Coronado, California United States

Total Time = 5h 08m 10s Overall Rank = / Age Group = 40-49 Age Group Rank = 9/36

My Race Report:
"The Frog" was moved this year from it's usual late September date to April. More importantly, one week after the Calif. 70.3. I really like this race, so I decided to do both. I spent much of the week after the Calif. 70.3 doing fairly light training, shorter, more intense stuff and felt pretty good this morning for race day. Got a great night's sleep and hit the road around 4:30am, arriving by 6am. This is a smaller, more grassroots race. 1/2 IM for under $150, without all the frills though.
The venue was changed from recent years where transition was on the amphib. base, to Coronado's Silver Strand State Beach down the road, and they added an Oly distance race (called "SuperSeal"), and turned management over to Koz, who run alot of races in San Diego County. There were about 200 people signed up for Frog and 350 or so for Seal.
Arriving at the beach to set up, we had a light southwest wind already blowing off the ocean as the BUDS guys were rowing the buoys into position offshore. There was a decent 2-4' northwest wind swell too. The legendary Moki Martin gave us the usual race briefing and we lined up on the beach. Saw one poor gal in the womens' wave get about 50 yards out and have to be dragged in by the lifeguard, ending her day that maybe she had trained for months for.
Our wave had all the guys 30-49 years old, so we had a good 40 or 50 racers...maybe more all running into the surf. I hung on the outside after seeing earlier waves get dragged south to north with the current. This worked out for me and I found myself exiting the water after the first loop of the swim in what I believed to be 4th position within my wave. I wanted to hold that position, so I kept a nice jog up the beach and entered the ocean again for lap two. Not totally sure how I finished the swim, but I was able to maintain a steady pace and my watch read 32 minutes and change as I crossed the mat. Turns out I was second overall in my wave on the swim!!!!
I didn't find time to pull my top off as I ran, so I had a longer than normal T1. I was out on the bike pushing into a headwind right off the bat. I didn't have my bike legs until about mile 2 as my heart rate finally started to level off. Saw one dude on the bike with gym shorts, a cotton tank top, a mountain bike helmet, a backpack and basketball shoes with platform pedals. He seemed to be trucking along nicely!
The 4-loop bike course was basically 7 miles of headwind followed by 7 of tailwind times 4. I am a lame cyclist, and was able to hold about 18mph average on the headwind and about 22mph on the tailwind legs. They had some cockamamy idea of having us unclip our right foot on the northern turnaround and tap the timing pad before heading south again. By my 3rd time at the northern turnaround, the timing mat was gone and they were just asking people their numbers and making sure they had come through.
My goal for the race was to have a PR bike split for 1/2 IM. My PR, set at Clearwater in '06, was 2:42:30. I figured I'd have a shot if there was no wind, but with the southwest wind, I figured that was in jeopardy and by the halfway mark, I didn't think I could pull it off. An interesting note, there were two portpotties on the bike, one at each end of the course, and I didn't recall any in transition, so on loop 4, I had to pee and decided to stop. I was thinking if I missed my PR because of that stop, I'd be....PISSED...no pun intended! In reality, my bike split ended up being around 2:46 I think. Oh well, see what I can do on the run.
Once off the bike, I was in new territory as this was a new run course from the prior two years I'd raced. I was used to about 5 miles of soft sand, and that's what I was expecting. Much to my delight, about 70% of the run was on hardpack sand, 2% on soft sand and gravel, and 28% on dirt and pavement, so much easier to maintain a good pace. I kept things conservative on lap one saving energy for the soft sand. After seeing that there was only a small section, by lap two, I upped the pace. The aid stations had water and Accelerade...a flavor that tasted like cotton candy. I had one cup and that was enough. It was a water/gel regime for me. Temps were nice and cool with the wind coming off the ocean. We had to dodge a few waves as the tide was pretty high at the beginning of the run and everyone was trying to stay on the most hardpacked sand they could. Saw one dude get his shoes soaked. Bummer!
So, on the final part of lap two, heading back north, I was checking my watch and seeing that I actually had a shot at PR'ing for 1/2 IM! My PR, set at Eagleman last June, was 5:08:55. I wasn't completely sure where the finish was as it was in a different spot to the start, so I just threw down nearly everything I had left, but kept it at about 95% in case the finish was further than I thought. I was sent through a tunnel and rounded a corner to see the finish and glanced at my watch. Damn, I can do this! I sprinted the last 200 yards and crossed the line about 40 seconds ahead of my Eagleman PR in a watch time of 5:08:13. Woo hoo! My legs/feet were in a lot better shape than last weekend, though my run was about 5 or 6 minutes slower, and all on pretty much soft surfaces instead of concrete like last weekend.
After the race, I grabbed the free hot dog and chips they gave to racers and got some leg compression treatment they were letting people sample. Pretty nice!
Ran into Tom and Sara Demerly as well. Tom managed top 5 in his AG in SuperSeal, and Sara was 11th in hers. I saw that MikePlumb took 2nd in his AG in SuperSeal.
So, that's it for me probably until the TTT. I'm off to Australia for 2 weeks next Friday. Lots of swimming and running there.
Once again, great job Moki Martin and the Seals!