I'm gonna try and get back on that daily blogging bandwagon soon. As in right now. So let's talk about Wildflower. (:
The lead up: I returned from Collegiate Nats and was immediately greeted by a looming neuro midterm. As a result, I only got two workouts in between Nats and Wildflower, which honestly I didn't think was the most terrible thing given that it was meant to be a recovery week anyways. I got an easy run in on Monday (4.21 mi, 40:39, 9:39 pace) and an easy ride in on Thursday (12.83 mi, 47:04, 16.3 mph) and that was that.
Travel and pre-race: Travel was a little insane. To make a long story short, we grossly underestimated the amount of time it would take to get from the airport to the race site. This made it pretty awkward for our one teammate who was racing the 70.3 on Saturday (we had flown out on Friday) who wasn't able to get to bed til close to 11:30 pm Friday night. A few of us decided to get up early the next day to help her get set up at the venue so it was an early morning. I was able to go back to the lake house we had rented for the weekend and get some sleep after that though, so it wasn't too bad.
The day was filled with some random adventures, including going to the town's only breakfast place and market to get food and spending some time at the venue after the 70.3 to get our bikes fitted (we were all riding rentals because transport from Clemson was too complicated, and it turned out to be pretty cool because I got to ride a full carbon bike for the first time). A highlight of the day was probably being lied to about the distance of a closed road on course and being told we could talk to the venue in 1.5 miles when in reality it was closer to 5 miles away from where we were. Yeah, it was a bummer. We walked for a long time. After bike fitting in the afternoon, we went home and had dinner and relaxed and packed/prepped for race day!
Race day: I got up at 4:30 am for a 5:00 am departure to the venue. Had the typical bagel and banana breakfast and then rolled out to get transition set up. This race was a little different because there were two T1s, one where the bike course starts (T1b) and another where the swim ends (T1a) because there is a 2.2 mi run from the lake to the bike transition. After setting up T1b, we took a shuttle bus over to the swim start and set up T1a and hunkered down for the start. Because the shuttles were only running until 7 am, we got to the start really early. The sprint racers were off at 8 am and the Olympic distance waves didn't start until 9 am (I was in a 9:05 am wave). During that time, I had a bottle of water, a Clif Bar, and three Shot Bloks and just sat around with my teammates, waiting for the race to start.
Swim: I took a dip in the water just after the 9 am collegiate men's wave start to get a feel for the temperature (a nice toasty 70F which I swam in my sleeveless wetsuit) and we were off at 9:05. I started at the front of the women's pack but slowly got dropped by the lead girls as we rounded the first turn buoy. It was a tough course to sight on the way out due to the glare of the sun off the water. I ended up sighting the wrong buoy after the first turn buoy and got pretty off course before a kayak redirected me in the right direction. I was pretty upset with myself at that point because I knew the lead girls had probably pulled a good deal ahead of me at that point but if anything, it really lit a fire underneath me and I kicked up my swimming a notch to try and make up for lost time. It wasn't long before I was catching the boys from the collegiate men's wave ahead of me and rounding the turn at the halfway point in the swim. There were two other pink caps with me the whole swim in that I tried to keep ahead of on the swim back to shore. In the end, my split wasn't as horrible as it could have been given that I went off course, but the off course-ness of it all definitely showed. I was still the 7th collegiate female out of the water though (out of 61 athletes who went on to complete the race), so I was satisfied with that.
Garmin numbers: 1,877 yards, 28:43, 1:32 min/100yd pace
Official numbers: 27:32, 1:50 min/100m pace
T1 and Transition Run: I was super super dizzy coming out of the water. The transition was situated on this huuuuuuge boat ramp and the combination of gravity and changing blood pressure from getting out of the water and trying to transition on a ramp instead of flat ground really messed with me. I just kept falling over as I was trying to get my wetsuit off and put my shoes on and get all my things shoved into the bag we were given to store our T1a items for transport back to the finish line by race staff. It was sort of a mess. Eventually I got it worked out though and set off on the 2.2 mile transition run.
The run started off real rough. My lungs were exploding because that's the nature of starting the run out of the water and we had a huge ramp to climb followed by another uphill before we got to the rolling terrain. The run also finished on another huge long boat ramp which wasn't the most pleasant thing in the universe. I definitely tried my best to just enjoy the process though because we were running along a trail that ran through the dried bed of where there lake used to sit before the draught caused it to recede as much as it had. It was definitely the most beautiful terrain I had ever raced on and despite the fact that the course was really tough (and turned to sand at some points), I just tried to remember how blessed I was to be able to do what I was doing and to have the opportunity to be there and racing. I didn't push very hard on this run, just focused on being steady and getting to T1b so I could get on my bike and do what I knew was going to be A LOT of climbing.
Garmin numbers: 2.37 mi, 22:01, 9:16 pace, 172 spm average, 285 ft gain, 171 ft loss
Pace splits by mile: 9:34, 8:50, 9:40
Official T1 time: 3:58
Bike: The climbing was real. I was on a light bike with a better set of gear ratios than my own bike though and was surprised by how manageable the climbs were. Of course, I didn't ride very hard on any climb, just kept the gear real low and tried to spin up slowly (5-7 mph speed). I definitely opted to let people who wanted to pound pass me. Part of it was fear of blowing my legs out early, but another part of it was realizing that my knees were not at all prepared for a the kind of strain that would accompany this volume of climbing so I opted to be conservative.
I tried to enjoy the scenery on our ride out and keep a reasonable level of effort. I definitely took advantage of the downhills, hitting a max speed of 39.6 mph. I took my gel early in the ride rather than later, spreading out my consumption of the gel over the course of many many miles because I didn't want to run into the same issue as I had during Nats where I couldn't get my gel down at the end of my ride. Somewhere along the way out, I passed Brian and he and I leapfrogged for a little bit before I made a serious push to get and stay ahead.
Then on the way in, there was a small disaster. We had crested the third big climb of the ride and we were around the 16 or 17 mile mark in the ride and I was just riding away on this nice straight flat section when I dropped my head for a little bit because I was tired. A combination of things happened at that point. My very twitchy bike (yay first time riding a full carbon bike...) hit an uneven patch of the road where potholes had obviously been patched and all of a sudden my front wheel was out from under me and I was bouncing on the pavement. My left shoulder hit the ground first, then my head (which bent my neck forward from the impact), then the rest of my body. I was lucky enough to have bounced off of the road and slid into the dirt so no cyclists behind me hit me (and many asked to make sure I was okay, which was nice of them). The adrenaline meant that I felt absolutely nothing at that point and I got up and checked out the bike to see if I could keep going.
By some miracle, the bike was virtually unscathed. I had to fix a dropped chain, realign the front brake, and reattach my hand pump to the frame, but then I was right back on my way. I took stock of my situation once I got back on the bike. I had hit my head but I hadn't blacked out and I wasn't having any problems with vision or any cognitive symptoms, so I figured I was likely not concussed. I couldn't rule out the possibility of a slower presenting brain bleed, but that also wasn't likely to get me for another couple hours anyways so I ignored that possibility. I had some road rash on my arm and what looked to be a pretty serious cut on the middle finger of my left hand. There was definitely a skin flap and a lot of blood, but honestly I couldn't really tell what was going on beyond that because it was so bloody. I touched it and it hurt, so I decided I wasn't gonna do more of that. I could tell that it was a soft tissue wound and likely didn't have any bone involvement, so I thought about the possibility of maybe losing that piece of my finger and it honestly didn't seem that important, so I pretty much decided that if I wanted to finish, I could do it and I could do it without any serious risks to my health. So that's what I decided I was going to do.
I did slow down the rest of the ride though. I rode my brakes down every hill, I didn't let the bike go faster than 25 mph because I wasn't about to lay myself out on the pavement again. Again, I didn't ride too aggressively, I sort of changed my whole mentality towards the race from doing the best I could to just finishing at a decent effort. I was less shaken up by the whole event than I thought I would be, but still a little shaken nonetheless, and I was happy to not push it and just be grateful that despite the crash, I was going to have the opportunity to finish.
The race finishes on a long windy downhill on which you could easily be going 45 or 50 mph. I let about 20 riders pass me on that hill because I wasn't willing to take it fast. On the second to last turn, there had been a crash and a girl was down on the pavement lying motionless face down as the paramedic vehicles came up the road towards her. A runner, probably one of the fastest collegiate boys, had positioned himself up higher on the road to slow the riders down as we came in and as we slowed and made that turn, I think everyone was pretty shocked to see what had happened. I don't know if she's okay, but in that moment all I could really think was, "that could've been me". I got so lucky that I fell in a flat going not super fast (~17 mph) and that I hit the ground the way I did (shoulder first, instead of face first or hands out-stretched or really just about any other way) and that I wasn't in the same place as this girl who was now being tended to by the paramedics. I hope she's alright.
Garmin numbers: 24.48 mi, 1:41:50, 14.4 mph average, 1837 ft gain, 1745 ft loss
Garmin speed splits by mile: 13.6, 15.0, 14.5, 15.7, 13.5
Official numbers: 1:42:07, 14.50 pace
T2: The accident just up the hill was the only thing that had my attention in T2. I had forgotten to put my race number on and was afraid I would be assessed a penalty for it, but thus far I haven't seen any penalty minutes added to my time, so I don't know what happened with that. T2 was a pretty normal transition, I racked my bike pretty distractedly and headed off on the run.
Official T2 time: 1:08
Run: Since T1 had a 2.2 mile run, the actual run portion of the race was only 4 miles. Unfortunately it was four miles with the most insane amount of elevation gain I've ever seen in that distance in my life, including by far the largest hill I have ever had to "run" up. It was a mile 2 hill and I was confused at first because so many of the athletes were walking but as I looked off into the distance, I could see the top of the mountain we were climbing and it was very far away and very high (and people were walking up there too). I decided that I would alternate speed walking and jogging depending on the grade because I wanted to be out of the blazing sun and I wasn't about to casually walk up the entirety of this hill like some athletes seemed to be opting to do. I got to pass quite a number of people that way and was pretty proud of my effort. If I had it my way, I wouldn't have walked any of it, but I knew it was the right call to make given the grade and the sheer length of the hill.
The day had warmed up by a lot at this point and it was hot. I had drank most of both of my water bottles on the run, but hadn't finished the second one completely because I didn't want to take my hands off the handlebars of my bike after my crash. I hadn't taken in enough fluids on the course up to that point I don't think and I was worried about where my hydration was at because of the heat. Athletes around me were obviously cramping as they climbed this hill and I prayed and prayed and prayed that it wouldn't happen to me.
As I crested the top of the hill, I felt my right quad tweak with the beginnings of a cramp and it terrified me. I did everything I could to hold it at bay on the next downhill and flat into the next aid station. I walked through the aid station and drank an entire cup of water and an entire cup of Gatorade before setting back out at a running pace. Luckily enough, the quad cramp did not ever come on in full force and I was able to run the rest of the way into the finish.
Garmin numbers: 4.14 mi, 41:06, 9:56 pace, 499 ft gain, 463 ft loss, 168 spm average (my watch didn't record splits for this run)
Official run time (T1 and end run combined): 1:01:19, 9:53 pace
Post-race: I finished, got my finisher's medal, and immediately was taken to the med tent to deal with my road rash. They wiped everything down with alcohol wipes and told me to go to an ED to get my finger checked out because the doctor said it would likely need stitches and they couldn't do that on site. I returned the rental bike and the rental guys were extremely nice about it and told me not to worry about bleeding all over their bike. Brian did a lot of work to make the race officials let us leave the venue (roads from the lot we were parked were closed due to the race) and it took about an hour but eventually we got out of there and to an ED. The doctor there opted to not do stitches. They debrided the wound and picked some embedded pebbles out of my hands and taped everything up instead. Hopefully that will heal fine in time. I would tell the rest of the story of my night drinking wine and playing Battleship and watching random Czech movies with Brian and sleeping only 3 hours and driving out to SF and getting on a flight to come home, but honestly that one sentence pretty much sums all of it up.
Now I'm home, healing from the crash and from the weekend in general. The road rash (left arm, back, and hip) was really painful the first 24-48 hours but it's died down since then. The finger laceration is still very much so open, I've just been keeping it taped and hoping that it'll grow together in time. I had some neck and back stiffness as well that peaked probably yesterday morning, but has also been gradually going away. It seems like my left wrist, elbow, and shoulder all got kind of messed up and knocked loose in the crash. Probably won't be swimming or lifting for a little while because of it, going to give those joints some time and hope they heal on their own too. Got some magnesium Monday night and have been taking it, which seems to have helped a lot with the recovery process. All in all, feeling pretty good, feeling really grateful that I didn't get hurt any worse than I did and that I was still able to finish an amazing race. It was a great trip.
Finish line stats: 3:16:04, 23/61 in Collegiate Women, 90/156 in Collegiate Overall, 60/266 in Women Overall, 255/661 in Olympic Distance Overall.
Thoughts: Trips like this are a huge reminder of how lucky I am to get to do what I do. I got to travel to a beautiful place and race a beautiful course and challenge myself on terrain that I've never had to tackle before in my life and learn new things about racing and about myself and have new and somewhat scary experiences that I know I'll be better off for having. I was lucky enough to not get seriously hurt, I was lucky enough that in tough conditions my body managed to hold out and get me to the finish line, I was lucky enough to have teammates that fought for me and took care of me and got me to where I needed to be when I needed them to help me out. The entire race/trip was a huge blessing. I'm really lucky.
I hope that I get to go back one day. I don't think I was prepared for how grueling that course was and I don't like to race for survival but that's what it was this weekend. I didn't have the fitness or the skills to tackle that kind of course competitively, all I could do was try to make it to the end. I want to get to go back and I want to conquer it for real. I want to be good enough next time that I can push to go faster instead of push to just get to the end. It's probably going to be a long time before I take another shot at Wildflower, but one of these days I will, and hopefully when that time comes, I'll be taking a good chunk off my course time with it.
Loose ends: I'll be doing a Spring season post-mortem later on when I get the time. I'll post the overview of what my training has been and just some reflections on the whole process. I think it'll be good to take some time to reflect after a long training cycle, so I'll try and make time to do that in the next week. I'm also going to try to get back to logging every day, so expect more regular posting to return. Thanks for reading about my crazy first trip to California! (:
Much love,
Jess
