme had also entered the olympic event as part of a TNT team.
Since our last trip to Lake San Antonio a few weeks ago, things had warmed up. Instead of rain and fog, we were exposed to temperatures in the 90s which is a bit of a shock to the system after the long wet winter that we have had in SF this year - not that we ever get temperatures in the 90s. Still, the area was still green and lush, and there were plenty of wildflowers in bloom which made for a pleasant environment.
As there were over 2500 people competing in the olympic event, the start was staggered. Every 5 minutes a wave of athletes would entered the water for the 1.5 km swim, each wave having a different coloured swim cap - mine was yellow! My group, male 40-44, started in two waves at 9:45 and 9:50 with me entering the water in the second wave with about 100 other guys. Swim starts can be rather intimidating with everyone trying to find their pace among the crowd, and it is not unusual to get beaten about a bit. I purposely headed to the far right side of the pack to minimize this but I still ended up colliding with some of the slower swimmers in my path. The swim course was a rectangle marked by bouys. The other challenge I have with swimming is keeping a straight line but I found that by swimming on the right side of the group, I stayed closer to the line and did not drift to the left due to the mass of swimmers in my way. The swim went reasonably smoothly. A couple of times we were caught up with by the fast swimmers from one of the groups behind. The first I usually knew about this was when one of them hit my feet - this is annoying as it breaks your rhythm and my natural inclination is to look back to see what is going on. Still, I survived and managed to complete the swim in 32 minutes.
From the swim I ran into the transition area to pull off my wetsuit and put on my cycling gear. Once we had mounted our bike, we were greated by a steep mile long hill that took us up to the main part of the park. The bike course was a series of hills with little flat ground. I decided that I would do most of my work on the bike to compensate for an anticipated slow run. The upside of being a slower swimmer is that you get to overtake many more people on the bike. All of the competitors have their age written on their calfs so you can see who you are overtaking. I enjoy seeing the ages go down as the ride progresses. By the end, I had started to catch up with some of the 20 somethings - most satisfying. I completed the ride in 1:21 with an average speed of 18.3 mph which was reasonable considering the difficulty of the course.
On to the run which I was feeling a little anxious about. My calf felt good but I had not run for 2 weeks so I was determined to take it easy. Also by now it had got rather hot which made things very uncomfortable. So I headed off along the lake shore at a steady easy running pace hoping that nothing would go astray. As the run progressed I settled into my pace and tried to focus on keeping my strides short and my cadence up. The middle of the run was basically a long steady hill on tarmac which made the heat more intense. Fortunately, at the water stops they were spraying us with water which gave some brief relief from the oppressive heat.
The last section of the run was a mile long downhill section. Potentially, this was the most dangerous part of the whole event for me so I cut my stride length and focussed on keeping my speed consistent. It worked and I got to the bottom without any drama, and entered the finishing cute to hear my name over the PA. After crossing the finishing line I had a medal thrust upon me, a wet towel slapped over my head, and my timing chip removed all in a matter of seconds. Then I was spat out into the post-run area with a drink in hand where I waited for Graeme to finish. I look at my watch and registered that I had finished in 2:50 - I had set myself a goal of sub-3 hours so I was pleased with this. After a quick calculation, I realised that I had done the run in 8 minute miles rather than the 9 - 9.5 minute miles that I had planned - my leg felt good.
Graeme finished about 30 minutes later as his wave had started after mine. He put in an impressive 3:08. Hopefully, this will encourage him to do another event later this year.