Avia Wildflower Olympic Course Race Report

The weather was perfect and my pre-race prep went fairly well. Most of the things I worried about didn't come to pass and I felt good when the starting horn when off.

Swim: I kept to the plan for a nice and easy swim at around a 40 mile per hour pace. I did have trouble following the course so I did some extra zigging and zagging, but my swim time f 37:52 was still pretty close to my planned 37 minutes.

T1: I felt sluggish and probably took an extra minute over what I normally do for a total time of 5.5 minutes

Bike: I felt great at first, and felt like I was tearing it up, but finished the first half well off my planned pace. Then I was wobbly for the second half. In fact, I ended up walking up the first big hill after the turn around. That turned out to be a big mistake and I forced myself not to walk up any others after that. I had fun grabbing bottles of Gatorade Endurance from the aide stations while not stopping though. Total time: 2:06:19 - about 15 min. longer than I expected.

T2: Still felt like it took too long, but my time was okay - just over 3 minutes

Run: As usual, the first mile was just staggering around trying not to die. I walked up the last 2 ft of one hill, but got stronger after that and was able to run up all the rest. After mile four, people kept saying "it's all downhill from here" but then there would be another hill! Eventually, it really was all downhill as I flew down Lynch Hill just like they taught us at Tues. track passing all the walkers and the ones who were leaning back trying to brake themselves. I even had enough energy at the end to speed up once I hit the Finish Line shoot.

I finished dead tired with nothing left to give and barely enough energy to pack up my gear in transition. So I was quite happy about that as I'd hate to end a race thinking I could have pushed more.

The best part of doing Wildflower, though, is that when I signed up, I wasn't quite sure I could do it. Doing something you aren't sure you are capable of is probably once of the most rewarding experiences.

For the full report see: http://fattyfightsback.blogspot.com/2009/05/see-mac-tri.html

Congratulations!  You are truly an inspiration.  Reading your posts the last few months are what finally convinced me to "tri."  My first will be the end of July.

Cassie