Race Day!

Race day on the east and west coasts today. Although what I did today can't really be compared to Chris' race. He competed at Ironman Lake Placid today and even though he had told me he wasn't going to bring it all at this race and save it for Ironman Kentucky I had a feeling, knowing Chris, that there would be plenty of effort being put out. As I thought, he nailed it today. I didn't have a chance to follow him live during the day because I was out for most of it myself but when I got back from my race and with the 3 hour time difference he'd finished up. Sub 13 hours! Awsome job buddy! 6:31:44 on the bike on that course is wild. Your biking is really clicking right now and I can't wait to see what you post in Louisville. And by the looks of it there were no problems on the run either. Way to go buddy, we'll catch up when I get back from San Diego. Out here on the west coast it was pretty much a quickie but it was still a good indicator of where my training's at as I build towards Miami. Up at 4:30 this morning and even though Tammy had her 30th high school reunion last night she was up and getting ready to come cheer me on. Cassie was coming too as my official photographer but she gave strict instructions that she only needed 5 minutes to get ready. It was great to have them come and cheer me on. But the question I have is "When did surfing become part of triathlon?". Yikes! I knew there was a possibility of some waves but I sure wasn't expecting this when I got there. After finding a parking spot we made our way to the transition area so I could start setting up and on the way we could just see part of the beach where the swim would be. It was kind of obscured because it was down below some cliffs but I saw enough to identify waves. Big waves. Waves with breakers. This would be interesting. Anyway off to set up. The first racers started at 6:55 and my start wasn't till 8:25 so I had plenty of time to get ready ..... and think about big waves. I went through my routine of setting up, racking my bike, shoe placements, helmet, sunglasses, bib. All the typical stuff. I eventually decided I better get down to the beach and get a good closeup of the situation and get some practice in with these waves. I was hoping I wouldn't need rescuing before I even started racing. Now that would be embarrassing. The water was shallow for a good distance and I had to wade in for a while fighting off breakers as they pounded me but when I got up to about my waist I could start swimming. Unfortunately that was also the point where the waves were surf. That's where I had to dive into the surf so I wouldn't be swept back towards the shore. Now this was fine as long as I saw that sucker coming which wasn't always the case. A couple of times I came up to take a breath just as white surf surrounded me. Ok I'd had enough. I headed back to shore and decided to watch how the other swimmers handled the waves on their starts. And I pretty much learned nothing. The one thing I did figure our though was to turn sideways when a wave was coming in to "slice" through it and avoid getting hit head on. So I had developed my strategy, "slice and dive" and hold my breath. Now the other thing that had happened between the first start at 6:55 and my start at 8:25 was that the tide had been coming in the whole time. It had moved in by about 60-70 metres over that time. This meant that whereas the early starters got to run those 60-70 metres both into and out of the water we had to wade/swim them. And let me tell you, coming out was no picnic. That water rushing back into the ocean from the shore is hard to work against. Anyway the gun went off and I took off running kicking high to try and get over as much water as I could and at the same time I was trying to analyze the waves and where I should run towards to try and avoid the bigger waves. Ya right. They were every freaking where. So I ran, dove, waded, dove, waded, swam, stroked, Yikes ..... DOVE, swam. Once I got past the point of where the waves were building and breaking I only had the swells to deal with. Every time I tried to sight for the buoy all I could see was a wall of water so I had to start feeling for being on the backside of the swell and then looking up to sight. Well now that I had this ocean swimming thing figured out it started going good. I came up on the buoy quickly and my line to it was bang on, rounded it, headed for the next one, around it and back to shore. I was getting a little push from the swells, tide and waves now so it became easier to swim and before I knew it I was wading back to shore and stripping off my wetsuit. The run back to T1 though was long, about 250 metres and up this hill between 2 cliffs. It was tiring at first but once I ran a bit I felt good and it was a good bit of a warmup for the bike. T1 as always was horrendous. Way slow. I really need to cut my wetsuit legs shorter because the material bunches up around my ankles and it takes forever to get the thing off. I killed at least a couple of extra minutes there. So the bike was uneventful, flat for the most part with one small hill that we had to do twice since it was a 2 loop course and my average speed ended up right at where I figured it would, 34 km/hr. It might have been a bit faster but because of the way the transition area was set up there was a 100 metre run to the mount/dismount line which chewed up time both on the bike out and bike in. T2 was better, racked my bike, swapped shoes and out to run. I had it in my mind that I was going to push the run and that's exactly how I started. A 4:38 first km which had me wondering if I'd gone out too fast but I was feeling ok so I kept it up. A 4:38 second km and 4:35 for the third really had me pumped and I made up my mind that I would not slow down. 4:26 for the fourth km and while I was definitely working and feeling it I knew 1 more km was sustainable. And that's when I came up on someone in my age group just in front of me. My first thought was that I would shadow him without him knowing then sprint past him at the end but with my pace being so good I decided that I wouldn't change anything and lay down the challenge and see if he could keep up. I upped the pace and passed him, stayed at that pace for about 500 metres then started my kick to the finish. There was no response on his part and by the time I crossed the finish line I was at a 3:22 pace! My average pace for the run was 4:31! Are you kidding me? At this point I didn't really care where I finished, I was just ecstatic with my run time and that I'd chopped 5 minutes off my Mission Bay time and this was a more difficult swim. Turned out I finished 5th in my age group compared to 20th in my last 2 Mission Bay races. Wow! Even though it was a really short race it gave me good feedback. First I need to work on transitions, especially T1 and getting my wetsuit issue resolved, second my swim can still improve a lot and third my run is coming along great. Now to enjoy the rest of the vacation.