Tjalling Ypma - 8/7/06

There were few passengers on the 6am ferry from West Seattle to Vashon Island, but the knowing smiles and the race t-shirts soon revealed that everybody on board was headed for the Xterra triathlon that morning. It was good to renew acquaintances with folk I had met at the Solstice Xterra a few weeks before, and since many of them had previously done the Vashon Island race all I had to do was follow their cars south from the ferry to Dockton Park to find myself at the start. The race setting was magnificent, with the warm sun shining on the placid salt water of Quartermaster Harbor, embraced by two long forested arms of land and dotted with small yachts at anchor. It is a beautiful sheltered bay with very little traffic; an ideal place for the 800m swim that was to start our day.

The morning of the race featured an extreme low tide, with the wide muddy stretches of shore thus exposed creating headaches for the organizers in terms of locating the start and exit of the swim. Fortunately the field at Xterra races is small and the atmosphere casual, and everybody was quite content to relax and wait until the organizers had figured things out. Eventually we were instructed to go out to the end of a long jetty for the start. I like to get my temperature adjusted before the start, so I jumped into the pleasantly cool water, not quite realizing that I would be treading water for the next 15 minutes or so as the last of the competitors made their way over and the final race announcements were made. The ad hoc swim course was marked by a few small buoys that barely broke the surface, but since I am not usually in the lead on the swim that was not a major concern for me. The starting signal was given and off we went through the buoyant salty waters.

Our first turn was at a small floating dock which I didn’t see until I almost crashed into its side, forcing me to squeeze between it and the other guys cutting the corner as tight as possible. The next buoy was totally invisible to me so I just swam along in the convoy. At one point I saw a small buoy to my right that might have been a course marker, but there was no way to tell. I did manage to find the buoy that marked the point where we had to turn sharp left to begin the shoreward leg, but exactly which path to select between the anchored yachts was a matter of guesswork. It didn’t seem to matter, and I was really enjoying the swim in that beautiful setting; the buoyancy making me feel fast and the few bodies around giving me a sense of competition without having to fight for space. I soon found myself dragging my fingers over the shoreside shallows, but still way out from dry land, so resorted to some undignified dolphin leaps till I got close enough to shore to be able to run without having to wade through too much water. The soft mud was slippery, inviting runners to fall flat on their faces, with bits of shell and crab waiting to damage bare feet, but I made it to transition unscathed and sorry to end this part of the experience. I have really enjoyed all of the relatively few salt water race swims that I have done.

As I transitioned I checked the bike racks to see if the guy I wanted to beat was ahead of me. I was not able to tell, but halfway up the long paved climb that led to the start of the single-track I saw and passed him. There was motivation for me to turn up the heat on the climb, where I am fairly strong, in hopes of holding him off on other parts of the course where he might be stronger. I hit the single-track at the same time as young Luis, who I gave the go-ahead so I could draft off him. We tore through the first tight sections of the course, which were technically easy but required constant braking and acceleration as we twisted through the bush. As we were spat out onto a jeep track we were amazed to see a bunch of guys ride up the track from the right, evidently having missed a turn and taken a shortcut. While I am sure their error was unintentional I was annoyed when none of them admitted their error to the officials after the race, since they knew what had happened and certainly saved themselves quite a bit of time, correspondingly skewing the results.

I was dismayed to find my competitor right behind me just as we entered the next narrow stretch, and he passed me when I made a mistake and wound up in the bushes. Moments later he nose-dived into a gully and I shot by, with several guys on my wheel blocking the track and keeping the competition well behind. Traffic was fairly dense on that first part of the track, with the short swim not having spread out the field much, so any minor crash or major obstacle led to a pile-up of riders. Fortunately significant technical challenges were few, though some very sharp unannounced corners and a few logs spiced things up. The riding was on the level of Lost Giants on Galbraith, fairly flat but narrow and twisty with a few very fast straights, and hemmed in by thick dense vegetation at most times. People were pleasant, giving way or asking to pass as appropriate, and the pressure to push hard diminished as a succession of crashes spread the racers further apart.

When the trail surface changed to soft sand I knew we were near the end of the first of our two 6-mile loops. That meant a fairly steep winding descent on a very loose surface, culminating in an ugly little drop with considerable endo potential into the parking lot. I knew enough to fly fast over the drop and onto the safe runout, with my butt over the backwheel and my belly behind the saddle. A dash across the road and between the cones to have my number marked for completing the first lap, and off I went again on lap two.

Things went well at first, with less traffic meaning I was more relaxed and had more time to see obstacles ahead. Knowing the course now made it easier, and watching the familiar landmarks slip by made it seem shorter. Just as things looked good I began a succession of minor crashes, caused by the chain slipping on the worn middle chainring just as I was putting on the pressure to overcome some obstacle. I had to pick myself out of the nettles several times and waste a lot of time sorting myself out and walking the bike past stuff I ought to have simply blown by. Trailing bits of bush I plowed over the last sandy humps, unable to crank over the top as the chain slipped. I was thoroughly frustrated at getting physically beaten up and needlessly losing hard-won ground to folk I thought I had put away safely but who now came back past me. Fortunately the guy I had targeted was not amongst them, and I tore through transition with the firm intention of keeping him at bay.

The four-mile run starts with a good climb on a fairly wide smooth surface, but it was hard to get up much speed as the muscles tried to adjust from biking to running uphill. I was glad when the course leveled out and dove into the bush, soon becoming a narrow twisting trail. I pounded along as hard as I could go, accelerating downhill and retaining momentum in the corners, all too aware of the competition coming up behind. Up and down on the narrow path, leaping over roots and rocks, and anxiously consulting my watch since that was the only way in which I could tell how far I had gone based on a likely speed of 7.5 minutes per mile. The minutes crept by painfully slowly while the pain accumulated depressingly rapidly. Only one or two guys passed me, but I passed several and I was pleased with my efforts; if that guy passed me he was going to have to work very hard to do it. A glance behind on a short straight stretch of road showed that he was not in sight, so I relaxed a little more as I flew back into the bush and the last stretch of steep sandy downhills and nasty little drops. I was tiring as I finally emerged from the bush, so I told the girl who had been on my heels for the last section that she had free rein to take the line ahead of me. She moved ahead but failed to launch a good sprint on the downhill finish, so I yielded to temptation and my long legs carried me past her.

I was a mess at the end; covered in dirt, sweat, scratches, blood and bruises. It felt great. It felt even better when a look at the interim results suggested that I had won my division. As it turned out I only got second, but the splits were interesting: at the last transition the guy who won was 30 seconds ahead of me, while I had another 30 seconds on the next guy. Despite my running as hard as I could the guy ahead gained over a minute on me, but I was pleased to see that I had put a minute a mile on the guy behind – a nice reward !

The swim in this race was great, though it would be nice if more clearly visible turn buoys were provided. The bike is fun and not very technical, though a whole lot more technical for high-speed riding than I had been lead to expect. The one problem there is the maze of tracks through the dense bush which makes course marking and following a major challenge. The run is very enjoyable, with firm footing on a very twisty track. I did enjoy the race and the goofy stuff at the finish (including a push-up competition), and the incredibly beautiful bayside setting of the race will stick in my memory for a long time.

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