Buffalo Springs Lake Triathlon

We departed Tucson in a panic late Friday afternoon, despirately trying to get out of town before the monsoons hit town. The plan was to drive as far as possible and grab a hotel to reduce the drive on Saturday to Lubbock. As we set out, things look like it would rain and possibly storm. And we THOUGHT we may avoid the storm, but things just got worse the farther east we headed. Just as the sun was setting, we got to experience our first dust storm. It was very strange. Kind of like fog, but very windy and dark.


































After excaping the dust clouds, the sky lite up with lightning and thunder. The sky was BLACK and nasty looking, but the rain never really came. It rained a little, but never too hard.



We drove until 1 AM before trying to find a hotel in Rosewell of all places. To our surprize the place was packed with UFO watchers, and after checking all the respectable places in town, we ended up staying at the Econo Lodge - a rather shady place to say the least. I'm just happy I didn't catch anything staying there.



The next day we drove on to Lubbock without incident. The road is dead straight and boring, soo when I thought I saw spiders all over the road, I wasn't sure if I was over tired and seeing things, or sleeping at the wheel. After talking to a coworker after the race that grew up in this area of Texas, she assured me I wasn't imagining things.



The city of Lubbock is pretty cute, and Texas Tech University campus rocks. It is soo classy. The downtown by the university was a little lacking, but overall it was pretty cool. We spent most of the day hanging out in the hotel room getting ready for the race, cleaning our bikes and watching the weather forcast online and on TV between constantly looking outside. When we went to bed, we were still very uncertain what the next day would bring.



When we awoke at 4 AM, the sky was angry, with the occational flash of lightning. I was certain the race would be cancelled, but we ventured to the race site anyway. Following the stream of cars, we arrived very early to get try and get a good parking spot. The walk in was a little scary as we had to trek about a mile into the park in pitch darkness to get to the transition area. Smart orgainized me forgot my helmet and I had the pleasure of trying to run back to the car against traffic in the dark to get it. so much for a calm relaxed warm up.

The race ended up starting a little late because of parking issues and disorgainization on the part to the race orgainizers. To say the start was disorgainized was being generous. There was no one calling the waves or getting them lined up, no one getting athletes to cross the timing mat, making sure everyone was in the right wave (i'm sure if you were willing to risk it, you could easily get a 4 min head start going in the wave ahead of your own, without anyone knowing)... but most disappointing for such an important race was the lack of even a starting line. People just kept edging further forward into the water, and then running along the shore line as the water levels were low, and no markers forcing you to swim out and around the corner. I opted to stay to the far left and not run the corner and hope that avoiding the crowds would pay off with less wasted energy. that and I can no longer mix it up like i used to since almost drowning in Hawaii 2 years ago - i get paniced very easy and would rather take a slightly longer line than get caught in a large group.

The swim was uneventful, and smooth. I stayed to the inside the whole way and avoided any trouble. I worked on trying to stay relaxed and smooth, and really concentrate on my recovery, keeping my elbow high and efficient, and my stroke turn over high. I felt my sighting was pretty good, and never got too far off course. As i exited the water, i checked my watch - 27 min and change. a PB. As I ran up the ramp to transition I looked for the wetsuit strippers as I heard they were going to be there, but I somehow missed them and ended up kicking it old school and trying to get it off myself as i stood at my bike.

The bike ride was a little different than usual. Normally I attack right from the start trying to catch anyone in front of me, going as hard as I can for as long as i can. This time i was worried about my hamstring that I had pulled a few days earlier so took it a little more conservatively, focusing on spinning more, with high RPM, and not trying to power up the hills. The bike course was relatively flat and fast, with several decent hills thrown in as you cris crossed the canyon in which the lake and conservation area were located. The hills weren't that though going up, but were very tricky going down. The rain had brought the oils to the surface of the road, and the corners on the hills were like glass. I did a good job on most of the corners but got careless on the last decent, neary going off the road on a quick switch back that caught me napping.

The ride back to T2 was straight into a head wind, and after trading off the lead with several other guys in my AG, i put my head down and tried to keep the pressure on to the end of the bike. Not really feeling like I was going as hard as I normally like to, and keeping an eye on my time, as it kept creeping closer to 2:30 for my bike without the end in sight, I kept expecting to be passed by other riders. It wasn't until the run, when one of the other guys I was racing told me how much of a dent I put into them in the last 10 km that I realized how well I did.

The run started off well. I was feeling good, and my legs felt better than usual with much less lactic acid. Again I focused on technique, trying to stay relaxed and my turnover high. I was having a hard time judging how well I was doing, as several runners (4 in total) passed me pretty handily. I was however slowly picking off one female pro after another, so I assumed I was doing ok.

At about the 13km mark, I managed to do something I have never done before in a race. On an small down hill my shoe lace came undone and I ended up tripping over it and going down hard. I tried to get up as quickly as possible, but I had easily lost a good 30-40 seconds, and 2 positions as 2 runners went past as I was on the ground. With a shot of adrenaline, and fear, I eventually caught back up to the 2 runners and passed them back. But with blood running down my arm, and my hip aching, and now blisters forming on my feet from my rain soaked shoes, the last 8 km was going to be tough. I tried to suck it up as best I could, and was either doing pretty good at it, or others were suffering worse than me, as I slowly gained time back on many of the runners that passed me in the first half. Unfortunately I was unable to catch all of them before the line, but felt good about my finishing kick, as I managed to pass 2 poeple in the last mile.

As I crossed the line, I felt pretty good about my race. I had a solid time, and finished strong. Not really having any idea where I ended up in my AG, I was sure I had done pretty well. And a quick check on the results showed I had managed to get 5th in my AG with a PB in both the swim and the run. Not bad considering 2 days before I didn't think i could race.

With about 40 minutes till Chris made her way to the finish line, I quickly got changed and ran back to the car to get my camera to try and catch her crossing the line. Unfortunately she was too fast for me to get back in time - finishing in a time of 4:54 and first in her AG. And more importantly, having had a PB in the swim and run, and didn't end up in the med tent !! I did however manage to get a picture of the dynamic duo shortly after she had crossed the line.