Wildflower - the Journey Begins

What a weekend, certainly one I will never forget.  I'm back in Portland now, a few days after participating in the 30th anniversary of the Wildflower Long Course Triathlon.  And what a memorable experience it was.  Hopefully these two blog posts will recount in stunning splendor all of the highlights from that 86-hour, 1900-mile trip.  Yes, you read that right.  You lucky dogs will get not one but TWO blog posts from this past weekend, because I feel the journey to the starting line was every bit as entertaining as the race to the finish line.  So here is part I – everything that happened prior to the gun actually going off.  Look for the race report in another day or two.

Now I’m not going to beat around the bush.  I’ll hit you with some truth right up front here.  I may even go as far as to label this the theme for the weekend:

THIS WAS A ROOKIE PRO DEBUT IN EVERY SENSE IMAGINABLE.

At least a dozen times before I even arrived at the race course – and probably about 47 times on race day – I was made painfully aware that I am still quite new to all this.  Because virtually nothing went to plan.  All I could do was try to keep a positive, objective, and amused attitude towards everything, a sort of laissez-faire approach for all you economic types in the audience.

Where to even begin?  When I last posted, I shared one of my biggest pre-race concerns: that I had never ridden on my new race wheels before, or any race wheels for that matter.  Turns out those concerns were well-founded.  When I went to try them out on Wednesday night – my last night in town before heading south – I realized I was missing a pretty critical piece (the casette body for you inquiring minds).  A frantic rush to a local bike shop revealed that I had no ability to fix the situation, and that the part I needed was in the hands of the infamous Sean Moran, unofficial bike mechanic to Monte Still (the wheels’ previous owner) and good friend of mine.  Sean lives in Salt Lake City.  It didn’t look good.

So I got Sean on the horn and said “Sean, you’ve really put me in it! (he had)  We got a problem! (I did, he would have been just fine)”  Now I’m not usually one to pass the buck.  In fact, I usually seek the buck out.  I love the buck.  But in this case, it was all Sean’s fault, and you can tell him I said that (just kidding Sean, well sort of, but not really).  Anyway, Sean agreed to overnight the part I needed to a bike shop in Paso Robles, CA (which is lovely), not exactly on the way to – but at least in the vicinity of – the race course at Lake San Antonio.  And I wished on a little fairy that it would get there on time, I would swing through and pick it up on Friday without any huge delays, install it on the fly with no problems, throw it on my bike on race morning and literally ride it out of transition during the race having never even put my weight on it, let alone test ridden it.  Perfect, elegant, simple.  Problem solved.

I brought my training wheels just in case.

So everything is great.  Thursday morning, cooked a big breakfast, my lovely girlfriend Maura and I loaded up the car (she agreed to accompany me on this little trip, knowing full well it would mean about 30 hours of car time with just me, basically making her a saint in my book), we bought a couple lattes and off we went.  It rained until we left the state of Oregon, at which point it cleared up promptly and without hesitation.  Drove by Mt. Shasta (marvelous), took a little detour to check out the Golden Gate Bridge (awesome), got turned around in west San Francisco, and eventually made it to my buddy’s pad in Sunnyvale, where we cooked a mean meal and crashed for the night.

awesome

marvelous

Friday morning, day before raceday, and I had a precise timeline, outlined down to the minute.  It all depended on a prompt 9:00 am departure.  We were back in the car at 9:03 (pretty damn good), I put the key in the ignition, turned her over… and Claire decided she wanted to take the day off.  Not two weeks after I had given her her 15 minutes of fame on my blog, and my race-ready vehicle shat the bed.  And not in the good way.

When Claire didn’t fire up, I took a few deep breaths and assumed the worst.  Tow her to a mechanic, diagnose the problem, order the parts, wait for the labor, which I assumed would mean Monday at the earliest.  Rent a car?  Too expensive.  I accepted that we would be stuck in Sunnyvale for the weekend.  We’d make the most of it.  Maura and I would hang out at Tom’s place, maybe catch a shuttle into Frisco on Saturday and Sunday, see the city, hang out.  Then we’d drive home when Claire felt like it.  Wildflower just wasn’t going to happen.  Nothing short of an act of God would get me to the race course.  I find that once you embrace the worst you can begin to act rationally, and when anything goes your way afterwards you are hugely grateful, even amused.

Not where you want to be on your way to a race.

Which is how I felt when we were back on the road later that day.  That act of God actually transpired, in the form of Brenton from AAA, Jon from Dayton Auto, a couple of smart phones and a nice coffee break.  Fortunately, I’m a AAA premier member (thanks Mom!)  They had their man Brenton on the scene in less than an hour, who was pretty much a champion.  He climbed down from the tow-truck with his big pony tail and made me an instant fan when he confessed that he owned the “red-headed step child” (his words) to the Chrysler Town & Country: the Dodge Grand Caravan.  I’ve long maintained this to be true, nice to have my conviction affirmed by an expert.  It took him about 1 minute to declare, “Well you’re not getting shit from your fuel pump!” (again, his words)  That, of course, had been my diagnosis as well.  So he climbed under Claire’s underbelly, smacked the fuel tank with a big hammer-crowbar-beating stick and we got her started up.  Incidentally, that’s a pretty great trick for future reference.  Drove straight to a mechanic we’d called who had the part in stock and said he could have us back on the road in a couple hours.  So we walked to Starbucks, which Maura appropriately described as a place where white people go to waste time.  A few hours later we were cruising south!

Wasting time in Sunnyvale.  I'm a bit disgruntled.  But could have been worse.
At least we had that great banana.

Made it to the bike shop in Paso Robles (which is lovely), picked up the piece to my wheel, drove to the race course, wheeled into our reserved camping space (compliments of Tri-California, more on them later), and rushed down the hill to dinner (again, compliments of Tri-Cal).  We even had time to scout the “nasty grade” (infamous 900 foot climb on the bike course) on the way in.  It didn’t look fun.

After dinner we set up camp and I managed to get my wheel put together.  I also did my best to shave my legs with a dry razor and a small pan of water.  Had been hoping to get that done earlier in the afternoon, preferably in the shower, but what can you do?  Sometimes cars break down.  Full confession: I didn’t even finish the job.  Since my legs were so dry, the razor was basically ruined by the time I finished my shins and thighs.  Pretty sure I was the only elite racing with hairy knees.  I went to bed feeling not quite ready but so grateful to be where I was, considering earlier that morning I had accepted spending the weekend in a suburb of the bay area.

Down and dirty.

The actual morning of the race went pretty well, although waking up at 5:15 am is never easy.  Managed to get some food down, set up all of my race nutrition, loaded up our bags and Maura and I set off down the hill by 6:30.  I should have eaten more but a stinking blue bird made off with the piece of bread I had prepared with peanut butter and a banana for the walk down.  The risks of camping I guess.  Come prepared (at this point I’m ready to admit I wasn’t the most prepared).  Down the hill, set up all my gear in transition, glad-handed some other pros (very fun for me, my first time in that elite crowd!), couple trips to the port-o-john, suited up and was in the water by 7:50.  A few warm up strokes, we all lined up, I asked the guy next to me where exactly the freaking swim course even went (he must have thought I was playing mind games with him, I wasn’t, I actually didn’t know).  10 seconds to go until 8:00, the crowd counted down, so awesome, I was pumped, the gun went off and I dove in!  My first pro race!  Here we go!

Last minute preparations. I really wore the hell out of that rose-colored garment.
Thanks again Lauren!

Did I mention this was a rookie pro debut in every sense imaginable?

Hope I didn’t bore you all with extraneous details of the trip.  Just wanted to illustrate that the lifestyle of a rookie pro isn’t as glamorous as you probably all imagined.  No first class flights and luggage handlers for this guy.  Unless you count my girlfriend.  She could probably be a Sherpa in another life.  Actual race report is in the works!  It'll be much better than this.

Smiling blindly like an idiot who has never raced this course before.
No idea what's about to happen.
What a fool.