Some of this may be a bit out of context, but this is basically what I sent to my friend's and family












Hey guys,

Well, this year so far certainly has been an experience. Most of you know that I haven't been around too much due to two big commitments this year. The first was the FE (Fundamentals of Engineering) exam. This test is an 8 hour exam over all of the principles that one is supposed to learn in engineering school. I've been out of school long enough to have forgotten most all of them, but with the help of my friend Joe Craer, we found the motivation to spend about 20 hours per week from January 1 – April 21 studying for the test. The test day finally came and went, and now we just have to wait the 12 weeks for the results. The test is pass/fail, and we're both keeping our fingers crossed.

Second to that priority, I decided to tackle my first Half Ironman distance Triathlon. A half Ironman consists of a 1.2 mile swim, a 57 mile bike road and a 13.2 mile run (half marathon). Years ago, a very athletically gifted friend of mine, Scott Michelson, competed in the Wildflower Half Ironman, and did well enough to qualify for the world championship race in Kona, Hawaii. However, he was 17 at the time and wasn't old enough to be eligible. Scott has been one of my best friends for the last ten years, and is the same person who owns the sailboat that we sail from San Diego to Catalina Island every year.

I thought this event would be a good one to jump into the half-iron distance. The race is considered the Woodstock of Triathlon. It takes place in Monterey County California, an hour from any gas stations, and draws one of the biggest crowds in the sport. The weekend long festival encompasses 3 events, the half iron triathlon and Mtn bike triathlon on Saturday, and an Olympic (shorter) distance event on Sunday. The total amount of entrants in the 3 events was 7,777 with an expected 40,000 spectators. The Wildflower half is billed as anything from "Hilly" to "grueling" to "the toughest half Ironman in the world". I don't know if it's the toughest in the world or not, but I had to admit I was a bit nervous.

Early on Thursday morning, my mom and I headed out of phoenix to drive the 650 mile trip. We made good time and passed North of LA by around 2 pm. We cruised the coastal 101 Highway north and passed through some very beautiful California country. Clear skies, rolling hills, and lots of wine vineyards. It was pretty cool.

Eventually we made it to the park, and were there early enough to snag an awesome campsite. The park surrounded San Antonio Lake, and the bike course was to loop this lake. We set up camp, and met our neighbors. Jeff Wrigley was in the campsite next to us, and he was in from LA with his family. He was also doing his first half distance, so it was good to meet someone else that shared the nervousness I had.

My mom and I spent Friday visiting the expo centers and just enjoying the country. I took it pretty easy and spent a good deal of time going over everything for race the next day.

Our campsite was around 2 miles from the start of the race, fortunately, they had a boat shuttle to run you from camp to the start. We caught the first shuttle to the race start at 6:15am. The pro's went off at 8:00 am, and being in the Men 25-29 group, I went off shortly after.

I made it into transition with plenty of time to spare. On the way I ate a banana, a whole wheat muffin and drank a Vitamin Water. The last Olympic distance race I did, I ran out of energy at the end, and I knew that nutrition was going to be a huge factor in this race. I knew I had to play my cards very carefully with what to eat because I wasn't experienced with this distance, and once you run low on energy, it's too late. The transition are was ridiculously huge. Transition is where you pass through when you switch from swim to bike and then again from bike to run. It's your own personal space, kind of like home base. I've seen transition for 700-800 bikes before but this was ridiculous. I talked to some of the people racking up by me, and set out my gear. I left transition to warm up a little bit. Left transition and headed to swim start.

The pro men qued up, and I was interested to see their route, from where we were, it was impossible to see the bouys, so I actually had no idea where the actual course was. I was going to be nowhere near the fastest swimmer, so I just planned on playing follow the leader. 8:20 am, the gun went off, and the swim started. I played it pretty cool, as there's no need to go off to hard, there's plenty of time to get the race sorted out. I swam pretty decent, and the wetsuit definitely helped with bouancy. I kept my heart rate low, in the 150's and made it out of the water in about 41 minutes for 1.2 miles. No records set, but it was a decent time for me.

I ran to transition, and the wetsuit came off pretty easy. There were still a lot of bikes on the rack in my area, which was good, it meant I beat some people of of the water. Transition went pretty decent, it ended up being around 2:02, decent including wetsuit removal and the size of the transition area. The bike started off with a very very steep ultra low gear climb that took about the first ten minutes of the ride. I was mentally prepared for the worst for this bike ride, so I didn't get too bummed at the climb. Pretty soon, I made it to the top, and the course was flat for a while. Speed picked up, and I was able to hold onto somewhere around 25mph on the flats, and I reeled in a lot of the people that swam faster me. Unfortunately the flatness was very short lived. This course was going to make up work for the 57 miles. I made sure to eat a energy gel every 50 minutes. It was tough at first because I didn't want them, and I didn't want to get out of aero position, but nonetheless, it was necessary. There were approximately 12 aid stations on the course where volunteers handed out fruit/water/energy drink/gel. I tried to get a Gatorade at each one and filled my aero bottle. At approximately mile 26 there was an aid station and I tried to grab a powergel from one of the volunteers. Unfortunately I dropped it. The volunteers were about 10 deep, so I had a chance go grab something from another volunteer. This volunteer was handing out banana halves though, not power gels. At this point the wind was picking up, and I needed my hands on the bar, so I tried to peel the banana in my teeth. I ended up biting the banana peel. This was absolutely the worst taste I have ever experienced!! Worst of all, it wouldn't go away, I had this bitter banana peel taste in my mouth for the next half hour. It's kind of funny now, but I really regretted dropping that gel at the time.
The winds were picking up, and the course had some very steep downhills. The bike would wobble on the fast downhills, and then the road would take a sharp turn. It was pretty tricky doing nearly 40mph on a bike, but I managed to pass a few people on the downhills. At mile 42, we had to deal with "Nasty Grade" a 5 mile 1200 foot climb. Honestly it wasn't as bad as I had feared. I made it out all right. By mile 50 I was ready to be off the bike. I made it the next 7 miles, and was beginning to feel some soreness in my quads. I looked at my watch and I got off the bike at around 3 hours 50 minutes. This meant around a 3hour 07 minute split. It looked like I should have a sub 6 hour race in the bag.

I made it back into transition, dropped off the bike, changed into running shoes and put on some more sunblock, transition 2 took around 1:45.

I started on the run, and my strides were pretty comical. After that long of a ride, I was used to pedaling in circles, so it was going to take a few minutes of running for my legs to stretch out. The run began with a climb up some stairs and immediately headed off onto a service road up and down hills. I was feeling ok, but even the little hills were tough at this time. I kept going and had switched form Gatorade to water handoff's. the miles were taking a lot longer than I had hoped, and I was hoping the course would flatten out, so I could make some time up. By around mile 5 through the woods, I got exactly what I needed! I ran through an aid station in the woods, and it was full of about 15 completely naked Cal-poly Coeds!! I got high fives and was sent on my way, very motivated I might add. Thanks Cal poly!
At around mile 7, the run made it back to park roads, and we had to run about 1.5 miles down a pretty steep hill, only to turn around and run back up the stupid thing. I checked my watch and that sub six hour race I thought I had in the bag didn't look possible. I gave it what I had left, made it up the hill, and down the last one, ran strong though the finish and made it through in 6 hours 4 minutes.

There were about 2200 ½ IM starters, 1900 completed the race, of the 1900, I placed 687 out of some of the best triathletes in the country/world. I'm happy with my time and even more happy with the experience, it was pretty awesome. It was great to spend a weekend out in such great country, and get to hang out with my mom. She was awesome, she drove, made food, helped carry my gear, and photographed the whole event. Thanks mom!

Well, there you go, that's the race report, Sorry it was so long, but that's the whole story. I'm attaching just a few of the awesome pics my mom took, so if you want to see more, let me know.

I hope everyone is doing well, and hope to spend more time with all of you soon.

Cheers,

Shane