Half Vineman Triathlon
Saturday, June 27, 1996
Santa Rosa, CA
1.2m Swim, 56m Bike, 13.1m RunThere are no pretenders at Vineman. There is no innocuous supplementary sprint or Olympic race for the first-timer or the marginally trained. If you come to Vineman in late July, you're there to do either a half or a full Ironman-distance race, so either you know what you're doing or you're a bit lacking in the grey cell department. Personally, I was still trying to decide which description fit me when Skippy and I headed for the pasta party in downtown Santa Rosa two nights before the race.
"These people are serious!" I mutter to Skippy, gazing about at all the incredibly buffed bodies and muscular limbs impeccably free of hair. The Intimidation Factor is positively off the scale, no doubt about it. "Yeah, but *you're* TriBaby," she grins back at me. "Yeah, that's right!" I reply defiantly. "I do these things!" Under my breath I mumble, "...I just do them very slowly." The caliber of the crowd is hardly a surprise; there are Ironman slots at stake here, and a sizable number of these athletes are preparing to do a full Ironman the day after tomorrow. It is both heady and alarming to find myself among them.
Dinner on Friday night was considerably more low-key. We met up with a small group of RSTers poolside at the race hotel and, after trading stories and scarfing down some TR Bars, Tim Iverson, Mike Holm, David Baldwin, Skippy and I all headed to a local pasta joint for more carbo-loading. I'll have to tell you more details about a great evening some other time, but for now I'll simply warn you that if you ever find yourself behind Tim in a race, do NOT rely upon him to know the course! ;-)
David, visiting on holiday from the land Down Under, had been unable to scare up a hotel room anywhere, so he came back with Skip and me to crash happily on the floor for the night. Amidst the flurry of two triathletes trying to arrange all their gear for the morning, the TV trumpeted the disturbing news of the explosion in Atlanta's Centennial Park. "Maybe it was just an overloaded power transformer or something," I ventured hopefully. Ummm, yeah....
Despite all the excitement, I slept reasonably well that night, although, as usual, I was up well before the alarm went off at 4:45. Sunblock and Sportslick in all the right places, Zoot Suit and singlet on, mixing up the Cytomax and Metabolol. We loaded up the cars in semi-darkness, shrouded in early morning fog that, thankfully, promised to keep the day cool for the better part of the morning. All signs pointed to unusually temperate weather, and I mentally thanked each and every one of my friends who had obviously heeded my pleas to "Think 'COOL' thoughts for Saturday." As a matter of fact, they overdid it just a bit; as we drove to the bike-to-run transition area to drop off my run gear the skies let loose with a brief but intense torrent of rain!
"'Be right back, Skip." I trot into the long, narrow transition area with my running shoes and gear, searching for the rows marked with my wave number, lucky 13. Being a Clyde, I'm stuck in the last wave, which is a bummer, but the even bigger bummer is realizing that this transition area is nearly 200 meters long, and the Wave 13 rows are at the very back. Dang! Clydes always do get the fuzzy end of the lollipop. However, who's to complain? I'm just grateful to have the division available, and we'll all suffer this handicap, so why grouse? Even so, I growl good-naturedly to another racer, "They oughta give us time bonuses for being stuck back here!" She laughs and agrees heartily.
When I return to the car, Skippy remarks, "I thought maybe you had to run all the way to Guerneville and back!" "Yeah, it *felt* like that. That is one LONG transition area. Well, I just hope it doesn't rain any more and soak all of our run stuff. Let's go."
We head for the race start in Guerneville, a 15 or 20 minute drive west, me slurping down Metabolol and chewing a bagel all the way. I think back to a similar drive we made nearly 3 months ago, heading out to the start of the Wildflower Long Course in the early morning darkness. The nervousness I'd felt that day is pleasantly absent now; this time I'm not just thinking "Survive," I'm thinking, "How well can I do in my division?" Even the Intimidation Factor thing has faded from my mind. I'm too busy trying to figure my approximate splits so I can tell Skippy when to expect my arrival at the transitions and the finish.
We get lucky in Guerneville and find a legal parking spot right above Johnson's Beach. Just as at T2, wave 13 gets the fuzzy end of the transition area ;-) That's ok, it just means we don't have to weave our bikes through all that chaos to start the bike. Besides, it also means a primo spot for photo ops for Skip.
I get set up and watch in awe as the Full-IMsters begin their swim, and then come speeding back to circle the buoy for their second lap. They begin to trickle out of the river and through the transition area as the hordes of Half-IMsters arrive en masse. Viewing the crush of people and bikes lining up for body-marking and entry into the transition area, I turn to Skip and gloat, "I am SO glad we got here early!"
THUD. Ouch, oh, poor guy! A Full Course athlete rushing to mount his bike just fell over right behind me. Not a good way to start 112 miles, especially since half the contents of his JetStream have sloshed to the ground. He struggles to his feet in embarrassment with a sheepish "Yeah" in response to anxious inquiries about his well-being, makes a hasty inspection of his bike, then remounts carefully and blasts off. We see this scenario repeated 2 or 3 more times, so I double-check to make sure my bike is set in a good low gear to deal with the short steep hill exiting the TA.
I do the porta-john thing, socialize a bit with other racers (including RSTers Tony Walsh and Janet Fawl), wriggle into my longjohn, and then stroll over to drop my Keds at the swim exit chute. The Vineman transition area is quite rough and full of gravel, and I would have to trot the entire length of it to my bike; the Keds are a must.
The fog and overcast are breaking at a leisurely pace, and the temperature, at about 8:45, is pleasantly mild. The Russian River is a comfortable 70 degrees, and, if it weren't for the obvious advantages of a wetsuit, I would have been perfectly happy to go without. All signs point to a good day for a race. I "Ouch" and "Yipe" and "Yow" my way gingerly over the rocks to the river and into the water, gratefully flopping in once it's deep enough to get off my feet. Whew! That was probably the toughest part of the whole day! ;-)
I'm in the water all of about 2 minutes when I realize my wavemates are already headed for the starting line. Whoops, I'd better get going! A final farewell to Skippy and I churn off toward the line. Well, that takes care of warming up, I guess.
We bob about in our yellow caps waiting for the starting gun, Women Clydes, Relay swimmers, and 40+ Women chatting nervously. I plant myself right up front next to the buoy marking the left end of the line. I learned my lesson at Wildflower: no holding back. It's better to get swum over by a few faster swimmers than to waste time fighting your way through dozens of slower ones. You're trying to RACE this one, TriBaby, not just do it.
One last goggle adjustment, one last check of the heart rate monitor. The countdown begins...5, 4, 3, 2---start your watch---- 1, HOOONNNNK!
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