"Drought"flower race report

I'm about 5 months late to the party, but still going to do my best to pull this one from the memory banks and give you a quick debrief on Wildflower.

This (2014) was actually my first year doing the race. I was meant to compete in 2012 as a tune-up to Lanzarote, but got injured a few days prior and didn't want to blow my chances at Lanza. I was especially excited to race this year because my girlfriend, Katie, is from Paso - not even 40 min from Lake San Antonio.

Unlike most people (and to the chagrin of my sis) we did not camp and opted for a home cooked meal and roof over our heads by staying with Katie's mom. It ended up being extremely convenient (2 hr drive to Paso day prior, 40 min drive to Lake San Antonio morning of). I had to get up really early on race day to pick-up my packet, so Katie and I drove separately to the race which introduced a ton of headaches for her (they closed the park entrance ~630a, so Katie had to walk 3+ miles on her injured foot).

With the big CA drought going on, they actually changed the swim location this year to the south end of the park. I call it the mud bath because when I tried to get a warm up in, I actually sank into quad-high mud. The most shocking thing about this entire race was seeing the effects of the drought first-hand. Lake San Antonio had no water.

That green should be water.

Race DL:

Had a pretty terrible swim, it was my second time in the water since Oceanside and everything felt tight and constricted. I'm actually embarrassed to admit I almost pulled out of the race after 500 yards.

time - 26.59 (it was definitely short)

T1 was a nightmare because of the swim location --> they had us run over a mile to the bike racks, which was all through soft-pack in the lake where the swim is usually held.

This was my second ride on my new Trek Speed Concept 9.9 and it became pretty clear over the course of the ride that there were some kinks needing to be worked out. Still put in a decent effort, but otherwise uneventful.

time - 2:41:53

Run was also so-so. Quads were affected by the fit so really couldn't put much into the uphills - got passed by a ton of guys but still somehow managed to enjoy myself. When you have a beautiful girl waiting for you at the finish line, how can you ever have a bad day?

time - 1:42:50