Its been 2 years since Wildflower last made me her bitch. After being thoroughly dominated by this course several times, you’d think I would have learned my lesson by now. But she’s a evil seductress, a temptress, The Red Priestess of the triathlon world. She draws you in with her beauty and then chews you up and spits you out. And you can’t stop coming back for more. Each time you claim that ‘this is the year I’m going to own this course’, and then mile 4 of the run happens.
The trickery is so cruel……the pre-race chatter for Wildflower always seems to be about ‘Nasty Grade’, the 2 mile stretch of climbing on the bike that happens on the back half of the course. But its Mile 4 of the run where things really start to get ‘Nasty’ (its actually mile 6 this year with the drought induced course reconfiguration). Up up you go, and this is where the race really begins.
I’m completely ready for the swim. And with another 2 weeks I’ll be completely ready for the bike. But the run is what I’m most concerned about right now. After taking almost 2 months off at the start of 2014 to try and finally put an end to my foot issues, I could definitely use another month to prepare. In an effort to come back gradually to avoid injury, I just haven’t logged enough miles. I’m ok with it though, as it will force me to try and implement a power management strategy on the bike, something I’ve never really done before. I’ve always ridden my bike by feel, and by feel I mean ‘going as hard as I can’. This tends to lead to disaster on the run, so I finally made the jump and got ahold of a power meter to learn how to better gauge and manage my effort level on the bike to save up for the run. This is going to be more essential than ever this year on a course where the run is almost everything. I’ve only been using the power meter for about 2 months so its still a relatively new concept for me, but it will be a good experiment as Ironman Canada training kicks into high gear.
This is going to be my first race in my new age group, 40-44. Its only fitting that my 40th birthday falls right around Wildflower weekend. I can’t think of a better way to jump into my 40s than spending a weekend camping with friends who all have the same passion for training and racing that I do, all while racing one of the toughest courses there is. Throwing down a 70.3 on my 40th also shows that 40 is just another number. I certainly wasn’t in 70.3 shape when I turned 30, so like a good bottle of wine I’d like to think that I’m getting better with age.
One year wiser (or some might argue one year crazier), maybe this is the year I finally beat you Wildflower. And if not, I’m certainly going to enjoy trying.
