Long Beach Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

Felt fine during warm-up. At the start I just kept feeling like I counldn't get enough air. Not used to wetsuit but mainly I seem to have a mental block.

Warm-up longer

I had a very fast transition overall. Pavement in Transition painful to run on. Bike starts on an upward slope, you can't jump onto bike.

practice removing suit. It stuck on one heel.

Bike great except for one jerk who cut inside my line on the hairpin then couldn't maintain his turn so I had to swerve away to avoid crashing. I remembered to not let anyone else determine my pace. Many pushed to hard on the hills. I spun happily and passed them at the crest while they fought the lactic acid build-up. I passed quite a few that way. Yay!

Legs felt tight and sore the whole time however.

Nothing

Pavement horrible for barefeet so I kept shoes on...smart move. I could run just fine with the shoes. Forwent socks.

Make up mind earlier whether I'm keeping shoes on or not.

I remembered that I needed to loosen up even if I wasn't sore. I passed a few who passed me early on because they tried to push too hard immediately after ride. I slowly started getting faster but I still felt sluggish and stiff on the run. I was intrigued by the 26 y.o. age grouper who made himself puke trying to outrun me. He left a cute little puddle at the chip removal station.

go faster. I think I lost focus in middle of run. I realized at mile 2 I could be running faster. I was cranky from the swim rather than keeping my head in the game.

talk with spouse eat bananas and pee.


I felt like I was at 80% potential. I feel like I peaked for the Los Angeles Tri and I felt sluggish and unenthused during this event.


Staff were generally curt or rude. VIP check in didn't open until 5:30 but if you already had a packet you could go set-up. Many of the volunteers seemed to be court mandated doing community service hours. They were not helpful and on the course would say "almost there!" even though I knew I still had 8 miles to go. There were drinks every mile on the run, unfortunately no one was watching a certain corner where you could leave the course and save about 15 seconds by cutting it. I was bumped by a runner doing just this. Security in the Transition area was surprisingly good. The only post race thing I saw were some massage tables and one masseuse. Staff made sure things happened but they didn't bring much charm to the event.

This many of the racers seemed overly competetive on this course. My impression which may be totally wrong, is this is the race where the very mediocre come out and get really agressive. I saw more people needing medical on this race than any other, but this wasn't the hardest I've done.