There were only two waves, with all 30+ in the second wave. With such a short swim, expecting a drag race and an extra frenzied washing machine, I started wide/right, and stayed on the right side of the pack. At the gun, I dove in, and for the first time ever, knocked my goggles off and around my neck. I tossed them back on, and was still on the feet of the guy in front of me. There was a fairly fast sprint, and a lot of people looked like they lost their composure, doing all kinds of adrenaline-fueled strokes. I was about the only person in the wave to brave the cold water and swim a warm up, so you could see a lot of guys fight through the heart rate rush of ice water in the wetsuit.

After the buoy I found my stroke, and watched the front of the pack stretch away until I reeled a lot of it back in.

I'm really happy with my pace of 1:34/100yd, especially since it includes the run to T1. This is a huge improvement over last season. My split was 20s faster than the guy who won the ag, and 40s behind the guy who took second.

There was a long run to transition that felt slow as I fumbled for the wetsuit zipper.


Remember to protect my goggles when I dive!

For me, this was an awful T1. I forgot to use enough Bodyglide, and the legs of the wetsuit stuck on my heels. My feet were cold and didn't go into the bike shoes easily. I gave up at least 15 seconds to my ag here, and at least 30 seconds over what I usually do.

Bodyglide!

Good ride. I only recall getting passed by three people - college guys - early on, but steadily passed people over the rest of the four laps. After the first lap, I had a good feel for the corners and the swales. There is one bend on the way down the island where you can shift up and accelerate as you corner, and I used that opportunity to pass on a couple of laps.

One weird thing happened at the bottom of island - it felt like someone grabbed my seat post, or like a brake pad grabbed the rim. I came out of aero to look at my tires and anything else that would suck speed, but there weren't any problems. It must have been an odd gust or bad road surface.

I pushed hard the whole way and powered through the temptations to down-shift. The flying mount worked well, and I didn't lose any time at the dismount.

This ride was about as clean as I could have hoped.

My split was about a minute faster than the guy who won the ag, about 20 seconds faster than the guy who took second. We geezers went 13, 15 and 16 overall on the bike.

If I had ridden the course beforehand, I could have been a tad faster, but not much.

This was another frustrating transition. My feet were totally numb off the bike, and I had a really hard time wrestling on the running shoes. The time wasn't bad relative to the field, but I gave up 10 or 15 seconds to myself.

A little more practice pulling on shoes would have solved the problem.

Boy, were the feet cold! My feet usually thaw out before the half way point on a cold race morning, but not this time. Off the bike, I couldn't feel a thing, and it felt like I might have put my shoes on with socks wadded up inside.

This is where I lost my 50-54 AG - with a pace of 7:53/mi. The winner passed me about 1/3 of the way out, and I never reeled in the guy who beat me for 2nd. When the winner went flying by, dancing on air, I knew my chances for first in the ag were gone. I tried to match his pace on the way out, but he turned on the jets and ran a reverse split.

When a real runner blows by early in the race, it's over.

This is still definitely my area for improvement. I'd have needed to take 2:45 off my run to keep from getting Lieto'd at this one.

The run didn't feel too bad, and I felt like I had light feet and quick cadence, but I didn't cover the ground like I can at my pb pace.

Run a lot more!

I trotted a little bit to retrieve my flip flops from swim-start.

The three of us who finished at the top of the 50-54 ag joked, chatted and traded war stories. We were all stoked that we'd come in under one hour (me by 3 seconds!), and that we'd done so well in a drag race with such a young field. I'd trash talked the winner out on the run course, and we laughed about that.


In terms of bang for the buck, I need to increase my training volume for the run. My swim and bike are probably close to my potential, but I know I can shave a few minutes off the run if I get my volume up to about 15 or 20 miles/week.


Especially for CSUSM's first race, this was excellent. You could tell from check in, on, that they had executed the basics very well.

Check in was quick and efficient, the course and transition area worked well, and the timing system was great. This was the first race I've been in that had live results on a screen near the finish. Splits are up within a day (though as of now, there's one error, the second wave is timed from the first gun).

There's room for improvement for subsequent years, but the first race set a high bar.

Minor complaints: participants didn't find out until the last minute that there would be awards for only two sets of groups (29 and under, 30+), or that the waves would be condensed from 4 to 2, with ad hoc start times.

Official results:
http://www.sbtiming.com/results/csusm_2011.txt
http://www.sbtiming.com/results/CSUSM_2011.HTM