Grab your road bike and tent - Wildflower is here!

For Team Zoomzer, Wildflower Triathlon marks the beginning of triathlon season. For some, particularly the Team in Training crowd, this is their A race, but for many more it is just the first of a jam packed racing season. There are lots and lots of people dressed in TNT purple.

Wildflower is a must for any triathlete within driving distance of Central California. Yes, it is rather pricey, the camping is extremely overpriced, the location is in the middle of no where, and you are stuck at the venue between the hours of 8am and 4pm each day - but I think almost every triathlete would agree that you have to do it at least once. What made this event fun was not Wildflower per se, but the people we went with. Our triathlon team, Santa Cruz Traithlon Association, had a huge tent camp with about 50 people. We all cheered for each other, drank it up after our races, and cheered for the Cal Poly naked runners Saturday evening.

I can't say that I would have ever signed up for this race, for the afore mentioned reasons, but we were originally doing the Treasure Island Triathlon in San Francisco in November 2007 (run by the same organization at Wildflower) and five days before the race a super tanker crashed into the Bay Bridge spilling oil into the Bay. This made swimming conditions unsafe and the triathlon was canceled, then last minute changed into a bike/run event. We weren't interested in going since the smell of oil was overpowering, so Tri California offered us half our entry fee towards another of their races. We picked Wildflower. Otherwise, I don't think I would have paid $100 for the mountain bike sprint triathlon and another $100 plus for the camping site.

Whatever, sometimes having fun costs money! If you had a great time (or a not so great time) at Wildflower in the past or in 2009, please leave your review of either the mountain bike sprint, olympic distance tri, or half ironman tri. http://zoomzer.com/search?search=wildflower&location=Lake+Nacimiento%2C+CA&month=&x=0&y=0

Grab your sunscreen, sleeping bag, and tent - go to the bank, take out some hundreds - and have a great weekend!