2009 Avia Wildflower

Geez, I haven't upgraded this blog in a long, long time.  Originally this blog was meant to show friends around the world my recent bike adventures or just adventures for that matter, but mostly about biking.  

I think really the blog only gets updated the more I ride, which I haven't been doing so much unfortunately.  Fortunately, I have been riding my bike and I rode it like crazy in a one day span and had such a blast doing it.  

So let's get started ... 

A couple of months ago, my good friend Brad (who I was stationed in Korea with) got me to register for the 2009 Avia Wild Flower Long Course.  For th

ose who don't know what the long course entails, it's basically half an Ironman distance or half the distance I did during Ironman Korea (which by the way, I was in way better shape for).  

So I registered some time ago and nearly forgot about it.  Work came around, school started and my training truly went off track.  I had some sporadic moments in some hills, some miles on the rollers (which involved a broken coffee table) and some really refreshing hill/trail runs and finally a good 64 mile bike ride to the Oregon border which include

d a 4 dog chase, a broken spoke and a chewed up derailleur cable.  Idaho has not been too kind to me on the bike or the swim, but has been really good for running which I ended up doing the most right before the race.  

So the weekend finally came around and with me already dreading racing that weekend without any kind of solid training, I was trying to get into the mindset of just having fun and finishing.  Kind of like Ironman Korea.  

Thursday morning came around had to pick up the rental.  I didn't want to drive the X since i'm driving it x-country in a couple of weeks.  What was cool with the rental was for 10 bucks more I upgraded to the new Hummer H3 which is a very cool ride.  Good thing I didn't take the Sebring as planned since there would have been no way we could have packed it with bikes.  

Okay, got the car and I got my gear inside.  Let's hit the road.  

I thought I was ready until I tried to hook up the iPod.  No go since the H3 didn't even have a AUX input jack.  You would think all cars in this day and age would have some sort of way to plug in your iPod, right? 

Fine, I'll listen to the radio.  Wrong again!  Turns out the only station between Boise and Reno is a country Christian station or the Bible reading station.  I didn't quite reach the New Testament when I got into Reno.  

So blah blah blah .. let's just fast forward to the race since driving through Sacramento was bad enough.  Death to all California drivers.  Four hour jaunt from Brad's moms house to beautiful Monterey County where Lake San Antonio awaited.  Brad said we were going to be hanging out with a girl named Jocelyn who he met during Ironman China.  Pretty cool already hanging out with international pros.  Turns out when we get there, they had already picked out some primo locations on the camp ground right next to the bathroom.  Sweet! 

Jocelyn bought her friend Amy who was pretty much a awesome triathlete in her own right and also she's got a freaking sweet Felt which got some love among a Cervelo camp.  

After setting up camp, Brad and I walked through the festival area to try and score some free schwag (which we did, but not as cool if you're a pro .. more like free powerbar gummy bears, cereal, and stickers!), but we did see the amazing new Shimano DI2 on display .. 

After some walking around we hung around camp and relaxed a bit.  Well I turned it in early since I was racing the Long Course on Saturday and the rest of the camp was racing the Olympic.  

The next morning, I got up early to the smooth sounds of a garbage truck collecting the dumpster next to our camp.  It ended up waking up Brad so we got the oatmeal cooking and packed up my gear and I headed off to the transition site.  

 

I racked my stuff and got started on squeezing myself into my wetsuit.  Turns out I gained about 20 lbs. since Ironman Korea and my wetsuit was a little bit smaller than I remembered.  Eventually, I got into it and walked down to the shoreline since my wave started at 0815, which was good since I'm a horrible swimmer (I hope people now believe me with this swim time and my backstroke sessions at Bomun Lake) and that gave me about 3 hours to finish off a 1.2 mile swim since the last wave started at 0930 and was limited to an hour after the last wave.  

I got into the water and immediately forgot how to swim.  Hahah!  I thought of Jeff Swindle and my backstroke sessions and I think I started doing so in the first 200m.  

Okay, I stopped to adjust my "dorky seal mask" (Thanks Jocelyn!) and I kept thinking of what the hell I got myself into.  Then I realized how long it took to drive here and how much money I spent for registration and then eventually got into my groove albeit slow and steady. 

Cool.  I got into the rhythm and and finally made it out of the water!! I wasn't last and Brad even said there was another guy in my wave doing the backstroke.  Nice.  

So here again is my summary of my swim since pictures do tell a thousand words.  

It wasn't as bad as I thought since usually I'm dizzy after a long swim and going up that steep ramp to the T1 wasn't a battle.  I was feeling kind of good actually.  I was in and out of transition in about three minutes and I started rolling through to the first major hill called Beach Hill about a mile after T1.  

As you can see me sporting the OG Beer Belly Bike Club jersey all the way in California and at Wildflower of all places.   Okay, back to Beach Hill.  Here's a funny story.  Everyone on that stretch I was on at that time got passed by some guy on a Bianchi Pista.  A FREAKING FIXED GEAR!!!  That guy is a beast if I ever saw one.  

I was feeling good in the first 40 miles of that ride.  It had some beautiful scenery and the wind was slightly blowing, but not so much that I couldn't handle.  Still, for someone who didn't get some solid training during the winter, it was pretty decent.  

It was around mile 45 that I realized someone lied to me.  Something called Heart Rate Hill combined with Nasty Grade.  These were some extremely nasty hills and for those who've known me from Korea is how much I HATE hills.  These hills were just a nightmare for me.  For the first time in my life I cramped my legs - bad.  No bonking.  I've yet to experience that, but major cramping in my quads from pushing a combination of the wrong gearing (39-25) and steep grade percentage.  I actually stopped  four times to stretch some muscles out, except it was more of standing there trying to figure out which side of my legs to stretch first since both were as solid as a rock.   

With that being said, the bike leg destroyed my legs.  I walked into T2 already knowing this.  

The run leg was misery business for me since it involved a 70% trail run mostly uphill.  I managed to run only a couple of yards before my quads locked forcing me to walk/limp most of the way.  Luckily I met a lady named Martha (who was having her own hamstring problems) and kept me entertained with her amusing anecdotes and sarcasm for the last remaining six miles.  After a long day of torturing myself, I had a relaxing night at camp trying to keep my noggin' warm.  

As for the rest of the players from Camp Wongstar and The Beer Belly Bike Club Reunion Special, they pretty much kicked ass.   Jocelyn took AG champ, Amy and Brad took 3rd and 4th in their AG respectively. 

Here's the rest of the pictures 

Overall, I had a blast for my first time in California.  Good new friends, good race and event.   I think this race boosted me back to where I should be at because I ran 10.5 miles yesterday and I felt pretty good afterwards.  The Idaho Famous Potatoes Marathon is coming up in a week and whatever TT falls in between that and my final race here in Boise - Ironman Boise 70.3!!