Benefield: Ukiah ready for low-key triathlon

Mike Cannon remembers the years when the Ukiah Triathlon was, what’s the word?

Homey? Quirky? Or something like homey and quirky. But don’t forget fast and fun.

In those early days there wasn’t a transition area; racers simply leaned their bikes next to their car or against a well-positioned tree.

“Those very first years it was very crude,” Cannon said. “You were lucky if you got the tree - (it was) very, very low key. The transition area wasn’t roped off or anything - you come out of the water, find your bike and get going.”

Swim buoys? Nope. Swimmers went out and back around a boat. Some years the swimmers were blinded by a route that took them straight into the sun. Other years, they were just blinded.

“One year there was so much fog at lake level you couldn’t find the boat,” Cannon said.

But those little quirks didn’t dissuade hardcore athletes from signing up year after year for the super quick sprint distance course. First-timers and relay teams were regulars, too. The Ukiah Triathlon, this year scheduled for Sept. 13, has been a racer friendly event for more than two decades.

“What people like about our race is that it’s very low key,” Cannon said. “We’re not very slick in the way we do it but I think we have improved on what we do enough that it’s a good race.”

Cannon should know. He’s a guy who in the first years of the race competed every time. In 2000 he won the thing.

So he knows where his hometown race shone and where it didn’t exactly sparkle.

He went from participant to swim director a number of years ago. He moved to spread out the swim course so competitors weren’t on an out-and-back route, crashing into each other when anyone went even slightly off route.

The old route forced racers to transition in two separate spots, creating more equipment hassles in the morning and fewer spots where race-timing mats could be located. It also made it a pain for spectators to see more than a sliver of the course unless they did a mad dash across town.

But athletes love this race.

It’s fast. It’s short. It’s great for first-timers.

And race organizers say it also boasts a down-home feeling that you don’t always get in the big city.

Nobody I talked to said this, but maybe, just maybe, last year’s cancellation over concerns about water levels at Lake Mendocino and that weird carp die-off might have been a good thing.

Maybe it gave the South Ukiah Rotary Club - the group that has put on the event every year since the inaugural race - a moment to take a well-deserved breath; to reassess.

It also gave them the chance to bring in Tom Zimlich as race director, a guy entrusted to smooth over some of the race’s rough edges.

But there is also the issue of that year off. Racers are habitual people; if an event falls off their calendar they might find a new one.

Can Ukiah woo people back?

I asked Zimlich if there was worry that the year off might mean the end of the Ukiah Triathlon.

“There was full doubt,” he said.

But he also said this race, and he’s done plenty of them, is worth saving.

“Tom is cool as a cucumber. He is really the man,” Cannon said. “You go to the board meeting and you feel like it’s all going to be fine.”

Better than fine, some say.

After years of talking about it, race organizers this year will return the course to something close to the configuration of that first year - everything will be around the lake. The run is more challenging and will include a hill that might inspire the utterance of a four-letter word or two.

Gone are the two transition areas, gone are the spectators scrambling into their cars to catch sight of athletes making their way along the course; gone are the lonely finish line scenes well away from the lake.

In years past, spectators would crowd around at the lake, watch their racer emerge from the water and then race for their cars and head to either Ukiah High School or Mendocino College where racers transitioned from bike to run and where the finish line was located.

The problem was, the elite athletes were usually well ahead of weekend warriors so they would finish the race before any spectators got there. It goes back to that level of quirky that organizers wanted to tidy up.

“One of the selling points is if you are watching your friends race or a family member race, you see everything,” Cannon said. “Often, the first finisher at the college, there was nobody there to watch him. It was very strange.

“I think it will change the whole atmosphere.”

For Zimlich, the year off might have inspired people to remember what they like about the little low-key event up in Ukiah; a race affectionately called the “world championships” that pits super fast athletes from Mendocino County against those out-of-town interlopers from Sonoma County and points farther south.

The new course gives spectators more of the race to cheer and more of Lake Mendocino to admire.

“We are trying to make it more than just a sporting event, but a community event,” Zimlich said.

“I think everyone is pretty excited to have it at the lake,” he said. “I think people are happy to have it back.”

It wasn’t clear whether Zimlich meant back at the lake or back on the calendar.

Or both.

You can reach staff columnist Kerry Benefield at 526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com, on Twitter @benefield and on Instagram at kerry.benefield.