2012 Wildflower Preview

This coming weekend is the Wildflower Triathlon in Bradley, CA.  For the second year in a row, I will be racing in the Olympic distance race on Sunday.  Probably the hardest part of the weekend will be hanging out Saturday while the long course race is going on because I know I will want to be racing with them!

A couple weekends ago, my parents were visiting so I decided to take them up to Paso Robles for a day of wine tasting.  That was the cover story.  My real motivation was to go preview the bike and run courses at Wildflower (my parents knew that).  The plan was to drive to Paso Thursday night, preview the course Friday morning and then wine taste in the afternoon, and head back home Saturday.  Rain put a twist on that plan and instead we ended up touring the Hearst Castle on Friday in San Simeon, CA.  The tour was very interesting as I was able to see how a very wealthy man was able to pretty much purchase a bunch of antique structures from Europe and build a castle out of them.  The castle also served as a venue for Hearst to show off his huge collection of art and antiques.  Here is the main entrance to the castle, looking very gothic:

The Hearst castle had couple of neat pools including this one:

Where are the lane lines?  There was also this Roman Pool.  I really wanted to jump in both pools and go swimming but probably would have been thrown in jail.

The next day, the rain had stopped and I was able to get my course preview in.  I was able to confirm that Lynch Hill still exists. The campgrounds sure look different when there are not tens of thousands of people running around.  The calm before the storm...

This year I have a rather lofty goal for the race.  In order to avoid jinxing myself, I am not going to write it here.  I will let you know what it is and whether or not I achieved it after the race is over.

TriSports.com TriFest

I am once again fortunate to be selected as a member of Team TriSports for the 2012 triathlon season.  TriSports.com is one of the leading triathlon online retailers and is based out of Tucson, AZ.

Last weekend I traveled to Tucson for the TriSports.com TriFest weekend.  TriFest is a two day festival put on by TriSports.com at their Tucson corporate headquarters and retail store.  In addition to it being a training weekend for Team TriSports, there are several other events throughout the two day festival.  The first event was the famous Mt. Lemmon ride on Friday morning.  I had been looking forward to this ride since last year when I first rode it.  I'm shamed to admit that I wimped out and didn't ride all the way to the summit this year, but I made it most of the way.  You can check out my Strava GPS data here.  TriSports.com CEO Seton Claggett wore a GoPro and created a nice video of the ride.  Check it out:

Here is an example of the views during the Mt. Lemmon ride:

...and another view of Mt. Lemmon:

Apparently a 70+ mile ride with about 6000ft of climbing was not enough of a leg workout for the day, so later in the afternoon Team TriSports went to Star Pass for a trail run.  GPS data of the run can be seen here.

Friday evening consisted of a team dinner at the TriSports.com retail store. This dinner was a great opportunity to meet new teammates and reconnect with returning teammates. Some of the highlights from the 2011 Team TriSports can be seen here.  Following dinner we got a chance to learn about all of the exciting things that TriSports.com has been up to and has planned in the future.  Some of the highlights include their focus on sustainability through the installation of water harvesting tanks  and solar panels.  There is a lot more that I am missing, but much of it can be read about on the TriSports.com blog.

Saturday started out with a photo shoot followed by a Team TriSports sprint triathlon. Below is a picture of Sponsorship Coordinator Jaclyn Applegate instructing us prior to the race:

Here I am trying to chase down fellow teammate Allison Stewart:

Throughout the day TriSports also hosted the TriFest Expo where there were several vendors exhibiting their products.  Saturday evening concluded with the annual TriFest party which included hors d'oeuvres, drinks, and casino games.

I'm excited to go through another season with Team TriSports.  You will probably see me write this a lot...but...as always, remember to use MTRIPP-S coupon code when purchasing anything from trisports.com and you will receive 10% off of your purchase.

Superseal Race Report

This past Sunday I raced Superseal in Coronado, CA...sort of. Mother Nature decided to bring a huge storm through Southern California, intent on ruining any plans for racing.  First, the swim was canceled due to a small craft double red flag warning.  The bike portion was then canceled on race morning due to 30+ mph wind gusts making riding rather dangerous.  In the end, the Olympic distance triathlon was reduced to a 2.9 mile sand run.  That's not quite what I had in mind when I signed up for this race, but I figured I had traveled down to San Diego to race, so I might as well take what I can get.

Just before the run, the sun started to come out and a rainbow formed.

I guess one of the main takeaways I got from this race is that triathletes look really dorky.  I was especially dorky looking with my extra cold weather gear on.

There were around 1300 people signed up for the race but only about 250 stuck around for the run.  Since I was in the elite division and I found out they were still giving out the prize money to the winners, I thought "Hey, maybe all the real pros went home and I can take their prize money". That wasn't the case.  Some fast dudes stuck around.  I like the picture of the start below.  I suggest clicking on it to see the big version.

Photo by Louis Roberto

I am smiling because I was happy to be off the sand.  Out of the 2.9 miles only 0.3 mile was on pavement.

Hanging out after the race with some other dorky looking triathletes, Steven and Mott.

I ended up placing 6th overall with a time of 16:51.  Click here to see my GPS data.

Up next is Wildflower Olympic on May 6th. This weekend I am excited to once again be traveling to Tucson, AZ for TriFest hosted by trisports.com. I'll be sure to post some picture from the Mt. Lemmon ride.

Superseal Race Preview

This weekend I will be racing at Superseal in Coronado, CA.  This will be my first Olympic distance race of the season and I have been looking forward to it because I will be racing in the Pro/Elite division. Because this race is not USAT sanctioned, I was able to enter in the Pro division despite the fact that I do not have my USAT professional license.  There will be some former teammates and other fast competitors in my wave that I'm excited to be racing side-by-side with.

The only slight disappointment going into the race is the weather forecast for this weekend.  There is a large storm that is supposed to come through the area tomorrow and the race directors have said that if there is more than 0.1 inches of rain, the swim portion will be canceled.  I believe the reason is that the rain run-off from the city makes the water too dirty to swim in.  If this happens, the swim would be replaced by a 1 mile beach run and the race would essentially turn into a duathlon (run-bike-run).  As someone who for the most part excels in the swim, the likelihood that the swim will be canceled is disappointing.  Regardless, if it happens, it happens. I'll just have to deal with it.  I've never raced a duathlon, so it might be an interesting experience. We'll see...