Train-n-Tri: Wildflower - Competitor turned Spectator

I went to Wildflower to compete.

I ended up being a spectator.

And I had a great time.

I hadn't been feeling great the couple of days before we took off for Wildflower.

We left Friday morning at 5 a.m. and pulled our trailer. It was a long haul. After we parked and got organized we headed for the expo and to pick up our packets.

Jeanne, me and Orietta....thanks Robert for taking our picture.

Robert and I by the BIG TRI Girl!!!

Riding the bus to the expo to pick up our chips, numbers and tshirts.

In fact, Friday afternoon when we got to our campsite in the Redondo Vista loop, I even said to a couple of friends, "I am so tired, I feel sick."

And I was....but I thought I would get better before my Sunday race.

Saturday morning I felt kind of crappy, but well enough to get up and coach my friend through her day of racing the mountain bike triathlon.

I took pictures and cheered her on through her 500 yard swim, her 9 mile bike and her 2 mile run.

Jeanne getting ready to head to the swim start.

J

Jeanne in the background heading out on the mountain bike.

Orietta, Me and Robert P. being spectators. It's a hard job.

Jeanne at the finish line.

After the first day of Wildflower, I was exhausted from being a spectator.
I managed to attend my tri-club's potluck dinner in the campsite.

I didn't eat a lot for dinner.....but I did eat a cupcake.

Then I packed my tri-bag and set my alarm and went to bed.

When my alarm went off in the morning I knew I wasn't going to make it to the start line.
Just the thought of pulling on my wetsuit made me feel exhausted.
My throat hurt, my head hurt, my body ached and I was coughing.
The fact that the weather was cold, windy and raining only added to my misery.

Really it was not a choice...there was no way I could have competed and made it to the finish line. I would have fallen apart somewhere along the way....most likely in the transition area before the start of the race.

I wanted to pull the covers over my head and go back to bed.

But I couldn't!

My guy was racing and so was a lot of my friends.

So I dragged myself out of bed and spectated.

AGAIN!

Orietta, me and Birgit waiting for Robert to come out of transition.

Orietta was racing, too.

Robert finally came out of transition right before his wave. It was strange not to step foot in transition one time during the entire weekend.

Robert ran up the hill from the lake to transition. Lots of people walked.

We watched Robert ride out of transition on the bike...but the pictures were not good, they showed just the top of his head on the other side of the fence.

Once he was gone we knew we had some time to kill until he rode his bike in from the 26 mile HILLY WINDY ride.

So what do sick spectators do while killing time?

Then

The Wildflower Expo is small compared to some big marathon expos....but it kept us entertained and it was nice to duck into some of the booths just to stay out of the cold wind.

Birgit, Jeanne and me.

I don't know which booth this was, but they were offering wine.

And I was hoping the wine mixed with my antibiotics would make me feel better.

It helped.....but this helped more.

And I bought a couple of shirts and some socks.

We looked up Jeanne's time from her Mountain Bike Tri race and Birgit's time from her Long Course race.

I stopped by the Tri-California booth and thanked them for picking me to be one of their ambassadors.

Finally Robert biked in.

That's Birgit's arm waving at him.

Then we watched Robert run out of transition for the 6.2 mile run.

That's Jeanne's arm waving at him.

I went back to the wine booth. That and holding my Newton bag made Robert's run time pass quicker...or at least it seemed as if it was passing quicker.

Also I was hanging with friends and we entertained each other by pointing out all the rule violations people were making that day. We questioned where the officials were...especially when we saw a guy riding a bike WITHOUT a helmet.