Buffalo Springs 70.3 More Cowbell Report

So. Yeah. No. I mean, here we are posting our report much later than all the racers who usually write race reports. What’s up with that? So, what we’re trying to say is that cowbelling is, like, really hard work. I mean, seriously!

First, you have to drive to West Effin Texas, home of the Large Lub-buttocks. Hey, don’t take offense. We’re from Ass-tin, after all. Furthermore, some of us will race in Booty-Pest in September, and some of us are heading out to Keester-ville for training this weekend. So be sure you get your head or some other part of your anatomy around this motif because it figures prominently a bit later in the book. And you thought Red’s reports were long. Hah!

Next, you have to deal with an exploding coffee pot at 4:00 in the morning – BEFORE you’ve had your coffee. So, yeah, I mean, coffee was flying everywhere. Probably a good thing we couldn’t actually drink it because it tasted terrible when you tried to lick it up off the shelf. Somebody famous said “Desperate times call for desperate measures,” but don’t do the lick thing. I’m just saying. Oh, yeah. Don’t do the spill thing either. And for heaven’s sake don’t do the – Well, I’d better shut up now. What’s said in Lubbock stays in Lubbock, even if half the town can hear you. But that comes later.

Then, as a cowbeller you have to swim, bike, and run part of the course so you’ll know where to stand for proper cowbelling. I mean, who knew West Texas has a spring-fed, wetsuit-legal lake? Where did those mountains, I mean, MouNtaiNs, actually, MOUNTAINS come from? And the run course. What can you say? Okay, it smells like cow poop. Either the smell or the wind can knock you off your feet. Watch out when there’s both! Where was all this information on the BS (teehee) website? It’s nice that Chris Lieto and Andrea Fisher competed for $25,000, but I’m just saying that everyone should get something for being out there. Hoo, boy!

So on Saturday after 56 or 28 miles on the bike, depending on whether your name is Cindy or Kristen or Jody, we cooled off with some laps in the lake and then took a trail hike that overlooked the whole venue. It was some kind of gorgeous! A few of us had been flirting with Lubbock because the
mornings are so cool and pleasant, but that view! Man, that view brought on a serious love affair. The whole move-to-Lubbock thing was going on. If it hadn’t been for the exploding coffee pot, the difficulty in finding Tecate, and the event that caused the “Oh-Crap-Oh-Sh*t-Oh-F**k” refrain, it might have been “Bye-Bye-Cap-City.”

Anyway, race morning started at something like pre-dawn-thirty in the A of M, or it felt that early, and we set out for the race site with a plan – Cindy and Kristen would bike in to save $6.00 apiece, while Jody would drive in for only $2.00, thanks to the elderly discount. It turns out that a very nice lady with only one missing tooth let the whole car in for $6.00. She did this for two reasons – Kristen’s bike was on her car-top carrier, which made the lovely lady think we had a racer on board, and Jody hid in the back seat, thereby becoming a criminal, a tax evader, and a thoroughly naughty old gal. Watch out, folks!

Then came the big decisions – where to park, what to take to the cowbell location, and where to find the porta-potties. We aced only the last of these and even then we had to use the men’s side because the women’s side resembled a toilet at the end of a crowded, three-day bus ride in a third world country. Overflowing odoriferousness!

Parking was in an unmowed field where sticker weeds, huge ants, I mean, HUGE, and snakes roamed freely. In fact, a policeman caught a bull snake about 4.5 feet long and offered to let us touch it. Cindy consented to having her picture taken with it because she had seen an even larger one on her long bike ride the day before, hence the “Oh-Crap-Oh-Sh*t-Oh-F**k” theme mentioned earlier.

We mostly struck out on the what-to-take idea. The tent, which the racers were counting on, had to stay in the car because how can you drag something like that through sticker weeds, ants, and snakes, I mean, SNAKES!!!! Furthermore, how can you ride the tent down that big hill at the beginning of the bike course? Sure, it’s got wheels, but we’d have wound up knocking over the entire transition area and the sweet little EMS people at the finish line. So we took turns carrying a heavy ice chest filled with water, lemonade, and Tecate, the most important item.

Finally in position at Bike Out and ready to cowbell, we did some warm-up wrist circles, a few Woo-Hoo’s, and some sunscreen spraying. For the longest time, we didn’t see any Tri Zoners, but we certainly saw some interesting racers. One guy headed out on the bike course without his helmet. We could see his mouth move to the “Oh-Sh*t” song before he turned back for it. We saw a guy wreck his fancy race wheel just a few yards into the race. He stoically returned to the start to work on his bike. Much pumping took place. We heard a loud POP just as another guy was screaming down the hill at the end of the bike course, but he didn’t stop. He must have figured he could make it to transition on the rim. Good-bye, sweet wheel.

Then we moved to a position where we could watch Run Out and Run In. By this time, it was hot. I mean, HOT, as in no-cloud-cover-high-humidity-high-temperature HOT. There’s where we saw all of our real Tri Zoners and our adopted ones, Ingrid and Kim from Houston. So should we adopt the A-man or not? I’m thinking maybe not so much, in light of what almost happened at dinner that night.

So Carolyn finished the aqua bike and joined us for a while, and we met up with Kenneth, Bob, and Paul, who just LOVES a high-pitched little cowbell we brought along. It actually made nice harmony with one of the large Tri Zones cowbells. So, I mean, we’re working both sides of the road as we high-five our racers to the finish line. We may have been sick of the cowbell sound by then, but we rang and rang some more to make sure everyone else would get sick of it too – oh, wait. No. Yeah. We rang to celebrate our finishers. There. That’s better.

All of our Tri Zoners looked strong at the finish, though some looked hotter than others. Some had a few gastro-intestinal issues. Some needed to lie down. Some needed to talk their heads off. Some got all quiet and meditative. Some needed to go jump in the lake, I mean, sit in the lake to cool off. To each his or her own! We rang for them all because all are half Ironmen. I mean, you need to kiss their feet, and somebody did that very thing at dinner. Their feet, once cleaned up a bit, are totally kissable. When is the last time YOU covered 70.3 miles under your own power on one of the toughest half-iron courses there is? I mean, really. Kiss! Don’t kiss up. Just kiss.

So on to the celebratory dinner. We went to Abuelo’s, but I swear Jody was the oldest person there. Our people at one table behaved themselves decorously with most excellent race stories. The cowbellers and other support sherpas were totally lapping it up. Amazing stuff! All of a sudden, our people at the other table shouted, I mean SCREAMED, with laughter. And they didn’t stop. It went on and on. Apparently, someone pressed the A-man’s On button and couldn’t find the Off button. Since the fling with Lubbock was over, much flirtation ensued and there was some talk of the A-man going home with the single ladies, but one of them declared in no uncertain terms, “He’s not getting in OUR car!” So, no, I’m not sure anyone will be adopting the A-man anytime soon, lovely boy though he is. Maybe we missed an opportunity, but it was totally missable with an “M.” Trust me on this.

So. Oh, yeah. Now it’s the next morning and time for the drive home. Three sets of gentle snores greeted first light, then dawn, and finally the day. A brief flirtation with the beautiful morning sky, followed by a long or short run depending on who tells the story, and we’re ready to butt-break it back to Austin. The cowbellers’ wrists are in decent shape, the cowbells are safely back in Austin, and the cowbellers are in training for the next big race. Woo-Hoo!!