The WCCTC Conference Championships were held at Lake Lopez near Cal Poly this year.  This is a big race for us and we had over 30 tritons sign up to give it their all.  First step, how do we get everyone there?  After some last minute carpool shuffling, my car was to consist of some characters (Tim, Allison and Robert).  Here is the setup:  4 people, 4 bikes, everyone’s uniform, tons of stuff, and one Honda Civic… You do the math.  After about 30 minutes of real life tetris, the car is completely full and the shocks are maxed. 

I’m not sure if others realized this or not, but Cal Poly is ridiculously far away (roughly 300 miles).  How do you pass the time? Paper Planes, Baby Got Back and Psychic City.   Be sure to listen to the last one, it’s pretty sweet.

After 5ish hours of driving and a few pit stops we arrive at packet pickup to see that several other Tritons have had a successful journey as well.  We go through the normal motions of picking up timing chips, numbers, packets full of free stuff, and T-shirts.  Tim elects to just take his numbers and leave the free packet of stuff to conserve resources.  He didn’t look inside to see the free magazine with Olympic gold-medalist Natalie Coughlin on the cover -- his loss.

After another 30 minutes of driving we arrive at Lake Lopez where we are spending the night camping.  We are setup in the Cougar campground.  The game plan is to unpack all the stuff and ride some of the bike course to prepare for the race.  After lots of waiting, a pack of tritons head out on their bikes.  Wait… “Hisssssss.”  Pre-race flat before starting to ride the course is definitely a bad omen.  Shortly later, after the Tritons split up, our own Bill Jones decided to attempt downhill mountain biking on his road bike because the road is just too easy.   It didn’t quite end up how he planned, but a little bit of road (more like dirt) rash won’t stop him.

Out on the bike course, the Tritons admire the beauty of the green hills and wildflowers.  The rolling hills of the bike course made for a pleasant ride until the end of the out-and-back where we found an atrocious quarter-mile-long uphill at 11% grade!!! However, upon summitting the hill, one literally flies back along the road for the next 5 miles. 

As team members continue to trickle in throughout the evening, bikes are tuned up, dinner is eaten (not as good as Mom makes though), and thoughts are on the race.  An 8am start is welcomed because it means we get to sleep in a bit.  Everyone’s engines are primed from the week of rest and are ready to unleash themselves on the course.

The water temperature was a brisk 55 degrees but seemed to be warmer than the air temperature.  The swim was to be a tear drop shape course around five buoys.  Many enjoyed the swim course.  Personally, I decided the tear drop course wasn’t challenging enough, so I swam back and forth in zig-zag type patterns to add another element to the race.  The Tritons fared well out of the water with Bill Jones, Tim Ray, Robert Krohn and Lisa Fong all having excellent swims. 

Up the stairs to T2 and then off onto the bike course.  The bike course consisted of two out-and-backs with a large hill right out of transition.  The first out-and-back was extremely windy and many athletes elected to stay out of their aerobars.  I decided to start counting how many people were in front of me on this part.  Bad decision.  Some friendly advice, if you ever have the urge to count how many athletes are in front of you, it’s probably because you swam slow and don’t have your head in the race.  It’s never good news.  The rest of the bike was just as challenging with less wind but more hills.  Allison Johnston posted the second fastest women’s bike split of the day with Sarah Kavaler right on her heels. 

The run was a fairly flat out and back on partially paved and dirt roads.  Shade was hit and miss while water stations seemed to be everywhere.  Athletes from the collegiate waves were now intermixing with people competing in the sprint course.  At one of the water stations, two guys in the sprint race were goofing around.  One threw water on the other and ran away laughing while the other can’t catch up.  Seeing this, I felt I had to step in.  I get handed some sports drink, catch the guy who was running away, glance back at the other guy and say “I’ll get him for ya,” and drench his friend in the sports drink.  Laughter ensued.  I think I was having a little too much fun. 

As the run come backs with about a half mile to go, a guy yells to me “save some for the last hill.”  I immediately question this and think to myself “What hill?” I come to the conclusion that he must be crazy and continued on.  About 150 meters later (yes, 150 meters) a lady is yelling 400 meters to the finish.  As many did, I started picking it up thinking “there is no way this lady would be lying to me.”  Another 400 meters later, the course takes a 90 degree left hand turn and goes straight up this hill with a little curve around the top to the finish.  In summary, the guy wasn’t crazy and the lady was crazy.

At the end of the day, the Triton Women placed second overall and the Triton Men placed third, which combined gave UCSD the overall team title!!  The top three teams on the men’s side were separated by a mere 24 points.  The women were anchored by Lisa Fong and Allison Johnston in 4^th and 6^th, while Tim Ray and Robert Krohn led the men in, placing 9^th and 10^th, respectively.

Driving back to SD was all that was left for the Tritons.  While driving back to the freeway, I saw those lovely red and blue flashy lights in the rear view mirror.  Ooops.  The small town we were driving through was littered with crosswalks with the flashy yellow lights to tell you to stop.  One lady decided to not push the button so I didn’t see her until too late, so I continued through the intersection.  Apparently Officer Smiley was not very fond of this decision.  A ticket for impeding a pedestrian in a crosswalk was the outcome. Team expense? I think so. 

The rest of the drive consisted of Disney hits such as Hakuna Matata, ice cream, and Diet Pepsi.

Great Job to all!

Report by: Marc Schommer
Photos by: Chris Burnham

Women's Results

Men's Results

Full Results