Buffalo Springs Lake "race" and extra adventure report

I really enjoyed seeing all the Triatomics folks out on the BSLT course. I've done the race a number of times many years ago (I think the first in 95?), but I never had so much fun actually seeing folks that I know during the race. And, having dinner with Triatomics folks the night before was a blast. This is a really large amount of drivel, but, hey, if you have nothing better to do, I won't stop you from reading it!

My goal for BSLT this year was to use it for practice, mainly a nice catered training day, for Ironman Wisconsin, coming up in September. That's the reason for the quotes around "race" in the title. I wanted to practice IM race pace (or what I think it might be), eating/drinking properly, and just boost my confidence as I haven't done a longer tri for about 5 years. (Frank- by the way, your post was inspirational!) I think I was successful in meeting just about all goals but that last one.

So, let me backtrack, as I've gotten a few questions about the fire mentioned in Bill's email. Mike & I left on Friday, after I got done frantically finishing up store work so I could leave for a couple days. I wanted to leave Friday because I have some ruptured discs in my back and sitting in a vehicle always irritates them. That way, the swelling/pain in my back would have one day to subside before race day. We planned to camp in our slide-in truck camper for two nights. We have dogs and our camper is nice and comfy/cool for the hounds while we are out and, with a shower, nice for the racing. (Picture of the camper before Friday shown.) We packed up the camper and headed off the hill around 3:30 PM. Mike noticed smoke coming out of the camper when he looked in his rearview mirror, when we were just about a mile past the Rio Grande on 502 east. He pulled over and we got out. When we opened the back door, black smoke billowed out. We had a fire somewhere. The location was difficult to discern with the amount of smoke. Mike grabbed the fire extinguisher and worked to put it out. I called 911 on my cell phone. In retrospect, I was lucky to get service there as I later had difficulty getting service in other nearby spots to call the insurance company. Mike had the presence of mind to disconnect and remove the propane tank on the camper. I grabbed the dogs out of the truck. Mike realized he couldn't get the fire out with the extinguisher and reclosed the back door to try to slow the fire with less oxygen. We then began the, what felt like really long, wait for the firefighters. A police officer happened to come by and blocked road traffic. I also heard him call on the radio and say to expedite the fire engine. We now had some pretty big flames shooting out of the camper. Mike grabbed my store laptop from inside the truck. At this point, we weren't sure the truck would make it. Mike & I sat with the dogs a long distance away and waited. Was it 10 minutes? I am not sure. Once the fire engine showed up, they got out the blaze pretty quickly. Thankfully, the truck was saved. The camper appears to be a total loss, along with some contents. Some items, like Mike's Kindle, managed to survive but with some real issues! That is Mike's bike on top, near where the fire apparently started. Once the fire was out, the question was- what do we do now? Did any of my tri gear or bike (all inside the camper) survive? I think we both felt a little numb. The firefighters told us they thought they got everything out, but there could still be an ember somewhere, so we should drop the camper as soon as possible. We plugged up the hole in the side, where the fire burnt through, as best as we could and turned back to Los Alamos to drop the camper off at the RV lot. Mike braved the stench and pulled out as many personal items as he could that survived.

The firefighters have arrived and begin getting the hose ready. Hooray!

The fire burnt a hole through the side of the camper.

Mike ventured inside the mess to pull out the gear.

Mike's Kindle, unfortunately, was treated more like kindling!


At this point, I am thinking the race is no more. But, Mike was determined to have the show go on. He told me that he wasn't going to spend the weekend moping. We brought home the stinky gear, I sorted the laundrable items outside into piles of "really stinky" and "maybe washable" and headed to the laundromat. (Our washer didn't seem like a good idea for the first wash!) Mike started hosing down my wetsuit and working on my bike. He cleaned all the fire crud (plastic melted from the ceiling, foam from the fire fighters, soot, ?) from the bike frame and wheels. He replaced the tires, fixed the cabling, handlebar tape, etc. When I got back from the laundromat (had to leave as it was closing), he was still hard at work and continued fixing the bike through the wee hours of the morning. My hero! The only thing we had to leave on the bike that was still a bit nasty was the bike seat. My helmet survived but the plastic/styrofoam had puffed out like popcorn, so it was unusable. Mike offered his helmet. (An advantage of being about the same size as your husband!) I redid the laundry a few more times at home to try to salvage it. Most was too stinky, so I let it on the balconies of the house, so it would not stink up the house while we were gone. I found that the La Quinta in Lubbock had rooms and was dog friendly. Around 2 AM, we hit the sack. At 7 AM the next morning, Mike then drove me to Lubbock. The plan was to replace what was too stinky to use because of the burnt plastic/electrical smell at the Expo.

The Expo came through and I was able to get what I needed, although I was about $300 dollars lighter. :-) The only thing that made me nervous was wearing a brand new style of goggles. I usually wear the junior-sized ones as they fit my face better without leaking. In the end, I would just have a stinky bike seat and bike shoes and everything else was good. With all this crapzola having happened, I decided that they just wouldn't dare leak on me and race day would go super smoothly. Thankfully, I was wearing my running shoes when the fire broke out, so I didn't have to worry about getting blisters from new shoes.

And, to an extent, it did go smoothly. We left the hotel a little before 5:00 AM and got stuck in a little traffic. (James, you were right! We left a little earlier than I would have without your warning. Thanks for that or I would have needed more time.) We brought a light, but I didn't use it right away and managed to put a cut down the entire length of my shin from one small, but very thorny bush near our vehicle. Won't make that mistake again. Oh, and Texas has those mosquitoes. Forgot about those pesky little guys! I felt a little rushed and out of sorts for setting up transition as I didn't have my normal tri bag or gear. BSLT has changed a bit and is a lot more uptight than 10 years ago. The folks didn't like the way my number was on my bike, so I had to let a lady fix it with duct tape before I could get into transition. I was planning on putting it on better once it was in the rack. But, okay. I'll just go with the flow. I didn't really get to examine the swim in/bike out/bike in/run out spots very well. I usually try to figure that out, but felt a little tight on time. I decided not to worry about it as it would be obvious at the time. (Which it was.) Made my way to the swim start and to get my wetsuit on. I tried using using silicon spray for the first time to put on the wetsuit. Worked well as it was much easier to wiggle in. Dang! The cement was rough on the feet, though. In my adventure and repacking, I had forgot my extra pair of shoes.

The swim went well (for my sort of swim)- I spent a couple of minutes in the water before my wave started and determined that the new goggles were good. Much less anxiety after that. Some friendly ladies and I, seeding ourselves towards the back of our wave, chatted. Suzanne from Louisana was funny. The swim course was different than it used to be and I couldn't really see the buoys from the start. I think it started in a slightly different spot, where folks were now warming up. I decided it didn't matter as I'd have plenty of folks to follow and would spot the buoys soon enough. She said, "By golly, I can dog paddle for 1.2 miles if I have to." The other lady remarked that we back of the packers get more bang for our registration buck as we get longer entertainment. Before I knew it, our wave was off. I decided to start to swim around the point, instead of splashing around at the edge of the water like a lot of folks were doing, after I felt a rock under my foot and thought I could turn an ankle. I am not a strong swimmer and the swim always worries me the most. My typical race-day swim thoughts circulated through my head, "Is that the right buoy? Why is everyone else swimming way over there? Are they off course or am I? Why does this person keep swimming on my legs? Haven't they already figured out that I am here? I don't really want to kick them . . . Why does this person keep crossing my path? Are they not swimming straight or am I? Where the heck am I on the swim course? Haven't I already been swimming for long enough that I should be pointed towards the finish?" I decided my goal for the swim, during the swim, was just to swim straight and navigate well. I think I did that. For the first time in my tri race experience, though, I manged to suck in a good amount of water on a breath. I didn't see anyone going by, maybe it was a wave? The wind was picking up. I repeated my swim mantra in my head that "I am in control", treaded water for a few minutes, coughed it out, remembered Suzanne's comment on the dog paddle and smiled, and then continued on (freestyle). Towards the end, I started to get a little depressed that my progress seemed so slow around the course and thought of what Sally Edwards would do with the ladies starting the Danskin tris, right before their wave would start. She would make them all shout, "I am a great swimmer." I repeated that a few times in my head, as I felt the waves start to roll me a bit. I could now see the finishing spot and was happy. One part down!

One new feature, for me, anyway, were the wetsuit "strippers". As an "old-timer" triathlete, I didn't see them in previous races. Anyway, my stripper had to tell me twice to sit on my butt. Ooops! I wasn't processing information very well at that point. It was actually pretty quick. I think faster than I usually get my wetsuit off. Transition went okay and I was on the bike. I got trapped by a slow guy on the way out of the chute, but was able to pass him once it widened out a bit.

But, arrgh, the bike number. What the lady had done didn't work. I should have redone it when I got the bike into transition. Soon, a tie disappeared. I didn't have anything to really fix it with. So, it just flapped in the wind and hit me in the legs. Then, one of the safety pins broke. Around mile 30, the last tie came off. The rain didn't help and was making it soggy so that the attachments didn't work. I didn't want a penalty for not having my bike number visible, so I stuck it under my hand and just held on to it until the bike finish. In the future, I might try that spray glue. Mike uses it to glue his road race number on jerseys and it seems to work really well.

I was a little worried about the wax on the brand new tires making the road in the rain even slicker, so I took the descents pretty gingerly. Especially after seeing some folks on the side of the road that crashed with some nasty road rash. I ate some Gus during the bike and drank quite a bit of sport drink. I started getting nerve pain in my back around mile 20 of the bike. Definitely from the drive the day before. Not so good. Stayed with me for the rest of the race and made running not so much fun, but it didn't get as screaming bad as it could have been. My bike started making a strange tinky, creaky kind of noise in the front. Not sure what it was, but I worried a bit that my front tri-spoke carbon fiber HED wheel may not have liked the fire temps. Ignoring it turned out to be a good decision as nothing broke on me. The cool temps were nice in that I didn't feel like I was underhydrating at all. There's a Triatomics jersey! Who is it? Oh, its James. And, there is Barbara. Cool! The last flat, straight part back was nice and faster, maybe some tailwind. Feeling okay at this point. I narrowly avoided a disaster when a guy had his bike upside down across the shoulder to fix a flat. I looked behind and a car was coming. I braked to allow for some extra space to get over into the road. Then, the bike fell down, right in front of me. If I hadn't had slowed, I don't think I would have been able to dart out enough to avoid the fallen bike with the car there. I could tell the guy felt bad and I think he shouted sorry at me.

Then, came the run. By the time I hit the bike/run transition, it was, ahem, clear that I needed to use the portapotty. A triathlon first for me! As I was in there, I decided it was good practice for the Ironman. ;-) I must admit that BSLT is well-equipped as they had a bunch of them at transition and there was no wait for one. (The ample number of aid stations are also pretty well-stocked, even for the back of the packers. In other races, they are sometimes out of items by the time I get there.)

I felt a little achy at this point and have not been run training like I should. So, I was pretty apprehensive about being able to do the run. I had my Garmin Forerunner on for pacing myself and my goal was just to do 10 minutes per mile and finish. I saw Martin heading in. He looked so comfortable! He was running, but was he even breathing? Didn't seem like it. Oh, to be going that direction!

I came up on a guy right away going about the pace I wanted and we started to chat. We had both been in Iraq and talked about our experiences. We encouraged each other and it really saved the day for me. The run went by pretty fast. Considering. My tendons or ligaments or something on the outside of my knees were hurting. Not the muscle tired kind of hurt, but more the I-hope-I-am-not-damaging-something pain.

My stomach was feeling a little funky and my back was hurting and his plan was to walk the aid stations and that sounded good to me, so I did that as well. I think the short break every mile definitely helped me get through the run and kept me able to drink without making my stomach worse. Oh, there is Bill Bearden! Go Bill! Headed in that lovely direction of the finish line. I tried some Coke at mile 10. Never did that before in a race, but sounded good at the time. Seemed to pick me up a little bit. Might do in the later stages of IM. Then, there was "Grey Shirt". Grey Shirt would run a little faster than my pace and then walk for a while. We would just about catch up to Grey Shirt before he'd start running again. My running buddy for the first 11 miles was having some knee pain, so he dropped off. When Grey Shirt walked for longer and I was going to catch up with him, I called out and told Grey Shirt that trying to pass him was keeping me going for the last few miles and he needed to step it up in order to pull me to the finish line. He laughed and we continued playing the game, almost to the finish, where he decided he was just going to walk for a while. I encouraged him to start running again, he did, and just ended up sliding by him near the end. Us back of the packers might not get awards, but I don't think anyone else could have more fun!

Turns out I was a few minutes slower than my time 5 years ago, but my swim was slightly faster. I wanted to finish in under 7 hours, so I was okay with the 6:51. I saw some really impressive times and placings from other Triatomics members! Way to go!

I do like the BSLT, even though it has gotten more uptight over the years. Unavoidable, I guess, with the increase in participants. I do like that it is well supported with good traffic control at the intersections, has really clear course marking, and has plenty of well-stocked aid stations. If you have pets and plan to bring them, by the way, the La Quinta in Lubbock is situated in a good spot and was a nice clean, friendly, comfortable hotel.

I didn't quite meet my goal of inspiring confidence for the IM. My back was hurting. Not sure I could have doubled the distance with that pain. And, I have never been sore after a race and, boy am I ever, after this one. I pretty much knew the location of every muscle fiber, ligament and tendon in my body the day after. Legs still sore on day two. Not sure what went wrong with that. Too little training? But, I've done this race before on what seems like less training. I think I ate properly during the race and walked around/stretched properly after the race. So, feeling more jittery about the length of the IM than before. I guess I might as well go try it. If I fail, I fail. Better than not trying it at all. I did have fun. Which has been my main goal in triathlon through the years.

By the way, they had a postcard for the Half-Iron in Austin in October in the race packet. Anyone planning on doing that race? I went to grad school there and like Austin. I signed up, thinking its a good chance to visit. Not sure how keen I will be on doing it a month after the IM, but we'll see.

My husband Mike, by the way, was my big hero in this. I would not have even attempted to go to the race without his encouragement and his hard work getting my gear fixed up again. I was overwhelmed by the fire and he made me feel absolutely confident we could get there and I could still have a great race. He never wavered in his determination to get what we needed to do done. And, he did all of this with his newly plated collarbone and a still fairly painful shoulder and limited range of motion. Thank you, Mike!