I've been racing triathlons for 3 years now, doing mostly Olympic distance, with the occassional sprint tri thrown in. I'm a mid-packer, generally very happy to finish in the upper third of my age group. I raced Uvas last year, but soon after that, I hurt my knee (which I do far too often) and sat out the rest of the season. Uvas 2005 is my first triathlon since then. I'm recovering from another knee injury, so my goal was to swim and bike as fast as last year and just to finish the run.

It rained as I drove to the course.

I don't know about you, but I tend start my race during my drive to the site. I find myself looking for people with bike racks and then drafting off them for a while before passing them. Maybe that's just me making up for my low lactate thesholds, but hey that's another story. Anyway, I did the same thing heading down 85 to get to this race site, which is tucked into the beautiful hills around Morgan Hill. Rain was falling quite heavily en route, but it cleared up before I parked, although the bike track was a bit slick for a bit.

The swim is one lap around a peninsula.

I would like to thank SVTC for the opportunity to do Donner Lake International Triathlon this year ^

The Tierra Bella would be my longest ride so far. My husband, Al, had done this ride a long time ago and we wanted to do it since it originates at Gavilan College in Gilroy about a mile from our house. We had ridden on parts of the course for shorter rides so I wasn't looking forward to the second hilly part of the ride, I wished I was doing the 35 mile ride. The ride heads out toward Uvas reservoir where the first rest stop was. The ride continues toward Morgan Hill and our second rest stop was at the Machado School. Both stops had a nice assortment of snacks to eat.

My husband and I survived the "Escape from Alcatraz!" held Sunday, June 12th!… This was our THIRD time to do this race… and I have to admit that it doesn't get any easier!… but it's the challenge of the course (especially the swim) that makes it great… otherwise anyone could do it!

Race day began early… (We stayed with our California triathlete friends who also raced)… and got up at 4:30 AM, drove to San Francisco, and biked down to the Marina Green to set up our transition area before boarding the bus to take us to Pier 39.

I really didn't even want to go to Wildflower this year. After last year's race, I thought, OK, four years in a row is enough, surely there must be something else to do in May besides camp next to 10,000 people in the heat. When signup time came around in December, I checked with my inner demons: sure enough, still don't want to go to Wildflower in 2005. Good deal, let's move on. Unfortunately, my husband Rob's inner demons were singing a different tune, to wit, he really needed to go to Wildflower and break 7 hours on the long course. Sigh. Might as well sign up for something.

Last year in September I did my first triathlon, the Olympic distance at Pacific Grove. I mainly come from a running background and I decided to join Team in Training to do Pac Grove since I had trained for a marathon with them. I figured I could get through the tri since I had done a couple of marathons. I knew my biggest problem would be the swimming since I had not done much swimming as an adult and the thought of open water was scary. My swim at Pac Grove was really slow as expected but I got through and onto the bike and run to finish.

Have you ever found yourself in the middle of a race thinking, "what have I gotten myself into?" No? Try to imagine that during your first 4 months of joining the insanity of triathlon, you sign up for your first international distance race. Then imagine that you decide to donate blood a few days before the race. Are you with me? Yeah, so I'll focus on the event itself instead of my performance. Just be aware of where I'm coming from. Okay, here's the report.

Weather:
Cold and cloudy with a steady wind. Water temp was reported to be 64F.

Swim: [00:20:28]
I heard various comments from people that they thought the swim was long. My time this year was 12 seconds slower than last year, but my swim times have been coming down a little from last year, so maybe there was some truth to these comments. The water level was lower, but that probably had no affect to make the swim course longer (don't think so anyway).

This author thing comes with frightening responsibilities, I now realize. Sometime right around the end of April, Indigo called up to tell me that Slow Fat Triathlete had inspired her friend Dorli to sign them both up for the Newport Beach Triathlon, though Dorli had never even contemplated a triathlon before. "Oh, that's great!" I enthused, flattered that my prose had stirred at least one documented person to action. "Wanna come do it with us? It'll be Dorli's birthday," Indigo asked.