Wildflower 2014

We’re the heirs to the glimmering world

I think it’s taken me so long to write about Wildflower 2014 because Wildflower is never just a race. It should be everything I hate: I don’t like crowds, or camping, or drinking when I can’t drink because I have a race the next morning and shut up you stupid kids, isn’t it time for bed? And even in the immediate days and hours before, when I’m checking the forecast to see how damn hot it’s going to be or dreading the drive or remembering I need to find a tent to borrow, I hate it a little. Why can’t I just do a race where I sleep in a bed the night before like a normal human being?

But then I get there, and I’m in some kind of weird magic camp where triathlons are normal and people are exceeding their expectations of themselves and everyone’s smiling, and I feel a sense of community I don’t get many other places. Maybe it’s the beer. Maybe it’s the generous coating of dust that settles on everything. Maybe it’s the shared knowledge that you are about to do something totally dumb with a few thousand strangers who also thought sleeping on the ground and then exercising strenuously for a few hours and then hauling several pounds of gear up a hill before sleeping on the ground again would be a capital way to spend a weekend.

Whatever it is, I keep going back.

We were here, we were here

Last year at the finish line I fell hard for Wildflower. This year, I resolved to go back and do it “right” — meaning, arrive early (vs. slipping in just before the close of packet pick-up on Saturday, my usual M.O.), race on Saturday, and cheer my brains out on Sunday. I had no interest in tackling the long course myself, but if I was going to bike 160 miles I might as well try to bike 56. A relay team formed, fell apart, formed again; enthusiasms rose and fell along with the water levels in the lake (well, actually, the water levels just fell); and finally, come late April, I knew I was showing up at Lake San Antonio on the first Friday in May as the biker on a relay team better known as There Better Be a Swim.

Friday was a whirlwind of work, drive, drive, drive, stop in King City to blow it out big at the Dollar General for cheering supplies, drive, drive, stop. Was I excited to race on Saturday? Hard to say. Was I excited to wait near the bottom of Lynch Hill with our relay swimmer to jump in with our runner so we could cross the finish line wearing $1 foam crocodile hats we bought for some reason? Yep. Was I excited to get out the bubble stuff and the clapping hands and the kazoos and the fancy duct-tape-and-poster-board signs and put together the best cheer station ever on Sunday? YOU BET.

Perhaps my priorities were misplaced.

We’re the heirs to the glimmering world

It became a joke: How many times did I cry during Wildflower weekend? “All of them,” I would say. “All of the times.”

But the first time was a few miles into the bike course, after the sweat-fest of Beach Drive, after the turn out of the park. There was this big farm — ranch? — parcel of land of some sort, anyway. And there was a long driveway leading from the farmhouse to the main road, and at the end of that driveway sat an older couple in camp chairs, ringing their cowbells.

Snuffling behind my sunglasses. Singing The National in my head. Legitimately moved by all the little things. That’s my Wildflower.

For the first 30-35 miles, I honestly had the best bike ride of my life. I wish I had data from when I rode the Olympic course in 2012 to compare, but I don’t need to see numbers to feel my progress. I was skipping up the hills and sliding down, leapfrogging with a sweet Team in Training rider, waiting for a couple of friends I’d passed on Beach to catch back up to me on the straightaways. (50+ men, all of them, always: my true racing age group.)

It was hot, but I was handling it, dousing myself with a full water bottle at every aid station. Each time I’d start to flag, it seemed there were volunteers right there to revive me with a fresh bottle of cold water. It absolutely helped that I was just doing the relay, and a few times, I felt like a jerk: Yeah, I’m riding hard and passing people, but I’m also just doing this; I didn’t already swim and run and I’m not about to run again. This is my whole race. I better push it.

My team had asked me my predicted time, so they could be back in transition to meet me. I rode 3:55 with plenty of untimed stops on a cooler day at our training weekend, so I thought around four hours would be right. But when my runner came in for the handoff on race morning and confirmed, “four hours?” I for some reason said “3:30.” That would be a crazy time for me. That would only be five minutes slower than Vineman on a course with 1200+ more feet of climbing. It would make no sense. But for the first 30 miles of the bike course, I thought I might pull it off.

Hey love, we’ll get away with it
We’ll run like we’re awesome

I didn’t make that particular crazy goal, and it shouldn’t have been a surprise, because the first 40 miles of that course is an easy flatland jaunt compared to the final 16.

The issue wasn’t really Nasty Grade. I was prepared to be slow on Nasty Grade, and I was, basically losing in five miles all the time I’d spent banking in the previous 40. What really got me were the five miles immediately after, heading back toward the park. It’s yet another place where I think the Wildflower conventional wisdom hides the real issue. It’s miserable climbing up a 900-foot hill for two miles? No shit. Everybody knows that. Nobody talks about the fact that after you come down the screaming descent, you spend the next several miles losing all that momentum you worked so hard to gain by climbing a substantial portion of the way back up.

(Other examples where Wildflower’s conventional wisdom lets me down: It’s not the heat, it’s the dust; it’s not the race, it’s the climb up the dirt hill with all your gear after.)

I should have known how awful that part would feel; I’d ridden the course before. What I didn’t appreciate is that on that course preview day, I was having a terrible ride — period. It was windy; I’d wanted to quit a bunch of times. At some point, though, I’d managed to pick up a few friends riding similar paces, and we’d groaned and chatted our way through the final 10 miles. It felt bad, but so had everything, that day.

On race day, things had felt great, so I was unprepared for the final push to feel like such a slog. I went from smile-crying and thanking every volunteer to groaning and trying not to make eye contact. But once we were in the park, the hills to the finish didn’t seem as bad as I remembered, and I whipped down Lynch and into transition so fast I could hardly believe it was over.

Lying in the grass, post-bike, post-watermelon slushie drink

And then we failed to catch our runner with the crocodile hats, but that’s fine. We were here, we were here. We finished 13/26 relay teams in our division, in a cluster of teams that all finished between 6:30 and 7:00, and all three of us beat our individual time goals. I can’t be disappointed with a 3:48 on that course, especially considering that was a faster average pace than I biked the Olympic in 2012.

Serve me the sky with a big slice of lemon

As for the rest of the weekend: After getting my bike out of transition, I went to a Picky Bars-hosted happy hour and awkwardly chatted with four-time champ Jesse Thomas about which Picky flavors we ate on the bike. (Mine is Smooth Caffeinator, his is Need for Seed. If you were wondering.) (He was, for the record, incredibly nice. He asked how my race was, and I thought of the best possible answer only later, which was “Great! Almost twice as long as yours and we had three people doing it!”) There were beers. I hiked back to the campground, where there were more beers. At some point I discovered an Oreo in my jersey pocket and couldn’t remember where it came from. I found many, many uses for dollar store craft supplies.

And then Sunday, otherwise known as CryFest 2K14. We cheered for a couple of hours at the top of Lynch, making sure we saw all the TAG athletes go out on the bike course. Because of the huge gap between wave start times (about 1.5 hours between our first athlete and our last), we actually saw everyone go out on the bike AND most of the guys come in on the bike AND some of the guys head down to finish the run. After our first three women biked back down Lynch, we repositioned at the finish, where we then stood for the next couple of hours clapping these clapping hands as though they would actually will people across the line.

Best dollar I’ve ever spent

I’m sure the clapping hands were annoying to everyone around me, but I had nervous energy to burn and a lot of people to cheer in. I also had dollar store maracas, which I offered to anyone who started to whine about the clapping. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, right?

Everything after that isn’t really my story to tell, but almost everyone from our group finished strong and happy. There were high-fives, tears that weren’t mine, lots of hugs, so much cheering. Anyone who tells me triathlon is an individual sport has never been at that finish line.

I don’t know if I’ll go back next year. I said one more Wildflower, said I had to do it right to know if I was done. But doing it right just made it all that much harder to quit.

Italicized bits throughout are from The National’s “The Geese of Beverly Road,” which I had stuck in my head for all of Wildflower weekend, and which prompted more than one person to suggest that possibly my version of “pump-up music” was different from theirs.

Race Recap: Santa Cruz Triathlon

tl;dr: met most of my goals, had the bike of my life, and PR’d by 11+ minutes.

Pre-race

Sara and I stayed with our husbands in a cottage a few minutes from the start. We drove down mid-day on Saturday, picked up our packets, and laughed like crazy at dinner with teammates (during which Michael Imperioli was sitting behind us, but none of us noticed — our waiter had to tell us later). Pete and I went for a beer after that — why stop now? — and I was asleep by 11 and out until just before 6 a.m. My pre-race sleeping game is pretty spot-on.

Sara’s husband drove us to the start, and I rudely passed up transition spots next to some teammates for a spot near the bike in/bike out, figuring that even though it might be a longer run in from the swim and out on the run, it would mean the least running in bike shoes. Blah blah porta potty, blah blah transition set-up, blah blah running out of time to put my wetsuit on so carrying it down to the beach. We missed the “mandatory” pre-race meeting but had plenty of time to warm up, get in the ocean (not much colder than Aquatic Park), and take some pictures before they called our wave.

Swim – 32:53

In all my excitement about having something to sight on my breathing (right) side, I’d failed to learn that the swim course doesn’t go straight along the pier. Instead, it’s a diagonal cut across the ocean from a spot a couple of hundred(?) yards down the beach, then around the back and straight to the beach along the other side.

Based on earlier waves, the advice I heard was “start right, stay right.” I lined up on the right, and I went into the water on the right, but by the time the crowd had sorted itself out, I was somehow on the left. That gave me a decent view of the furthest buoy, though, so I kept shooting for that. Could I have cut it closer? Certainly, since my Garmin swim distance was 1.08 miles (…again).

The return leg was a mental struggle — and not one I was anticipating. After all, I’d have the pier on my breathing side and the beach in front of me; how could I go wrong? By swimming totally solo, for one thing. By worrying that I was drifting left, for another. I thought I must be spinning around and swimming in the wrong direction. An intermediate sighting buoy or a kayaker on the left or anything would have helped, because everything looked the same and I felt like I was bobbing randomly in the open ocean. (No sea lions, though I could hear them and I’m told others felt them!)

Anyway, I was sure I’d been in the water for way more than 40 minutes, so when I looked down to see a time starting with 32, I was stunned. That’s my best Olympic swim of the season, though it probably felt the worst. I think the lack of markers and the disorientation messed with my sense of effort and distance. If I could swim that course again now that I know what it looks like, I think I could do it better, but I can’t really complain about a season best.

T1 – 6:24

I was dreading T1. It’s a .4-mile run up the beach, across train tracks, and down a long path, and I have wimpy, sensitive feet. I was hoping the swim would numb them, but it didn’t quite. I did manage to run the whole way without needing to walk or puke, though, so that was a win. Honestly, I’ve had T1s slower than this in a race where I didn’t have to run .4 miles.

The previous race I’d spectated on this site had bike mount/dismount about halfway up the small hill out of transition, but this race moved it to the top of the hill — a relief, because I saw some sketchy mounts/dismounts at the other race. Yeah, it took me longer, but I didn’t fall over.

Bike – 1:23:49

My main objective for the first part of the bike was to catch Sara, who’d left transition a minute or two ahead of me. At the random out-and-back in the early miles, I calculated that she was about three minutes ahead, and when we hit Highway 1, I started pushing.

This bike course was perfect for me. It’s not flat after all; it’s a roller coaster of several (smallish, 50ish-foot) hills. I must have finally figured out how to use momentum, because I’d see a hill looming in front of me and by the time my brain could go “what the…” I’d be halfway up it. I rode the whole time in my big ring and even pedaled most of the downhills, because the road was straight and reasonably well-paved and because I figured out that cruising at 23 mph is amazing.

I was passed a bunch in the first few miles, then settled into a leapfrogging relationship with a guy and a girl for the next stretch. I’d pass on the uphills; they’d pass back on the downhills. I lost the girl after the second round, but it took me four or five times to solidly ditch the guy. Every time I went around, I’d say something — like “on your left, see you on the downhill” or “on your left, hi again” — and he did not appear to be into it, so the last time I said “on your left, I’m really sorry” and he finally laughed.

I found Sara just before Davenport, but when we hit the last hill into the turnaround, I was worried I wouldn’t be able to hold that pass. My legs felt dead pushing up the incline and through the aid station, maybe just because everyone’s pace dropped a lot while we squeezed through? It was pretty narrow, and I was happy to get back on the road upright.

I was bracing for a headwind on the way back, but it seemed fairly calm. I was feeling pretty good about coming in sub-1:30 but really wanted to crack 17 mph while I was at it, so I kept pushing through the rest of Highway 1, then stretched my legs out a little as we wound through town. My Garmin read the course a little short, so I thought we still had half a mile to go when I suddenly saw the “prepare to slow down” sign. I braked harder than I meant to but dismounted cleanly (no thanks to the guy who ended up with his bike horizontal across the right-hand side of the line) and walked the hill into transition because I was sure I was falling on my ass otherwise.

T2 – 2:09

Shoes off, shoes on. I tried a new trick of leaving my water bottle and race belt inside my hat so I could just take the whole bundle out onto the run course, and I liked it. I saw my total time as I was leaving transition, and I knew that I’d need a big 10K PR to break 3 hours, and I found that oddly relaxing. Maybe that was the wrong reaction — I’ve been thinking a lot about that — but in the moment, I took it as a sign to have the strongest run I could, versus chasing an arbitrary time and ending up disappointed.

Run – 57:14

You know what’s hard? Running after biking at 17+ mph. Oh, you knew that? I did not. My brick workouts have been a strength of my training this year — but running after biking the fastest I’ve biked in my life was new, and it hurt. I almost walked up the little hill (speed bump?) coming out of transition, saw a pace in the 11s, got sad, yet somehow still hit the first mile marker in 9:04. I had the great idea to lap my watch at the marker, forgetting that lapping in multisport mode ends the workout, so I got my little “you just finished a triathlon!” beepy song with 5.2 miles to go.

The run is flat but unshaded, and I wilt in those conditions, so I never felt good — though if a 57-ish 10K is my new “not feeling good” pace, well, OK. I walked all three aid stations for sips of Gatorade and water, and I topped off my handheld bottle twice. I saw almost everyone I knew on the course at some point during the run, and it was an amazing distraction to look for them. I knew Sara would run me down at some point, and I was pleased to make it a couple of miles before she came flying by. I saw her again at the turnaround, followed quickly by three training partners in a row coming the other way, and then Lauren, whom I ran over to hug. Coming off the path, I saw a few teammates with their medals on, cheering that the finish line was right around the corner, and — much like the bike finish — I didn’t believe them, but then I saw the arch and Pete and that was it. Final time: 3:02:29.

Minutae

• I said when I finished that I’d be mad about that 2:29 later, and it’s been three days, and I’m still not mad. Did I leave 2:30 somewhere? Not all in one place. Maybe I could have picked up a minute on the bike and a minute on the run, but I’m not sure. Would this have been sub-3 in a race without such a long run to T1? Maybe, but that also wouldn’t have been this race. Would I have run 2 minutes faster if I hadn’t stopped at the aid stations? I actually doubt it; I think those breaks enabled me to keep the pace I was running.
• That said, now I really want that sub-3.
• My final PR was by almost exactly the amount of my bike PR, and that’s cool, but I can’t ride that gravy train forever. My bike had the most room to improve going into this year, and I’ve improved it. Do I think I can still get faster? Sure, but the gap is getting smaller, and I’m not sure I’ll ever routinely ride faster than 1:20. I’ve got to drop time from the swim and run now too, which is scary, because I think I’m a lot closer to my speed ceiling in those sports. Maybe not. We’ll see.
• I ended up 16th/28 AG and one of four women from my tri club who occupied the 13-16th spots, all within six minutes of each other.
• Nutrition nonsense: toasted roll with almond butter when we got into transition, about half of an english muffin with the rest of the almond butter about 45 minutes later, and some water with Nuun throughout the morning; 3/4 of a bottle of Roctane and three shot bloks on the bike plus a salt tab; and lots of water and two more shot bloks running. I could have used some plain water on the bike and wished I’d taken another salt tab once it was apparent how warm and sunny it was, but this general plan works for me.
• New favorite finish line food: grapes.
• One of the super-fast ladies in my age group? Sonja Wieck, whom I recognized on the sidelines as I was walking to meet my friends. I did that awkward “I know you…from…the internet!” thing and we did some chatting and some cheering. Only later did I find out she won the women’s race.

Wildflower 2013

I think I understand the Wildflower magic now.

Last year, I loved the race. I fell head-over-heels for triathlons, and I had one of the most magical, expectation-blowing races I’ve ever had in any corner of the sport. But I didn’t feel any particular pressing need to go back. I said several times that the one thing I knew I wouldn’t do this year was Wildflower. There are a lot of races out there; why keep going to one that’s so hard and hot and logistically complex?

This year, I spent more time on the other side of Wildflower — as a spectator and cheerleader, a jumping-around-er and a “here-you-can-have-my-windbreaker”-er — than I did racing, and from that side, I get it. Standing by the finish chute for an hour watching people sprint to the end and limp to the end and grab their children by the hand and jog the whole family to the end, I kept yelling to anyone who would listen, This is the most fun I’ve ever had!

And it was … possibly because I wasn’t really racing.

Team Brew Masters by jkoshi on Flickr

***

Racing isn’t really what this Wildflower was about for me, but let’s get it out of the way anyway. I was swimming the first leg of the Olympic distance relay, with Pete biking and our friend Jess tackling the run. We camped with the Golden Gate Tri Club, where once again I had no problems sleeping through most of the night, save for an incessant need to pee that I managed to put off actually doing until it was light out. We got ourselves out of the tents around 7, and had “first breakfast”: bread and peanut butter for me, plus some luxurious campground coffee made by Jess and her husband. I hardly ever drink coffee before morning workouts, but with nearly four hours to kill before my start, I figured it couldn’t hurt.

It was cold, gray, and windy — windy enough that leaves were pelting the tents at the campground, windy enough to send up big dust clouds — and, more than anything, confusing. Wildflower is hot and sunny! Yesterday was 90 degrees! Pros couldn’t wear wetsuits! What is going on? I actually wanted to get my wetsuit on sooner just to stay warm.

Just as last year, I remember thinking I’d be so bored waiting for hours in transition — and, just as last year, the time flew by in a steady rotation of saying hi to people, braiding hair, and cycling through the porta potty line. A bunch of TAGers were worried they would be cold on the bike, so I doled out all the warm clothes I had in my bag. Around 10, I wriggled into my wetsuit and headed down for the women’s wave starts.

From the boat ramp, it was clear that the wind was chopping up the lake. I saw a lot of people drift way to the left, and the kayakers had the course boxed in pretty tightly. I remember saying to my coach, “This is going to be really slow, right?” and him nodding hard.

During the warm-up, the water felt amazing. I do love that lake, even when it’s about to beat me up. Since the relay start was co-ed, I wasn’t sure where to put myself and ended up about 2/3 of the way back and as far to the right as was physically possible. I probably should have started further up, as it turns out, but no harm done that the lake wouldn’t have done anyway.

The first stretch, coming out past the boat ramp, was fairly unremarkable — a little contact, a little kicking — but as soon as we hit clearer water, the waves picked up. I breathe to the right, so it constantly felt like my left cheek was being slapped, and I was having to pull fast and hard just to get my head up far enough for clear air to breathe. I’d been legitimately afraid of being the last person out of the water, but it quickly became apparent that a lot of people were having very rough days. I passed a few that were just floating and looking worried, and I tried to say “you’re good!” but couldn’t manage it without a mouthful of water, so I kept plugging along.

Sighting was … not an option, really, but the clockwise course is a pretty easy one for me to stay on, so I just kept bobbing and diving through the waves, trying not to get seasick. (I heard later that a bunch of people puked in the water, and I don’t even want to think of what I might have swallowed.) I was, honestly, incredibly grateful for all of my terrible, tide-battling swims this spring. I knew I could keep making forward progress, and I knew I’d get to the buoy eventually, if I just kept bobbing and ducking, bobbing and ducking.

The short stretch between the two far buoys was hilarious — there was really no way I was staying on course, so I just went where the water took me —  but after that, we picked up the wind going the other way and had a somewhat easier ride back to shore. As I approached, I could see a 3 at the end of the clock and had no idea if that meant 33 or 23 or 43 (I was wearing a watch but hadn’t bothered with the logistics of looking at it). It turned out to be 33, and with the short, steep run to the top of the boat ramp — a .1-mile journey that I swear must have spiked my heart rate into the 200s and left me with a stomach cramp — my final time was 34:03.

A couple of remarkable things: that was 1:43 slower than my Wildflower swim last year, but it placed me substantially higher (804th overall this year, 1325th last year). It was faster than my Napa swim, which was in much easier water. And it’s maybe the first open water swim race where I felt not even a second of panic, even though by all rights I should have. I had a moment early on where I thought, “well, this is gonna be reeeeeeeal shitty,” and I think acknowledging that let me let go.

***

After that, the hard part of my day was over. I stood with my coach for a while to cheer the last few TAGers in out of that roiling lake, and I asked him if he thought after that I could handle the ocean swim I’ll be doing for Santa Cruz (he laughed and told me that after that, I should sign up for an Alcatraz crossing). I kept my watch going so we’d have a vague sense of when Pete should be back, and he biked an impressive 1:36 in some rough winds. Jess took off (to kill the run with a 10K PR in the 47s, netting us 11th of 40-something relays in our division) and I went out to the finish line with my camera to try and get pictures of the TAGers finishing.

And that’s when I really fell hard for Wildflower.

***

One of the other TAG captains told me later that if this year’s Wildflower had been her first triathlon, she probably would have never done another. Kristina blogged something similar. And I can’t say I disagree. I know a lot of people really struggled. Plenty of time goals came and went — including mine — and that can be tough to swallow after all that training. A few folks in my group didn’t make various time cutoffs and were pulled off the course, and while they’ve taken it in stride (and are already plotting next races), it couldn’t have felt good on the day.

I think that’s part of what made what I saw at the finish line hit so hard. This wasn’t a race you can just show up and do. You have to fight for Wildflower, and shockingly often, Wildflower wins.

But sometimes, you win.

Sometimes you get to tear down that chute and hear the announcer say your name and smile.

Sometimes you high-five every single person you see.

Sometimes you don’t want to ever take that medal off.

Sometimes you can’t believe the sweet relief of being done.

I can’t really even talk about some of the things I saw in the finish chute without tearing up. Two of my teammates running in side-by-side, stride-for-stride, smiling big. Another one with an injury that had kept her from running for several weeks, nearly getting passed in the finish chute and putting on her “oh hell no” face and sprinting it in ahead of her pursuer. My friend’s relay teammates jumping into the chute, helmeted and capped and goggled, so they could cross the line together.

I love this sport. I love this group.

And I love this stupid race, even though it so rarely loves anyone back.

When The Fire Comes Back

On December 8, sometime around 9 a.m., I crossed the Walnut Creek Half Marathon finish line boasting a new PR and looking like a total goober.

December 8, sometime around 9 a.m., was — until last week — also the last time I tried to run hard.

OK: I’ve done one half-assed track workout, and I’ve thrown in some strides every so often just to remember that I have another gear. But my January running reset required taking all the pressure off, and that meant ignoring speed and just getting outside.

Training with TAG, though, means getting back on the track. I missed our first session while on the East Coast for work, so when I rejoined the group last week, I was hopping right into our benchmark workout: the two-mile time trial.

I could not tell you my exact 5K PR without looking it up, but I can produce my results from last year’s two-mile time trial in a heartbeat — the total and the mile splits. Why? Because I was so frustrated with how I ran it. I’d run my 5K PR less than two weeks before, then showed up on the track and ran 8:36 and 8:36 — both slower than any mile I ran during that 5K. I remember fuming at 17:12, and fuming at how ridiculous it was to be fuming at 17:12, which I would have considered a decent time had I not run — wait, looking it up — a semi-hilly 26:04 5K 10 days earlier.

I was pretty new to running on the track then — especially for any substantial distance — and I was definitely new to running without headphones, and I know both of those things got to me psychologically. This year, I’m slightly more comfortable hearing my breathing — and I know a bit better how hard I can run and still be upright at the end. With three months away from tough running, I wasn’t sure I could beat that 17:12, but I knew I could run something more representative of my fitness than I had last year.

Since it was my first track workout with the group this year, I didn’t know who ran what pace; I didn’t have a rabbit in mind. But less than 100 meters into the first lap, I found myself one lane over and a couple of steps behind a girl in Nike Tempos running a tough but comfortable pace. As much as I tried to focus my energy on my own running, I couldn’t ignore the fact that we were basically matching strides.

One of our coaches was calling out splits at every lap, and I clocked the first one at 2:00 exactly. Hm. That wasn’t going to work for 7 more laps, so I tried to reel it in just a bit without losing all intensity (which can be a problem for me on the track; somewhere in the third lap I’ll realize I’m thinking about dinner and composing a work email instead of remembering to run hard). The word “controlled” popped into my head, and I focused on that for the next three laps — be controlled. Know that you’re running hard, but also know you could run harder. How’s my breathing? Controlled. How’s my form? Controlled.

First mile in 8:20, and I was still with the girl in the Tempos.

I knew then that I’d beat last year’s time unless I absolutely dogged the second mile, and I relaxed a little — too much, though, because the next lap clocked in at 2:10. I wanted a negative split, and that meant I only had 10 more seconds to play with over the next three laps — as much time as I’d put on in one 400! Time to go harder.

Lap 6. Still controlled but starting to feel it. Uh-oh, is the girl in the Tempos slowing down? Am I losing my rabbit? Time to make a move; I scooted around her on the second curve. Missed the time call at the end of the lap but I knew it was faster; it had to be faster.

Lap 7. Oh, the sweat. It was a cool night, but even in shorts and a tank top I could feel the sweat dripping into my eyes. I imagined steam rising off my head. — or maybe I wasn’t imagining it. Maybe it was happening. That’s OK. Push a little more. Footsteps behind me — oh hey! Tempos! I hear the lap at :35 — could that possibly be right?

Lap 8. Now I’m feeling it. Can I kick? Get around the curve — you hate curves, it’s OK, focus on the trees on the straightaway. Don’t look around. Stay with Tempos. Crap, she’s ahead, she’s away. Way away. It’s OK, just keep this pace. Last curve. Last half of the last curve. Stride this out. Tempos just finished. It’s OK. You got it. All the way to the coaches — just reach for it.

Second mile: 8:17.

Relief.

The girl in the Tempos and I do the mutual-admiration thing — the “I was running fast because of you!” “No, I was running fast because of YOU!” thing, the “Damn, you smoked me at the end —” “— yeah, but I never would have tried a first mile that fast without you!” thing. I love this part of group training, finding people who can push me, people I might also be pushing without knowing it.

The next morning, I hurt — I hurt from running for the first time since I woke up on December 9. My glutes, my quads, my hip flexors. I’m that kind of sore that only comes from trying. That kind that sucks but is also wonderful, because it means I fought, I didn’t give in.

I’ll see you again in a couple of months, 16:37. I’m back now. I’m ready for this. And it feels awesome.

The First Weekend, Redux

I remember this weekend so well. A year ago, week one of Wildflower training with TAG, and I was terrified — of being slow, of panicking on the bike, of being socially awkward and in over my head.

I was back there this past weekend, standing in the Sports Basement parking lot with 40-plus expectant triathletes, going over gear bags and bike turn signals and wishing I’d worn a different shirt. Only this time, I was holding a clipboard.

One of my favorite things about how TAG is structured is the Captain role. Captains are people — not coaches, not necessarily great athletes, just regular people — who have gone through the training before and join the program again in a semi-leadership role, basically to say, “Hey, I was where you were, and I was just as freaked out, and I survived it, and I’m still here and ready for more.” I leaned on the captains hard last year, especially the one who also didn’t know how to clip into her bike when she started TAG. Having people who had actually been there — and recently! — calmed me down after tough workouts and made me believe I could actually do this crazy, ridiculous thing I’d signed myself up to do.

And now I’m one of them.

It was part luck, part scheming, but man, I am so happy to get to be a part of this group in this way. I had a lot of reservations — a lot a lot, I’m not even going to find all the posts in the archives that prove it because there would be too many — last year about group training, and being coached. I got angry at the whole situation a bunch of times, angry at being told what to do in front of other people and at needing to be told what to do in the first place. But then there were all those fabulous weekends toward the end when everything clicked — when I first rode the Wildflower bike course with Neil yelling encouraging things out his truck window, when I laughed to the point of ugly-crying with my training partners during an impromptu round of Win, Lose, or Draw, and when on race day I was constantly spotting members of our little group among the thousands of unfamiliar faces. When I realized the beauty of the program was going through it, all of us starting where we were and ending together.

I hope I can be for someone what the captains were for me last year. I hope I get to write goofy and encouraging emails after big weekend workouts. I hope I can help people figure out which $200 items they really need or how to decipher a swim set. I know I can at least be everyone’s biggest cheerleader, because that’s a role that comes naturally — I’m always going to be the one high-fiving at the run turnaround, I’m always going to be the one who says I know you can ride up that hill and mean it, even when I don’t think the same of myself. I’m never going to be ZOMGINSPIRATIONAL for my speed or my skill, but I can be a great jogging partner, clipping-in-is-hard sympathizer, and fear-getting-over-er, and I’m so excited to be all of those things for the next 10 weeks.

***

So, I’m back on the wagon, doing Wildflower workouts while not committing to Wildflower or any other spring Olympic just yet. I’m excited for the training, though. Saturday was TAG’s traditional short, slow bike ride, designed to get the group accustomed to riding together and on roads with cars in a gentle way; someone told me we covered about 8 miles in 45 minutes, which sounds about right. Sunday, we swam in the gorgeous outdoor pool I’ve missed so much, then went for a little part-trail run.

And I chased the TAG workouts with a bike ride with Michaela and Karen, proceeding directly from Novato in my sweaty run shirt and wet swim hair to downtown Fairfax, where we set out for the cheese factory (or, rather, cheese factories). Unlike the first time I did this ride, when I stopped at only one of the two cheese factories on the ride, we tasted amply at both. We also managed to find the Cross Marin Trail that winds through the state park on the return trip, cutting out several miles of terrible road in favor of a flat, wide, gorgeous bikes-only path. I want all of my riding to be on the Cross Marin Trail; if only it actually crossed Marin!

Just as with the first time I did that ride, the wind was insane; I think I handled a bit better this time around, but that could be the effects of riding with two people I’ve met only recently as opposed to my husband, who’s well accustomed to my freakouts. We made good time, tried at least 12 different cheeses, and knocked off seven cat-5 climbs over 38 miles like it was no big deal — and I still got home in time for the Oscars. My kind of weekend.