A few weeks ago I had a great time participating in my first half Ironman competition. My buddy Joe Cole and I traveled down to Lubbock, Texas for the annual Buffalo Springs Half Ironman. It was an epic adventure and a real learning experience for me.
Getting to Lubbock was an adventure in itself. The trip takes approximately nine hours from Wichita and utilizes a multitude of small or low-volume highways. The landscapes change from the flat high plains of Kansas and Oklahoma to the scrublands of Texas with small river valleys along the way. The most unique features had to be the scrub badlands of Texas just to the east of Lubbock. The washed out ravines and barren scrub brush made for an imposing inhospitable looking place. Ironically, just a few miles to the west you travel up and out of the small washed out canyons onto the flat Staked Plains, an agricultural oasis.
The weather was half of the adventure. This summer has been very wet, with lots of rain and thunderstorms. The trip to Texas was no exception. Along the way, we traveled through a multitude of storms. In some places a line in the road would appear ahead, with the road beyond the line appearing darker before it disappeared into dark rains. Upon hitting the line in the road we would soon enter a tempest storm that would rock the small Kia and threaten to collude with the nearly bald front tires to create more of an adventure as we hydroplaned. Once, we turned on the radio to hear a severe thunderstorm warning. As the forecaster computer voice read the names of the town where the watch was, we looked up to see the same name on the sign we were passing. I almost peed my pants. Looking for shelter, I realized that the car was more stable than most of the corrugated metal structures we passed. Fortunately, we were able to continue with only a torrent of rain.
Once we arrived in Lubbock we immediately headed to the registration. We were within two hours of the things shutting down, so we practically jogged through the parking lot to the lobby. After the long car ride, the registration process was almost a triathlon by itself. I kept having to run from one table to the other, either forgetting information or getting lost on the course. Eventually, with Joe’s help I was able to navigate the registration process and get my numbers etc.
We ran into Tom T and the Ushers just outside the registration area. Unfortunately, the expo didn’t last very late and we had just enough time to catch the very end of it. The experienced triathletes did a huge favor by showing us the ropes and letting us know what last minute things we needed to purchase. Soon afterwards, we made a quick dash for the Italian restaurant up the street and headed for our hotel room.
We hit the hay pretty early in the night and got up very early in the morning. I think I was still asleep as I packed up my things. We headed out of the parking lot with a stream of red lights from all the other triathletes’ cars. As we got out towards the reservoir, you could see lighting to the north of the City. The landscape looked very barren, with power lines being illuminated by lightning in the distance.
After waiting in a line of cars to enter the course parking lot, we finally pulled into a field and started to disembark with the other races. It was pitch black outside and the only lights were the headlights and dome lights of the cars. Fortunately, Joe said that I’d better not roll my bike around too much because the weeds had stickers and there was a decent chance of getting a flat.
We carried our bikes to the road and deftly dodged the cars as we headed down to the transition area. It was a scene reminiscent of a sci fi movie. Everyone was dark silhouette against the bright lights of the transition zone, which was lit up like an alien craft landing zone in a movie. Body marking went really quickly, with the longest wait being the bike and helmet inspections.
The bicycles were all assigned positions on the racks according to your race number. It was a great system, reducing the usual worry about getting to the race early to get a great rack position. I ended up sandwiched in a group of serious looking triathletes. Nearly all of the bikes on the rack were worth thousands of dollars. It was totally wondering what the heck I was doing there until I got in line for the Porto potties. While standing in line, I heard stories of people who were in the same situation as I was. It was reassuring and totally cracked me up.
Once I got my wetsuit on and caught up with Joe, we made our way down to the swim start. The blessing by the Native American was very cool. Soon afterwards they started the pros. They practically ran 50 meters along the shore before they disappeared around the bend of the cove and off into the lake. Before long it was time for my wave. I decided not to take the running course around the cove and dove in for the swim.
The swim turned out to be one of my better ones; I felt comfortable almost the whole time and really had a great adventure doing it. I passed folks from the earlier heats, but was surrounded by folks from heats that followed my own. The strippers at the end were really different. They were really adept at getting the wetsuits off of folks.
I started out pedaling hard on the bike and passed lots of people on the first hill. Although my bike doesn’t have aero bars, it’s very light and I’m able to rock going up hill. Exiting out of the park, I passed a guy on what looked to be a P3 with a disk wheel - it was awesome. Approximately three miles into the ride I had to pull over and use a Porto let. I had swallowed about half the lake during the swim and needed to get a little more comfortable on the bike ha.
It started raining right after I got on the bike. The rain was never a squall, but did come down fairly steady at times. It did cause some pretty good spills. I didn’t witness any, but did see some of the aftermath. Tom T. reported that he saw a guy go down on his back and slide across the road. Ya, the country roads were a little slick.
The Buffalo Springs course takes you east with north and south zigg zaggs. It crosses through the creek that flows from the reservoir, with significant up hills and down hills on ether end. At one point I entered into the creek valley into a heavy rain at about 38 mph. It was a little scary, but lots of fun. The wicked section was the turning climb that twisted off into the distance in the rain. Going up I passed a lot of folks, coming down we were all riding the brakes trying not to go out of control.
We mostly had a wind out of the east during the ride out, so coming back was a lot easier with the wind. We went a little slower through some of the corners and turns because the volunteers were warring of dangerously slick corners. At one corner they were yelling out warnings that seven people had already crashed earlier that day. One of the nastiest climbs of the entire event was at the end of the course, you have to go up and over a hill to get back to the transition zone. It wasn’t too difficult, but it wasn’t a breeze either.
The run started out well. I was blasting through miles one and two. I passed lots of folks and thought that I might be on for a great time. However, things got a little more complicated after mile three. I started up a significant hill, with the sun overhead (it had finally stopped raining). After walking the hill, I just didn’t have the same get up and go. The next ten miles were a little tough, brief periods of jogging - with long sections of walking. It wasn’t very pretty. I think I might not have gotten enough fluids on the bike or didn’t have enough sodium. In any case I was able to persevere and did finish.
Overall the race was a great accomplishment and one that I’m proud of. Now, I just need to get back to another Half Ironman and kick some butt ha.
