San Jose MTB tri

I signed up for this race with visions of xterra in my head. A sprint triathlon on a mountain bike! How cool is that!? I would be up in the hills, racing my juliana! It would be like Sea Otter but with swimming and running! Or like the cccx course, but with all my favorite sports included!

I should really learn to read the fine print on these things.

"Swim in goose poop lake, ride your mountain bike on pavement for 7 miles, experience the thrill of racing on fireroad, and finish it off with a flat, paved run under the sun."

Not exactly the epic mountain biking experience I was looking for, but racing Saturday morning was better than going to work and signing up kids for Summer Reading Club, so already I was ahead.

Early Saturday morning I packed up the car, and headed to Lake Almaden with my mountain bike. I was going solo on this race, the only one with the day off out of all my friends and family.
J and A productions says "come for the race, stay for the party!" but there didn't seem to be much of a party going on. I got the feeling that the sprint tri was sort of the warmup for the main event on Sunday when the "real" triathlons would show up to do the olympic distance. However, they were playing some great music, so I set up transistion rocking out to STYX.


Here's an interesting side note about bike racks in transistion. They are made for road bike tires. Here's an interesting side note about mountain bikes; generally mountain bike tires have fatter tires than road bikes. However, if you push down hard enough you can squeeze your mountain bike tire into the skinny slot made for road bikes. Here's an interesting side note about trying to get out of T1 on your bike and having to wrestle the front tire out of the skinny little slot made for road bikes; it SUCKS!

After spending way too much time trying to rack my bike, I headed off for body marking where they painted my age incorrectly with inedible ink on my calf, where despite two showers it still remains.

Then it was time to eat breakfast and wander around checking out the "party".


It was a very quiet party. So I ended up wandering around eating my peanut butter and jelly sandwich and contemplating Lake Almaden. There was a definite fragrance of "eau de duck poop" drifting from the shore on the warm morning breeze. I like lakes. And unlike most of the males I know, I love to swim in a lake, sparkling blue under the morning sun. But this lake did not sparkle. This lake glistened. Like an oil slick. With duck feathers floating on top. I decided to stop contemplating the lake and possible Ecoli infection, and headed back towards transistion.



8 am finally rolled around and it was time to get the promised "party" started. There was not that many triathletes there, 141 all together. And in my wave only 13. And yes, I now know what DFL means. Oops, did I give away the ending? Well, nobody was expecting the triumphant story of a biker coming back from the brink of illness to win the San Jose Mountain Bike Sprint Tri, were they? That story has been done to death.

The swim was 500 meters long, and one of my best tri swims to date. Unlike the mermaid tri where I struggled in the water, this time I swam strong. I sighted well. I wasn't struggling for breath, or position. It was just face to the water, and get it done. 12 minutes later I was out of the water and running up to transition.

T1 took forever. I forgot to bring a towel, so I struggled with socks and gloves over wet feet and hands. I finally got dressed, and with a mighty wrench, freed my bike from the rack and headed out.

When I first got my Rockhopper last year, I played around with having clipless pedals on my mountain bike. I hated it. I was always clipping out "just in case". I never got a good feel for the pedals, and it just made me nervouse and uncomfortable being attached to my bike. So I finally went to my kona flat pedals and my vans and have been a happy little mountain biker since then. Except the "Coalition Against Flat Pedals" has been on my case ever since. "If you're going to race cross country, you HAVE to be clipped into your mountain bike. If you're going to race you HAVE to have clipless pedals." Clipless pedals will make you faster, stronger, and better looking on the bike. You'll pedal faster, you'll climb better, you'll be a brand new person all together if you'll just put clipless pedals on your mountain bike!

Um. No. That's not true.

I finally caved, and put the clipless pedals on my bike for this race. There was going to be a lot of pavement, and a huge uphill road climb, and I figured being clipped in would help. I can honestly say, there wasn't any difference at all. I was still slow. The only difference being that now I had to stress over clipping out if I needed to put a foot down, and my balance on my bike was crap because of the smaller pedal. And not to mention the wasted time trying to clip back in. It irritated the hell out of me.

Actually the whole mountain biking course irritated me. Too much pavement, not enough dirt.
I had been a little worried about the huge hill in the middle of the course, so one of my goals for this race was to ride up that hill with no walking. I made it, nice and steady. I would pick a spot on the hill and focus on that, climbing and climbing, until I passed it, then I picked another spot. That got me all the way to the top. Then there was fun downhill, then more street. Lots more street.

Where was the frikin' dirt on this mountain bike course?!?!

I played cat and mouse with a yellow jerseyed 38 year old for most of the paved course, passing her on the hill, then losing her until we finally hit dirt. The fireroad was okay, but the best part was when we dropped down by the creekbed on the single track. Brush on either side, it was narrow, but flowly, and not too technical. Great for riding fast. I was flying along, enjoying myself, until I came up behind Red Specialized. I guess I need to work on my competitive edge, because I slowed down and rode behind her for a bit before realizing how ridiculous it is to be riding on someones wheel in a race. Unfortunately there was no place to pass on the narrow single track, so I couldn't just swoop around her.
So I kinda cleared my throat and said "Would it be okay if I passed you? I mean, when your comfortable with it?" I didn't know what else to do. She was a little sketchy on the bike, and I wasn't going to shove pass her, elbows out. Usually in the cross country races I've done so far, people either move out of the way, or shout back asking if you need to pass. It's kind of automatic, you try to stay out of the way, or get out of the way if someone is coming up behind you. Anyway, she pulled off to the side, and I took off, trying to catch up with yellow jersey again.

There was more single track, a small uphill climb, a short descent, then the stream crossing. I was at it before I realized what was happening. A volunteer was there yelling "stay to your right!" then I was in water up to my ankles, riding over rocks. That was fun, except my brain was yelling "oh no, your clipped in, your going to fall on the rocks!" So I clipped out, and didn't make it up the small hill on the other side of the stream. I hopped off the bike, ran up the hill, hopped back on, fussed with trying to get clipped in again (!!!!!!), then took off. I'm not saying I would have made it with my flats, but I'm betting my chances would have been better.

I caught up with yellow jersey again, and followed her up a short steep hill to the paved path above the creek bed. She was faster than me on the pavement though, and I lost sight of her as I got caught behind a group of women doing a walk-a-thon for MS. They were spread out along the path, chatting away. So I started yelling "on your left, on your left!". They mostly got out of the way, except for one determined lady who was not going to share the sidewalk. So I swung out around her, and back on the path and lost sight of yellow jersey completely. I caught up behind some guy on a grey bike and we rode for about a yard, and then I saw yellow jersey. She was down below me on the singletrack. Just about then the guy yelled back "where the hell did the trail go?'" Crap. I must have missed the turn off trying to go around the "walk- a-thoners".

So grey guy and I waited on our bikes until yellow jersey passed us, then we cut back into the course. I don't know if that was fair or not, but I did manage to catch up to yellow jersey on the run and apologize for missing the turnoff. She was very nice about it, so I didn't feel like a huge cheater.

T2 went a little more smoothly than T1, although my socks were soaking wet from the river crossing. I managed to get out on the run course with little fuss. I had a great run. Much better than the mermaid run when I couldn't catch my breath. My legs started out feeling heavy, but that soon went away. I ran steady, no walking for the three miles, and even managed a sprint across the finish line. I knew I wasn't even close to first place as they were already announcing the awards ceremony that would take place in 10 minutes.

Post race stupidity set in, and I wandered around a bit eating a bagel and drinking gatorade, still trying to find the "party". It was more like a gathering, than a party. Actually it was more like one of those staff parties in which people pretend to have fun chatting with coworkers, but they'd rather be off doing something else. At the moment I desperately wanted a shower, so I headed up to transition, packed up my stuff and headed home.

Swim: 12:42
Bike:54:27
Run: 32:11
I was 12 out of 13, so not dead last, but second to last. It was a good race for me though.