Timberman, Short Course, is another of those races that I registered for in the Winter. The word on the street was that it is a lot of fun and so I threw in for it. It looked like it should be a lot of fun, but unfortunately, life intervened.
In Summary:
- The Gunstock area becomes one big race party.
- Staying at or very close to Gunstock is a good idea.
- The race is a hoot!
- The course is challenging, except the swim.
- I am basing my future training on the demands of *this* race.
- I am doing it again next year and the whole family is again coming.
Pre-Race: Message boards, surveys, informational emails, you name it- it came out before the race. It was very non-threatening, just lots of updates and a clear interest from the race director to make it a good experience. Drove up on Friday, checked in to Gunstock camping, set up tent, rode around on leisure bikes. Managed to discover that I can’t ride on dirt when I lay down my bike with the child attached. Child is fine, I took the hit on my leg. Have a massive bruise on “bad” knee starting where I have a screw in my femur. And I haven’t even picked up my packet yet.
When the festival opened, immed. got in line for packet pickup, got my bag ‘o swag, did a quick walk around the expo, and then went to Ellacoya to rack my bike. I’m too nervous to do anything but work my schedule. Drove the bike course, figured out that I was unprepared, went back to campsite, made dinner, tried to sleep.
Here’s where things really go off the rails. My child and I were ill earlier in the week and had been put on serious antibiotics. (Yes, my training had suffered. I had gone from being barely prepared to downright unprepared, again.) Unbeknownst to me, my husband was also seriously ill. I thought he was on the mend, but it turns out that he was working hard on getting worse, not better. That night, neither he nor I was able to sleep because of the severity of his illness.
4:15am, we’re up, never mind the clock. We do some brief morning ablutions, wake the child, and walk up to the shuttle bus point. Take the 10 minute shuttle over to the race site where things are already buzzing. Walk around transition to try and figure out how not to get lost during the race. Listen to the race announcements, check on husband, try to explain to him where would be good spectator spots for me, then wander down to the swim start.
Swim: Turns out the swim start is on an adjacent beach only accessible by walking through the water. Make this very funny long walk to the general area. Many waves, so I had to keep track of whether it was my turn yet or not. In water start – I prefer these – and then off we go. The swim is a short out, quick right turn, length of the beach, and then quick in. It was so shallow that you could drop your feet at any time. Clear, clean water. I was happy to put my head down and really swim at times. Per my style, however, I still did the breaststroke any time that I felt crowded.
T1: Run up the beach, run width of transition, finally enter transition area where the foot buckets and wetsuit strippers were quite eager. Since I had a long run down to my bike still, I skipped the buckets and just went to my bike. Foot, foot, shirt, race belt*, helmet, and off I went.
Bike: The course is basically and out and back. Quick out and across the road onto the state highway that comprised much of the course. Almost immed. start a long slow climb. I cheer myself by thinking that all the uphills mean that there will be some swift downhills where I can make up the difference. Alas, no. This was a no-coast course. The uphills slowed me down, but the downhills were never steep enough to overtake my pedal speed. Had a couple of run-ins with idiot bikers, one in front of a race official that made me fear the dreaded variable time penalty. Long downhill to the turn-around in an office parking lot, then that downhill became and uphill. At the top of that particularly long climb, the race director stationed a clown in a devil’s costume to help cheer you up. Something about having a big, long hill at the 65% complete mark that they felt we needed some cheering. I do love hearing, “Ding dong the witch is dead” as I top a hill.
T2: Fly into the dismount line, pop off, go straight to my spot, rack the bike, and then run around the entire transition area to the “run out” spot.
Run: Going out the chute, I see one of the Trifurians from my swim wave as she was coming in to finish. Instantly deflating. Oh well, I don’t do this for speed anyway. So off I go. Nice jog out and I suddenly hear my child yell, “Go Mommy!” Then I start running uphill along the lake. The race folks put cute signs along the course like, “Why did kamikaze pilots wear helmets?” Around the bend and I realize I’m still going uphill. Nice scenic views, all while you go uphill. Suddenly I see top of hill, water station, and turn around. I take the water, deliberately strike the turn, and then I start the downhill. All the downhill. The punishing downhill. My bruised knee starts to ache in a deep, “I hate you for this” way. Yeah, I admit it, I walked most of the run. Coming into the finish, I put on a good show just in time to hear my child yell, “Be the Gazelle” – a reference to a family joke. I cross the finish giggling.
Post-race: Cold water bottle and towel are handed to me before they even remove my chip. Woo! I’m thirsty. The Clif folks add some of their recovery stuff to my water. The food is excellent, once I figure out where it is. Pizza, yogurt, ice cream, more water, gatorade, fruit, cookies. I believe there was beer, but I was not interested. Found family, grabbed my gear, and got on the shuttle back to Gunstock.
We had planned to hang out at the expo – they even had a kids bounce house – maybe do some kayaking or other local recreation. Instead my husband’s illness became paramount. We packed camp, checked out early, and headed straight home. Likely because we were all on antibiotics, we all were a tad sunburned. Despite that, husband said straight away that he wants to do this again next year, possibly even with friends. He thought things looked fun, even though he’s not racing.
I’m entering it again next year. The hills taught me humility. Enough so that I’m basing my training around lots of hill work so that I can climb at a better speed and with less punishment, both on the bike and the run.
*I made a gear change. During a training ride, I discovered that biking in my bathing suit was not working for me in certain ways. Left some upper thigh unprotected from the edge of my seat. So I wore trishorts (gasp!) and a crop-top bra. During T1, I topped the bra with a shirt and added a race belt. I understand the point of the race belt, but it annoyed me.
