Tjalling Ypma - 7/11/10

Bellingham was extraordinarily well represented at this small race in relatively far-away LaGrande, Oregon. If you count Damian as an honorary ‘hamster there were eight of us, probably constituting about 10% of the field. For my youngest son Menko it was the first triathlon ever; a harsh introduction to the sport since this is a tough course. But Menko is handy on the mountain bike, he had swum across Padden in one of my ancient wetsuits a few times, and he is young and tough, so we decided he could handle it.

LaGrande is about 400 miles from Bellingham, involving a 7-hour drive each way. We left town very early on Friday morning so as to get there with enough time to pre-ride the bike course. It was a pleasant, peaceful drive, and it was especially nice to see the sun once we crossed the mountains, welcome relief from the dismal spring weather we have been enduring in Bellingham. As usual we pitched our tents beside Morgan Lake, the site of the race, a couple of miles outside the town on a plateau in the Blue Mountains. It has been a very wet cold spring there too, so everything was lusciously green and dotted with bright yellow flowers. The downside was that the course was muddy and the lake water was very cold – we heard that there had been snow on the course earlier in the week.

We took it very easy on the pre-ride, sparing our legs for the more serious business that awaited us the following day. We only rode the main loop and then walked the pipeline drop; just enough to see that Suicide Hill was as suicidal as ever and to remove some loose debris from the better lines on the drop. It was not particularly reassuring to notice a cow walking around with an Xterra course marker in its mouth; we tried to reposition the soggy marker once the cow was done with it but it rather fell apart. We combined the race packet pickup with the usual spaghetti feed at Mary Ellen’s home, which was also a welcome opportunity to renew acquaintances with old Xterra friends and rivals. There were four competitors in my age group. Two of them I knew to be no great threat, but a newcomer from Bend OR had potential for trouble. The temperature dropped sharply as the sun descended, and we were well ensconced in our sleeping bags by 9pm, nodding off to the distant sounds of cows and coyotes and the odd splatter of rain on the flysheet.

Next morning dawned cold, as it always seems to do at this race. People were stomping around in gloves and wooly hats, looking anxiously at the heavy gray cloud masses and wondering whether we were going to get rained or hailed on. Fortunately the race only starts at 9, by which time it had warmed up a tad and there were even signs of sunshine. Nobody was eager to get into the frigid lake, but eventually we dribbled in and tried to get acclimated. A few strokes were enough to tell me that it was going to be a challenging swim, with the cold water combined with the altitude making it hard to control heart-rate and breathing and synchronize those with a decent stroke rate. Within seconds of the announcer calling two minutes to the start some mysterious signal was taken to be the actual start and the entire pack set off. I knew enough to take it very easy from the outset, but within about 200 meters I could feel the beginnings of oxygen deprivation and the onset of a minor panic attack. I’ve been there before in swims at high altitude; it is an entirely miserable experience but quite survivable. I just took a break and switched to breaststroke for a while, making slow progress towards the first turn buoy. It was hard to watch the pack swim away, knowing I was otherwise capable of being near the head of affairs. My vantage point did give me the opportunity to see the usual wildly erratic navigation, with a couple of swimmers apparently heading for the second buoy before they got anywhere near the first one. Once at the buoy I had acclimatized enough to be able to start a slow freestyle again, and as time progressed I began to feel very much better and resumed my usual pace. By the time I was on the home stretch I was passing a succession of tail-enders, and could even wryly establish that the pack was doing its usual bizarre thing of swimming over to the right while the finish buoy was way over to the left. The bike racks were nevertheless distressingly bare by the time I got myself out of the water and had wrestled my way out of the wetsuit and into my bike shoes and gloves.

The rocky lakeshore part of the bike course had been greatly eased by having a deep layer of bark spread over it, so it is now very fast. From there it’s a high-speed dash on a gravel road followed by a short double-track climb through the cow pasture and cow pies to the top of the pipeline drop. I passed Kristen on that little climb, and felt I was doing okay on the drop when a sudden white blur by my side turned out to be Kristen bombing past. Oh, to be young and resilient again ! I had to slither through the sloppy mud ruts at the bottom of the hill and then work hard on the long climb up the wide gravel road before I caught up with her again. She seemed to be struggling with the altitude, but I felt quite good so I pushed on hard as the road deteriorated to a track and then became a rocky goat path. I was glad to reach the top aid station because it marked the end of the biggest climb of the course. On the downside that also meant the evaporation of my comparative advantage as a good climber. Suicide Hill was just ahead, and as usual I chose discretion over valor and walked the steepest part. Equally traditionally I complained to the race photographer on the steepest slope that once again his pictures would show me walking instead of flying downhill. The drop actually looked quite rideable this time, and I resolved to give it a real go next time. It was good to get back on my steed and pound along the next flat and downhill stretches, through the bog in the valley bottom, and then climb the long rise to the stile over the fence atop the next hill. I thought I was doing well until I heard a familiar voice call my name behind me – that darn Kristen was on my tail again !

At least that had the effect of spurring me on, so I pushed hard over the next wooded stretch, up Oh Shit Hill (ride it to find out why it is thus named), through the Rock Garden and up the last winding climb before starting the long descent through the big beautiful flower-dotted meadows. Suddenly my pedals got jammed; I assumed chainsuck had occurred and tried to free the drivetrain on the fly but had no success, so I stopped to check it out. A stick was stuck in my rear derailleur; easily removed but I feared it might have damaged my gears. Fortunately they seemed to be okay, but by the time I got going again I was in a line of other guys and of course Kristen was in the mix again too. These guys were not good about letting her go by in the narrow muddy ruts, so instead she flew past riding cross-country across the meadow. By the time we hit the road she was long gone, and it was only when I began the long slog back up the pipeline drop that I caught sight of her again, making heavy weather of the climb. It wasn’t easy for me either, but I passed her on the last steep stretch, only to have her fly past again on the downhill leg to the lake. This was getting to be thoroughly irritating. I was hard on her wheel when we hit the last few hundred meters of road, so I told her “I’m not going to get chicked !” and stepped on the gas. We both know she is a far better runner than I am, so this was just for our mutual amusement and I was already toast so she kindly let me enter transition first.

I managed to get out of transition fast, having as usual put my bike in the primo position on the rack, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before Kristen came by. Of far more concern to me was that as I exited transition I heard the race announcer mention the arrival of the fellow from Bend. Apparently I only had a minute or two on this guy, so I now had a race on my hands ! Let’s hope he’s not much of a runner, I thought uncharitably. As I left the lake area, about a half mile into the six mile run, I glanced back to see what kind of gap I had. Horrors, there was a guy behind running at a truly smoking pace I could not hope to compete with. I nevertheless cranked it up hard on the long downhill stretch, just trying to see how long I could hold him off. A mile or so down the road I heard the footsteps behind me, then he passed me, and just as I was about to concede defeat I noted that his race number was not that of my rival ! I didn’t know whether to be relieved that I was still in the game or annoyed that I was going to have to go on pushing for longer. On I sped down to the start of the traverse of the ploughed field, where the course designer described with relish the delights ahead: kneedeep mud, lumpy rocky footing, and some of the nastiest going I’ve encountered since ascending the Vertical Bog on Mt. Kenya about 30 years ago. The first part actually turned out to be easier than expected, because the lush grass softened some of the usual irregularities, but the climb out at the end was a sodden mess that sucked the shoe off one foot at one point. When I finally emerged from the muck I looked back to see how the opposition was doing, and was dismayed to see a figure going well not too far back. No relief from the pressure ! I actually felt reasonably good and was able to push it pretty hard on the next long but fairly moderate climb and the subsequent gentle descent. It was nice to encounter Menko there, on his way to run over the field in his turn. My strategy was to run as hard as I could on the easier terrain and not let my rival gain on me there, secondly to try to stay out of sight as far as possible in order to avoid serving as a target, and thirdly to get as far up the long steep final climb as possible before he reached the bottom. It was psychological warfare: I wanted him to feel that his chances were nil. That seemed to work well, since I was about two-thirds of the way up the climb before he showed up and that seemed like a safe margin. There was still no room to relax, so I kept my foot firmly on the gas over the last stretch of road and then the winding bumpy trail by the lakeshore. A glance back from the edge of the rocky field showed that I did have a safe gap, so only glory was at stake as I sped down to the finish line. I had pushed myself really hard, and as it turned out totally needlessly: the guy who had been chasing me was not in my division at all, and the fellow from Bend proved to be an even worse runner than yours truly so I finished with a generous lead.

It was a good day for Bellingham, with almost everybody on the podium and quite a few on the top step. Menko got third in his youthful age group; a good performance in only just missing the 4-hour mark and especially remarkable given his lack of training and the fact that he had been really sick with a respiratory ailment most of the preceding week. I was marginally slower than last year, but that was entirely due to my problems on the swim; I seem to have staved off the worst of the ravages of time for another year at least.

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