Napa Half

On a beautiful, sunny day, at Lake Berryessa 5 Kaniacs represented at the NAPA Half on Saturday. After the obligatory fannying around setting up a perfect transition area which I would eventually find destroyed - more later - we sauntered down to the water to listen to the mandatory race talk by the head honcho. Lulled by the many announcements that the swim would be organized in the "unique envirosports self-seeding" method, we all agreed the second wave was the one to go in. Unfortunately, head honcho preceded to announce that there would only be two waves - first wave was for those who could swim and the second for those who couldn't. Since I have been training for 6 months to prove I could swim, I had to go in the first wave. Problem was that as we started walking down into the waves to warm-up, get acclimated to the water etc. he suddently said GO and the first wave took off - except for me. His saying GO at this point presented me with quite a few problems. First - I was not warmed up - wet - or even slightly damp yet. Second I did not have my goggles on. Third I had not started my watch and lastly I was going pee in my wetsuit. The first wave disappears in a mass of churning water and I am stood in the shallows with wave two looking at me while I commune with the gods. An embarrassed smile and I am off - finally.

Now, I had signed up for this race for a couple of reasons - one was that I did not want to take out a second mortgage trying to pay for wildflower and its associated costs. Secondly, the camping thing for me prior to a race is less than ideal. Third - I have a buddy who lives in Napa who I could stay with but probably overshadowing all this was the the fact that Wildflower Long course has kicked my ass twice and I wanted to have some success in a half ironman before going the distance at Couer -d'Alene - what is with that name anyway - are we in France???

Driving in to the race site I realized that this was NOT going to be a gentle rolling hills type race I could crush. Even the sheep in the fields looked out of breath and i swore I saw a mountain goat wearing a camelback. My fears were confirmed when i realized the swim was slightly uphill against a current the whole way round - I attribute this to my body and the fact that the Bernoulli fluid mechanics equation mysteriously breaks down around me. This was true on physics tests too. I see large rotund square shape people glide by me all the time cavorting like dolphins and yet even in my new streamlined body I feel like a barge towing coal.

Finally the swim ends and, as a special treat, the Envirosports people had set up the path back towards the Bikes covered in sharp gravel, broken glass, razor blades and discarded hypodermic needles. This partly accounts for me extending my time in tranistion to slightly over an hour. The other reason was that although perfectly set up - I could not get my coffee maker to work - even though it is guaranteed to produce "Freshly brewed coffee in under two minutes" - I will be taking that back to the triathlon store!

So the bike starts and its rolling up hills all the way down the lakeside with a very nice tailwind giving me a very nice but illusory average speed of around 49mph - but as we all know those tailwinds don't last and sure enough as we start to turn and climb it becomes a nastly little headwind. At this point I was feeling strong and was powering along in my big cookie and also having fun as I passed people - passing with some of Pete's favourite phrases - "Up Up up" I said to one guy "Huh?" he replied " Lookin good" I said to one young gal (who was actually looking good) - and finally "You're going the wrong way" to one old lady who in fact was going the wrong way - though I think in fairness it was obvious that she was not doing a half ironman - at least judging by the groceries in her basket.

By now while still riding strong I am realizing that this is not an easy bike - while it does not have a hill the length and steepness of Nasty grade - it has lots and lots of hills and that combined wth the headwind made it a very tough bike course. My other Kain teammates due to their superior swimming ability, are way ahead of me - they then proceed to get further ahead of me due to their superior athletic ability and fitness levels. Finally I get back to T2 to find a large overweight woman snoozing in a chair in my transition area. "Excuse me" I say politely - "can I get in here - I am in the middle of a race" "Oh Sorry "she says and starts wallowing around trying to get up, like a large wallowy thing trying to stand at a "Wallowy things only" party. She crushed my swim goggles and got tangled up in my wetsuit, fiinally I managed to extricate my run gear from all the extra adipose tissue in the area and get on to the run - but I was two Gu's down - I had a very strong suspicion as to there location - that and the trail of "Banilla" down her chin.

So on the Environsports website there are these pictures of people running on trails through tree's, smiling and idiot that I am, I thought that would apply to this runcourse, but no. We run back along the first part of the run course - I can honestly say I do not think there was a single flat section on the run unless it was the abs of Sarah and Rob Pennell as they gaily ran up and down these hills like lambs cavorting in the spring. After making the mistake of trying to stretch a quad muscle at the final turnaround and getting a huge muscle cramp as a reward, I spent a minute or two stretching it out before finally making it back to the finish, where Rob gallantly ran in the other Kain finishers, receiving 4 finishers medals and 9 t-shirts in all the confusion.

Ultimately I finished 30 minutes faster than my previous best Half Ironman race so all in all a good day.

Kain finishers: Rob Pennell 5.31 - 11th in age group and 41st in men 43rd overall
Sarah Sawulski 5.34 , 1st in her age group and 3rd overall woman J
ohn Magee 5.55, 17th in age group, 65 overall
Jill Stevenson - 5.59 2nd in her age group and 15 overall in the women
Tim Hornak 7.10, 6th in age group
Old Lady on the bike - DNF
Lady in my transition area - DNS (Did not start)

Good job All! Kain was well represented