Can the Wildflower Triathlon Bloom Again?

When race director Colleen Bousman announced her intention last summer to relaunch the Wildflower Triathlon Festival in May 2025, fans rejoiced. One of the most popular endurance events of all time, the 40-year-old staple of spring racing in Central California had sat dormant since 2018, when the last Wildflower took place.

It’d been a turbulent decade for a small business beset by a crippling array of challenges: rising costs, drought, investor ambivalence, COVID, and the same slow decline in triathlon participation and sponsorship that’s undermined local races across the country.

But Bousman, who grew up working Wildflower under Terry Davis, her father and the festival’s founder, was determined to revive an event that drew nearly 8,000 participants and 35,000 attendees during its peak years. “I love Wildflower with all my soul,” she says, “and I felt such a pulling from the way we’ve impacted people. Our athletes have been begging me to bring it back so they can share the experience with their kids.”

If the social media outpouring is any indication, Wildflower has retained a deep well of affection in the triathlon community – and remains a bucket list race for many. USA Triathlon CEO Victoria Brumfield signed up for Wildflower’s crown jewel, the half-iron triathlon, shortly after registration opened on September 30. “This event embodies the heart and soul of triathlon,” she explains, “bringing together athletes and clubs in an atmosphere that celebrates the spirit of our sport. When I learned that it was being resurrected, it immediately went on my 2025 calendar.”

But will this new edition of Wildflower live up to its legacy of epic course design and family-friendly entertainment? Will it still offer multiple distances and disciplines, along with camping, yoga, live music, clinics, and a robust club presence? And perhaps the biggest question of all: What will its success (or failure) say about the future of local races?

RELATED: Triathlete’s 2025 Guide to the Best Ironman 70.3 and Half-Distance Races in the U.S.

The honeymoon phase of Wildflower Triathlon

“When Wildflower came out, there were very few half-distance races,” recalls triathlon legend and Challenged Athletes Foundation founder Bob Babbitt. “There was Eagleman, Horny Toad in San Diego, and Wildflower.” The race was started almost as a lark by Davis, an employee with the Monterey County Parks Department. He had been running a bluegrass festival for the county at Lake San Antonio for several years in the early 1980s and decided to add a triathlon to take advantage of the region’s rugged natural surroundings.

The first race, in 1983, attracted only 86 athletes and had a few bumpy moments. “Terry didn’t really know what he was doing,” Babbitt laughs. “You had two athletes coming to the finish line from opposite directions in the pouring rain, and it wasn’t clear who’d won. But he decided to give the prize money to both of them, and that set the tone: Wildflower was a race that was going to take care of everybody.”

Davis stuck with it, and participation steadily grew, topping 3,000 racers by the mid-1990s as the sport of triathlon took root. But it wasn’t just the notoriously challenging course that attracted athletes to the remote location halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. From the very beginning, Wildflower prioritized community and connection.

“With so many triathlons,” Bousman says, “you go by yourself, you race, and then you rush home so that you don’t feel guilty about all the time you’ve spent away from your family. We always tried to be the opposite of that, to prove that endurance sports can be a family thing and a full festival experience with a weekend of events for everyone.”

To that end, Wildflower added Olympic and sprint races, along with an off-road tri, open-water swim, and multiple running events. Davis recruited clubs and college teams – the first collegiate national championships took place at Wildflower in the early 1990s – and those groups became the backbone of the festival’s strong annual return rate.

Kelly O’Mara fondly remembers racing for the Cal-Berkeley team in the mid-2000s. The former editor-in-chief of Triathlete and founder of the Triathlonish newsletter, O’Mara would go on to race a half-dozen times – and win the 2016 long-course age-group title. “It was the de facto college championship back then,” she says, “and they treated us really well. For us, it was massive. A lot of the college kids who won there went on to become pros.”

Indeed, Wildflower became both a breeding ground for rising amateurs and a popular destination for sponsored pros. Triathlete’s current editor-in-chief, Chris Foster, took second place overall at the 2006 version of the Olympic distance race; eventual long-course stalwart Ben Hoffman would place fifth in the same event. Athletes such as Natasha Badmann, Mirinda Carfrae, Leanda Cave, Heather Jackson, Javier Gomez, Terenzo Bozzone, Chris Lieto, and Chris McCormack all flocked to the race, helping it vault into the mononymous company of Kona and Roth.

As participant and attendee numbers more than doubled again to their mid-2000s peak, sponsors and brands congregated at Lake San Antonio in greater numbers, adding to a festival vibe that Bousman grew by adding more live music, yoga, clinics, and activities for kids.

“Wildflower was a buffet,” Babbitt says. “There was something for everybody, and the fact that everyone was camping created community. You’d be sitting around the campfire on Friday, drinking a beer with 20 other athletes, and getting excited about how you’re going to abuse your body the next morning. That’s what made it unique: It was a race and a party at the same time – the Woodstock of our sport.”

Bousman chuckles at that description. “Yes,” she says, “it’s like a music festival meets sport – except you don’t have to go home with a really bad hangover on Monday. But the connections are real.

I probably have a higher success rate than Match.com from people who got married after meeting at Wildflower.

Wildflower Triathlon: “Woodstock ‘99”

Like many marriages, most races also hit a rocky patch or two if they stick around long enough. Wildflower managed to survive the great recession of 2007-2009, despite suffering six-figure losses several years in a row. As a family business with decades of expertise, says Bousman, Wildflower was flexible enough to streamline operations and solvent enough to absorb the downturn.

The bigger blow came five years later. Registration had been picking up as the economy recovered, but 2014 brought an existential challenge that reverberates to this day. Fed by runoff from the coastal mountains of the Santa Lucia Range, Lake San Antonio holds 350,000 acre-feet of water at full capacity. Heading into 2014, the region was already reeling from the beginning of a severe drought that would bring the driest years in California’s recorded history and devastate agriculture, ranching, and recreation across the state.

Then, to add insult to injury, county officials were forced to shunt millions of gallons of water from Lake San Antonio to nearby Lake Nacimiento due to emergency dam repairs at the latter location. The double whammy of drought and siphoning reduced Lake San Antonio to a mere 4% of its capacity. In photos, the once-sprawling, sparkling-blue reservoir looks like a sad little puddle, surrounded by acres of cracked brown earth, its docks stranded high above the waterline like vestigial reminders of better days.

Wildflower pivoted – because that’s what triathletes do, and because race directors are nothing if not eternally optimistic. Davis and Bousman relocated the swim, reduced the number of race options, and redesigned the half-iron course, adding a 2.2-mile run from the swim exit to T1, all the while praying for rain.

Alas, Mother Nature didn’t relent. The lake stayed low, and the spring wildflowers for which the festival was named were barely blooming. With the drought and skyrocketing expenses literally sucking Wildflower dry, the team canceled the 2017 edition and reached for a life raft, selling the business to Motiv Sports.

Until then, regulars like O’Mara, who’d seen Wildflower rebound from multiple challenges, just figured the festival was resilient enough to carry on. But doubt now crept in. For the first time, she recalls, people started to wonder: “O.K., what the f*** is happening?”

On paper, Motiv was a good match. A Denver-based company with nearly 30 running events and an interest in triathlon, Motiv was attracted to the festival model and talked about expanding Wildflower to the East Coast, Europe, and even Australia. It brought the promise of more staff, bigger sponsors, and deeper pockets. And it kept Davis and Bousman in place to run the event.

The marriage got off to a strong start, thanks to a bumper snowpack that finally broke the drought and replenished Lake San Antonio. With a full race lineup, a new patron, and a 35th anniversary to celebrate, the festival returned in 2018 with positive headlines and participation numbers. Americans Heather Jackson and Rudy von Berg won the long-course event, and everything seemed groovy at Woodstock once again.

The good times didn’t last. New leadership arrived at Motiv and grew antsy about finances, citing slow sales and rising costs. In a surprise January announcement, Motiv canceled the 2019 edition, leaving hundreds of registered athletes as high and dry as the old docks mere months before race day. The who, why, and how of that decision has been the source of considerable conjecture in triathlon’s inner circles, but none of that is worth rehashing … because, well, we all know what came next.

Wildflower Triathlon: COVID strikes

The pandemic was a crippling blow for hundreds of races across the country. Many event operators simply couldn’t survive two years without revenue. And those who kept the faith were faced with superspreader anxieties, cash-strapped sponsors, athletes who were signing up for fewer races (and at the last minute), along with rising inflation. Fast-forward to 2025, and Babbitt worries that “triathlon has reached a crisis moment. In 2012, we had about 2,000 races in the U.S. Now we’re closer to 800, maybe less. It’s very, very difficult for local events to make it any more.”

Which begs the question: How crazy is Bousman’s decision to buy back Wildflower and relaunch it? I posed this question and got a self-deprecating laugh before she turned serious and revealed just how deep her passion runs. “Is it absolutely insane? Yes. And is it total risk taking? Yes. My husband and I have literally [bet] our life savings on the community coming back to support Wildflower.”

“Things have gotten so expensive,” she tells me. “Port-a-potties have tripled in cost, and so has police support. And it’s not easy to shell out $50,000 for a deposit on a permit before [any revenue] comes in.”

But Bousman is driven: by the enduring sense of community she feels in the emails she receives; by the early response from clubs and college coaches; and by the belief that endurance athletes are yearning for the type of experience that Wildflower alone provides. “We’re filling a void,” she says. “We’re bringing back an event for people who want competition and camaraderie.”

Bousman wants the world to know that the 2025 Wildflower Experience will offer the full legacy buffet of races, clinics, fitness activities, and entertainment. There will be camping – or glamping for those who want a bit more luxury – and gravel racing. The courses will be as epic as ever, with Nasty Grade – a once universally feared landmark – doling out its punishment on the long-course bike leg.

Can Wildflower achieve Bousman’s goals of 4,500 registered athletes? Babbitt and O’Mara are hopeful. “Wildflower didn’t go away because it wasn’t popular,” Babbitt notes. “It went away for reasons beyond its control.” With the lake back at capacity, the location is once again a powerful draw, as is the opportunity for togetherness in a world yearning for connection. O’Mara points to the festival’s reservoirs of affection among its core California fan base. “Everyone I know is really excited when they hear it’s coming back,” she adds.

There’s confidence in their optimism; there’s also clear-eyed recognition that this may be a bellwether moment for North America’s triathlon scene. As in: If a beloved independent like Wildflower can’t make it work, who can? 

“We have a rare opportunity to bring back an epic event,” Babbitt says. “But this really is a litmus test.”

Whether we pass it is up to us.

Registration is open for the Wildflower Experience, which takes place at Lake San Antonio, California, on May 2-4, 2025. For more information, go to https://www.wildflowerexperience.com.