My friends have great plans. They are fabulous schemers, coming up with epic adventures and ideas for training that stretch the bounds of sanity and, well, do-ability.

This is very, very good.

I have one friend, for example, who's trying to plot a course that would lead from the Silicon Valley up over the Santa Cruz Mountains to the sea. It would feature biking and running to get up over the mountains, then a little swim in Monterey Bay to cap it off. Hopefully we can find some fish tacos afterward. I love this idea, and dearly hope to do it this year. Because he's got an Ironman in his future, I'm hoping he can pull it off. (Are you listening, EP?)

A while back, while dreaming aloud with another friend about what we might do in the off-season, we started talking about Wildflower. Because we live in Monterey County, we're a relatively short drive away from torturing ourselves on the course regularly.

It was then that the noflower was born. Why not, my friend said, stage the whole race on one day? It spiraled out from there as we brainstormed, as these things have a tendency to do. No support except the fluids and fuel you can carry on your own (or, perhaps, sucker someone into carting out to Bee Rock for you), no whining, no T-shirts. But Wildflower it would be, nonetheless--or, rather, noflower. I treasure this idea, too. Sure, lots of folks spend "training weekends" at Lake San Antonio before the race. They swim, they bike, they run. But this seemed different: the whole enchilada, for free, with pals. What's not to like?

And I mean this as no disrespect to the actual race. It really is a remarkable event. It's just that the concept of the noflower has soul--something that is sometimes missing in our triathletic lives as we train so, well, scientifically.

We train with tremendous focus and precision, and it is easy to lose sight of the big picture. I'm asking you now to stop for a second and think: You're doing something that is pretty darn remarkable to most people. You're outdoors more than the bulk of the U.S. population, you're a lot more fit than the average bear, and you think nothing of getting up early to ride or run on a weekend. That is amazing. (That it *is* amazing perhaps says something about the state of our nation, but that is a topic for another day.)

The flip side of that coin, though, is that sometimes we become so focused on our goals (Ironman this, Wildflower that, Vineman over there) that we forget the journey. Yes, you've probably heard this before, but it bears repeating: It's the journey, not the destination. If you get to the starting line of Wildflower and can't remember that there were actual wildflowers on your regular training rides that spring, well perhaps it's time to start looking. There's a lot of fun to be had on the way to that goal, which is an elusive one anyway. Isn't it?

Besides, the biggest accomplishments don't always come when you cross that finish line. For me, the 1999 season was a bit of a bust. I raced a fair bit with mediocre results, then crashed my mountain bike in August and wound up with a concussion. That shook me up and made me really skeptical about the last big race of the season, my big "goal race," the one I'd been thinking about for a year or more, the Santa Barbara Long Course. It was to be my longest distance triathlon yet.

Well, I crossed both the start and finish lines, and the experience was truly awesome. But getting there, and completing it despite my doubts and fears was really the reward on that day. I didn't know the highlight of my season was to still to come--on a Wednesday night in October. At the track. The wind was blowing; fall was definitely on its way, but I was doing my track work, dutifully, trying to become the better runner my sports doc thinks I can be. He's even beginning to convince *me*.

That night, I ran an 8-minute mile for the first time in my life. Only my husband was there to see it, but alas, he had no bouquet to offer. It was still unbelievable, and it was a long time before I stopped smiling that night.

What I'm trying to say here is that achievement is achievement, whether you get a T-shirt at the end or not. If you come out to the noflower with us, you'll have done something noteworthy. Will you get to wear the T-shirt to your next race so everybody else knows you did? Nah. But maybe we'll pull out an old silkscreen machine and stencil the noflower logo over an old T-shirt of yours. You can proudly explain what it means.

As for me, well, I'm planning to make my own shirt. It will say: 8:10, October 6, 1999. And perhaps, in smaller letters, it will say: Now we're getting somewhere.