I raced in the 2013 ITU San Diego Triathlon yesterday on a day of perfect San Diego weather. I did the Olympic distance (1.5km swim, 40k bike) Aquabike (swim-bike-NO run) because I'm still dealing with plantar fasciitis.
I arrived at the shuttle parking lot a little before 5am and got on the bus to go to the transition area next to Venture Cove on Mission Bay. Traffic cones were everywhere on the road, which completely confused the driver. He was uncertain where to go and how to get there. Some of us at the front finally begged him to turn at a certain point and just run over the cones or we would not be getting to transition any time soon! We had visions of being stuck on the bus for an extra half hour!
Got to transition in plenty of time and got my area set up. It's a bit less complicated when you don't need to run off the bike! There was lots of room on my aisle. I was relaxed, treating things casually, and feeling like I knew what I was doing after racing for over 6 years. (More on that later.) Music was playing, bathrooms were uncrowded, and my area was well-lit, though I had an LED headlamp just in case. I brought my rubber stretch cord and warmed up my arms and lats for the swim. Two familiar voices started making announcements. Former pro triathletes Paul Huddle and Greg Welch were on the mics. Unfortunately the sound kept cutting back and forth between announcements and music so I could never hear complete instructions.
When I went down to the beach I STILL didn't know how we were supposed to round the buoys. Fortunately a friend of a friend knew and shared the info 7 minutes before my wave start. We went 2nd so I could at least see the first wave round the first buoy to confirm what I was told. NOTHING was explained by any officials down on the beach. As we stood waiting for the horn, I was passing on what I knew to the other geezers around me since they seemed not to know where they were swimming either. The water was 62*f. I hadn't been in open water since November so I was worried about not being acclimated to the cold. Got my feet wet and splashed my face but that was it because I didn't want to stand around shivering. In hindsight, I wouldn't recommend that. If they allow you to warm up, do it!
The horn sounded and off we went. The crowd of 185 men thinned out quickly, at least for me. A few went off the front very quickly and I didn't manage to hang with them, while everyone else soon dropped behind. So while I didn't have anyone to draft off of, no one drafted off of me for very long. Compared to a mass start Ironman this was nice. The course was well-marked and easy to follow. With the sun still below the horizon, sighting wasn't an issue. 3 of the 4 legs were easy to use high landmarks to sight off of and the buoys along the second leg without landmarks was easy to see. There was no tidal current to worry about either so that was not an issue.
It was a beach start so I ran through the shallow water until about knee deep. Then I "dolphined" 5 to 7 times until it made more sense to start swimming. I felt the cold water rush into my wetsuit but it just didn't feel as icy as I expected. I forgot about the temperature quickly as I made my way to the first turn buoy followed by the next 3 turns to head towards the swim exit. Had to weave past swimmers from the first wave who had left 5 minutes ahead but it never got crazy crowded. It is amazing how crooked some people swim though! I'm sure some of them probably swam 1700 m. when it was all said and done!
The end of the swim is a beach exit so I did what I advice all my athletes to do: when you touch the bottom with your hand, start pulling a little shallower. When you touch bottom again then, depending on the steepness of the bottom, touch 3 more times before standing and running out to transition. I lifted the goggles off my eyes but left them on my head with my cap so I could start stripping the wetsuit with both hands. One leg got stuck on my oversized calf in spite of the copious amounts of body glide so I ended up sitting down to remove it.
Helmet on, sunglasses on, then bike shoes, grab the bike, and run out of transition. Though you were allowed to have your shoes preclipped I have never been a fan of this technique - for me anyway. Plus it was a loooong run through an uncarpeted parking lot to the mount line. I went without socks for the first time in a race and that workout just fine. What's the saying? "SOMEthing new on race day"?!
Did a running mount and headed out, feeling a little cold and wet but not too bad. As the sun rose higher and I worked the pedals I warmed up quickly. The 2 loop course had (I think) 4 - 180* turns that really made you slow down, as well as 2 or 3 very short "no passing" zones where things got very narrow. Except for a bidge over the bay the course was very flat. Each identical loop went out around Fiesta Island, considered the birthplace of triathlon in the 1970s. It's also a frequent training location. I took in about 6 oz of water that had about 100 calories of gel mixed in it.
Being that this was an Olympic distance race I did my best to push my pace and effort level on both the swim and bike. I didn't want to be racing in an aerobic/Ironman zone, though that's where I've spent nearly all of my racing time the past couple of years. Although I felt like I was working hard for the whole bike, it took awhile for my heartrate to really climb out of high zone2/low zone3. It may have been that my core temp was taking awhile to heat up after the swim but I don't know for sure.
All in all it was a great day. I stuck around for awards because I knew not many raced the Aquabike division. I never did find posted results so I just waited. I was right to do so. They awarded in each 5 year age group down to 3rd place. I got a 1st place out of a wopping 3 people in my group, 6th overall out of 49. I was at least glad to see that no women and no one OLDER than me were faster! hahaha! I feel pretty embarassed about the award given the numbers involved! I'll even point out that if I was doing the full triathlon I would have been in 4th place going into the run.
Awards are nice but really was most rewarding about racing this came down to 3 things for me: I was healthy enough to do this demanding physical activity, I pushed myself hard enough to be satisfied no matter my place or time, and I got to share the race experience with some fellow triathlete friends, all on a gorgeous day.
Lesson (re)learned: Use a check list! I'm something of a "king of check lists" guy and yet I didn't use one in my preparation or execution. This meant that I forgot the silicon swim cap I was going to wear under my race cap. I also forgot my pre-race nutrition that I was going to consume just before the start. Finally, if I hadn't happened to go on the race website the night before and seen a picture of athletes coming out of the water I would have forgotten my goggles!!! Think things through and use a checklist no matter how many times you do these things. Triathlon has a LOT of moving parts!
Boring times and stats:
Swim 22m24s
T1 2m56s
Bike 1h10m33s - average about 21mph, max HR 149, ave HR ~135
Final 1h35m51s
