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| Lake San Antonio, the race venue |
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Where should I start?
I came, I saw, I was conquered.
I should know better by now.
If I don't return better trained, I won't return at all.
Wildflower Long Course. I love this course. Hills on the bike. That's how I train.
Love 'em. Hilly trails on the run. That's how I train. Love 'em. My strength.
Wildflower Long Course. I hate this course. Hills on the bike AND on the run. Heat
everywhere except the water. If you're not really, really well prepared for this
course, it will kill you. Every time. I wasn't well prepared. My weakness.
Wildflower. The "second largest triathlon" (after you add the participants
of three different events on two different days together) in the world. Woodstock
for triathletes. It always beckons.
I first did the Wildflower short course in 1990. My log reads: "Died on the
90, hilly run." That should have been an omen. In 1992 and then in 1993 I repeated,
bringing my time down from 2:16 to 2:11 to 2:07 (this was "only" a 0.5M
swim, 20M bike, and 4.5M run, not 1.5K/40K/10K as today). I was doing well, improving.
Then the "Peter Out" principle struck.
John "The Penguin" Bingham wrote in his May Penguin Chronicles:
Then it hit me. I'd fallen into the trap that so many of us do. No matter how fast we are, we believe we can always be faster. No matter how far we run, we believe we can always run farther. We are never content with where we are.
I was thinking about this after this year's race, before I read John's words.
Most of us come into sports like running or triathlon and rather quickly, within
a few years anyway, get about as fast as we're ever going to be. A lot of training
might make us a few percent faster, at most. But the distance trap always beckons.
With not all that much effort, and a lot less thinking, it's easy to move from 10K's
to marathons, from marathons to ultras, from Olympic distance triathlons to half
Ironman and then to Ironman. You might or might not be able to get 1% faster, but
you can get 100% "further", even 400%. It's so tempting. And your friends
often seem to be pushing or pulling you there. People talk about the marathon or
the Ironman in tones which leave you thinking that you're "less than worthy"
if you're only doing shorter races. Magazines, newspapers, and TV give the long races
much more coverage. If you say you're thinking about your first marathon, or an Ironman,
the encouragement will be abundant. Few (except your mother) are likely to speak
words of caution. It's just not done.
And what happens? Very often, it's the "Peter Out" principle. Like the
famous Peter Principle, which holds that you'll be promoted until you reach your
level of incompetence, the "Peter Out" principle states that you'll keep
pushing yourself to do longer and longer races until you reach the distance at which
your abilities peter out.
And that about sums up my Wildflower story.
In 1994, I actually had a fair race, finishing my second ever half-Ironman in 6:20:08.
But my log reads: "Decent race, heart wasn't in the run." It's been downhill
from there. In 1995 I had a flat on the bike but was actually headed for possibly
my most satisfactory race ever, until 1 1/2 miles before the finish line I simply
died, sitting at the final aid station (no more than 1/2 mile from the finishing
downhill) for more than 10 minutes, finally finishing in 6:40:50. Before race day
last year, I was doing some great visualization and thinking to myself, "third
time's a charm." Unfortunately visualization and slogans were no substitute
for training, and my log reads: "Disappointing run. Had some good miles but
couldn't run the whole way" and a finish in 6:27:33. Sounding familiar?
This year, still under the impression that one of these times I HAD to "get
it right," I returned for more. I decided on one new strategy - no watch. Well,
actually, I did wear a watch so I could poke the splits button at appropriate times,
but I wasn't going to (and never did) look at it during the race. I wanted to race
by "feel" and not get either overly optimistic nor overly discouraged as
the race went on because of some particular split. I even left my bike computer home.
Just me and the course.
Registered with no problems the day before, had some nice chats with Rick, Karen,
Tricia, Kurian, Robert, along with Bob Babbitt and Tony Svensson. Had a relaxing
dinner with Rick and Karen and then a decent night's sleep. Everything was going
fine. Got to the race more than an hour early to encounter the traffic jam from hell,
but Debi was driving so I hopped out with my stuff and set up, still relaxed and
ready to go. No problems with bathroom lines, nothing forgotten, so far so good.
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| Lake San Antonio, the race venue |
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The pros start the swim, the younger age groups start, the pros finish, and finally
it's my turn in the water. Off we go, closely packed and fighting for my "space"
(hey, this is California) at first, pretty soon I'm off the back with all the space
I need. The swim, as always for me, never ends. Without my glasses, I can never see
more than one orange buoy ahead, and it always seems to me it's sure to be the turnaround
buoy, but it never is. For more than half the swim, my thought processes are: "Must
be the next one...nope...damn...must be the next one...nope...damn..." Somewhere
in the outbound leg, the 50+ men's leaders (started 4 minutes back) catch me, and
I recieve several good whacks as they pass by. Just as I finally reach the real turnaround,
where the field compresses as everyone rounds the marker as closely as they can,
the first women (who started 8 minutes behind me) catch up. Whap! Whap! My goggles
are knocked askew and I have to stop to fix them, them move more to the side to avoid
further mayhem. It doesn't help, four minutes later the 40+ women reach me and I'm
whapped again. I tell myself it's a consequence of the good line I'm swimming for
a change.
Finally out of the water and feeling amazingly good. After three straight years of
48-minute swims, this one in 47 (I won't know that until I look at my watch six hours
later, though)! But even though I don't know the time, I know I'm feeling less winded
and generally more satisfied with my swim than usual. Run up the stairs and down
the length of the transition area (and we're talking a LONG way here) to my bike,
change of gear and off we go.
Down the road and in one mile it's "(son of a) Beach Hill" but I'm not
as winded from the swim so I just ride on up and over one rolling hill and then another
on the way out of the park. I've been learning some serious pacing lessons recently.
In the Mt. Diablo Challenge, I was actually leading for about 1/4 mile, but I finished
(not counting a flat!) in 70 minutes, while Lars who won finished in 57 or so. In
the Mercury News 10K, Craig passed me only after about a mile and a half, and still
finished in 40 something, many minutes under my PR. Then Brad wrote about his training
runs with Dipsea god Sal Vasquez, who WALKS the stairs and still finishes in 60 minutes.
So it had thrice been impressed on me in recent weeks that startly conservatively
was in no way conflicting with excellent finishing times. And so that was my plan.
Unfortunately, this meant a lot of people passed me, and this got to me. When I first
started triathlon, I'd come out of the water and spend the rest of the day simply
focussing on the person in front of me, whether on the bike or run, and trying to
pass them. But in this race, my conservative strategy left me feeling very "uncompetitive."
Negative thoughts were creeping in. Finally around 15 miles the road turns and you
begin a very long (15-20 mile) section where it's dead straight, just slightly rolling,
and you can just "put your head down and go," and that's what I did, staring
straight down at my front wheel for miles on end, just trying to keep it flowing.
In here I was passed for the first time in a long time by a paceline of three people,
happily violating the rules. Probably relays. I gave them a brief negative vibe and
then forgot them. Then a fire truck passes, then an ambulance, and shortly thereafter
I see a biker down on the side of the one metal-grate bridge we have to cross, something
I've always hated and here's proof positive that my fear and caution are both well-founded.
The last 15 miles of the course are the serious uphills, and I felt like I handled
them quite well, passing lots of people. Back into the park, past Shaef shouting
encouragement and down the hill to the transition area. If I had known my ride was
14 minutes slower than 1994, 5 minutes slower than last year, and even slower than
the year I had to fix a flat, I probably would have been depressed, but ignorance
was bliss. I was just thrilled I had finished the ride without a flat! The number
of riders I saw fixing flats on the side of the road, or being "sagged in"
in sag wagons, was huge this year. This is the only element of luck in the triathlon,
and it was about time some came my way.
Then the run started. Again, I was going to start conservatively, and avoid my usual
"come off the bike hard, die later" routine. In the first mile, though,
there was one very short (10-20 feet) but quite steep uphill section, and the feeling
of a hammer hitting my quad told me that the bike may have taken more out of me than
I'd like. It brought me to an immediate walk, and an immediate realization that I
wouldn't be meeting my goal of running the whole way.
But continue I did, running along at a decent pace. Passed Tricia during the fourth
mile, complaining that she couldn't keep her heart rate down. Told her I was a "heartless"
guy myself. Not to mention watchless on this day. It still felt like a good idea
just to monitor my body by myself, and not let myself get distracted by numbers.
There were, of course, other distractions, mostly located at the mile four aid station.
This brief "lift", though, couldn't overcome the fact that 50 feet past
that aid station begins a one-mile climb as steep as any I run on my training runs,
and folks, I run 'em all. It was VERY depressing to realize how far I was from my
pure running ability as I trudged my way up this, and subsequent hills. My spirit
was well and truly crushed. 14:56 for that mile, just for the record, and 13:30 for
the next.
It takes until mile seven before I finally manage to rally and start "seriously"
running, even some of the milder uphills (and pretty depressing when I look at my
watch later and realize that what I thought was a "good" mile was done
in 10:18, with a 9:36 following. Even the completely downhill mile ten takes me 8:42.
I do manage to run most of the rest of the course, mainly pushed forward by the knowledge
that this is "really" just a 12-mile run followed by a 1-mile downhill
roll. I do manage to muster up some seriously good form in that downhill mile (8:48,
8:00 pace exactly), and impress Debi, but it's too late to make up for twelve miles
of slogging. A run in which I was dreaming about 2:00, and hoping for 2:05, has turned
into a 2:21. Ugh. Adding insult to injury, if I'd just been 15 seconds faster (one
less bit of walking!) I could have finished hand-in-hand with Baywatch star Alexandra
Paul (attentive readers will realize she actually beat me by eight minutes 15 seconds,
having started eight minutes later). Might have even got my picture on Entertainment
Tonight or something. :-)
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| Heading for home |
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Well, that was the what. Here's the why:
3-month training Race Performance
Run Bike Swim Total Run Bike Swim Total
1994 3.3 6.7 0.2 10.2 2:11 3:13 0:48 6:20:08
1995 3.0 4.0 0.5 7.5 2:22 3:16 0:48 6:40:50
1996 4.4 2.5 0.3 7.2 2:08 3:22 0:48 6:27:33
1997 2.9 2.3 0.5 5.7 2:21 3:27 0:47 6:44:14
In a nutshell - I was nuts. Everyone has different expectations from races, some
hope to win, some hope for PR's, some are happy just to finish. For me, my goal is
to "live up to my potential." And, the plain fact of the matter is, you
simply can't live up to your potential in a race this long, on a course this hard,
on 5.7 hours of training per week. I certainly can't, anyway. I had been putting
a lot of emphasis on long workouts. Swims of 2000 yards (laughably short for many
people, but "long" for me), long "bricks" like 2 1/2 hour bike
followed by 1 1/2 hour run, etc. But no matter how long those workouts seemed, in
preparation for a race like Wildflower this was like attempting a marathon with a
long run of 15 miles. Yes, you can do that (and I have!), but the results aren't
pretty and certainly not optimal.
So I fell victim, for the fourth year in a row, to the Peter Out principle. Tried
to do too much on too little. Failed. I'm not unhappy I was only able to do 5.7 hours
of training per week over the three months prior to this race; that's just how my
life fell together and I'm quite happy in that department. I AM unhappy that I was
foolish enough not to look seriously at the situation and realize that if I couldn't,
or didn't want to, do more training, then I should stick to shorter races more commensurate
with my training.
Maybe now I'll learn the lesson.
YMMV - Everything in this post is about ME. Although you can draw whatever lessons
you want for your own situation, I am not trying to tell or even suggest how other
people should approach training and racing. Everyone has different reasons for training
and racing, and different goals. So YMMV. Big time.
It IS interesting to note with respect to Wildflower in particular, though, that
I have read three race reports so far. Here are quotes from each of them (names omitted
to protect the innocent):
I had a great swim, a too good bike, and we are not even going to talk >about, mention or forevever remember what was supposed to be the run.
I like the half but the bike and run in the heat this early in my season >were brutal. I was very undertrained for both the bike and the run.
It was bad most all the way in [on the run]
I guess no further comment is necessary.
And the final note, something I've said many times before. I'm sure glad I enjoyed
all the training. :-) As the saying goes, the journey IS the reward. And my rewards
in that department have been truly ample.
My future - Currently wrestling with a decision on where I go from here. Not sure
yet. I WILL be toeing the line at the Dipsea on June 8th, for the first time ever
in the "Invitational" section. And doing my best to stay there.
Steve "Thick-headed Wildflower vet" Patt
in Cupertino, CA
Some "GU" notes:
New equipment - got a new "wider webbing/bigger pockets" Ultimate just
before the race; worked great. Lucky I brought my own GU because, race packet info
notwithstanding, there was none I saw on the course (except for hundreds of empty
packets :-( ). Got a new "GU bottle" before the race to use on the bike.
It "worked" but I'm not too impressed. Put in five GUs, was able to consume
four - the rest coats the sides. Too expensive to waste that much.
Last year I had a serious problem, because I left my GU sitting in the transition
area, and when I started the run four hours into the race, the GU was so hot that
it was (to me) completely inedible, leading to caloric deficit on the run. This year
I brought a "Little Playmate" filled with blue ice bags, and left my GU-filled
Ultimate in the Playmate while I was swimming and riding.
Worked perfectly! The GU was just the right temperature on the run.
However...I learned another lesson. After 3 1/2 hours of eating GU on the bike, I
got through 3 GUs in the first miles of the run before I was completely "GU'ed
out." The thought of another GU was turning my stomach. Thank goodness the aid
station at mile 6 had strawberries which I was able to grab, letting my stomach get
some "real food." Much later in the race (about mile 11 or so) I was finally
able to down one last GU to get me home.
Something that MIGHT have helped would be changing flavors, but up 'til now only
Vanilla Bean has been satisfactory to me during races (orange too acid; chocolate
too rich). But in our race packets at Wildflower was a new GU flavor I have yet to
see in stores - TriBerry. And it was berry, berry, berry good. :-P Really. :-)
Another equipment note: Got a new Sequel "River Rhat" hat at REI just before
the race. Mesh sides, reflective foil on the top, long white cape over the ears and
neck, built-in sweatband; worked great, don't know why more people don't use these
in brutally hot races like these.