Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Triathlon - Olympic Distance - TriathlonOlympic

Not a good swim for me... swimming is probably my strongest event, and I should have been able to finish in 26 minutes or so. My sighting was HORRIBLE. On the way out to the pier, I swam too far out. At one point, I swam right into a kayak where a poor racer was hanging on, exhausted. She said to me "Watch where you are going!" Good advice.

On the way back from the pier, I must have swum a zig-zag. I would pop my head up to find I was too close to the shore. The lifeguards kept telling me to swim back out to the pack.

I really need to figure out how to sight. I'm thinking that different goggles might help. I was wearing sun glass goggles -- I think I need clear goggles, and I also think that prescription lenses in the goggles would help. I need to focus more on sighting and practice it.

MUCH better than last time. At the LA tri, you have to stuff and close your bag before you leave transition. So, all things considered, I think I did really well here.

I could probably save a minute if I did the bike without socks. But that doesn't sound appealing to me.

This is an awesome course... it was completely surreal to be cycling on LA city streets with NO traffic. That was worth the cost of admission! The road was rough. I had my tires at 120psi, and I stood up a lot in the pedals going over bumps... a pinch flat would have been a major bummer. My speed was good for the first 20 miles or so, but it dropped off toward the end. I supposed I was getting tired.

I passed a lot of folks, but got passed by a lot of guys in my age group on tri bikes. And looking at the standings, a lot of guys who smoked me on the bike were 3-5 minutes slower than me on the swim.

Still, this speed is a PR for me, and I'm pleased with my performance.

I've got to improve my bike fitness. Even 1mph faster would have moved me up 18 people in the bike standings.

T2 was a long and narrow transition area. Once I realized I was at the far end from the entrance, I stopped to remove my bike shoes -- made it easier to run. Then I had some trouble finding my transition spot. Had I taken some time to learn it's location prior to the race, I probably would have saved a minute. Fortunately, some volunteers helped me find it. The actual transition was fast. Thanks to the Yankz, putting on my running shoes was really fast. I kinda had to pee, but I decided to ignore it.

I had put on my race belt and Garmin wrist strap at T1, which turned out to be a good idea.

They published a transition map... I just didn't look at it. My bad.

My target was a 50min 10k. But that big hill destroyed any chance of that. I ran up about half way, then walked the rest. I felt really tired on the run, particularly the first and last miles. At the end, I tried to sprint to catch up to a guy in my AG, but he had the same idea and I couldn't catch him.

My pacing was ok -- I mostly ran about 7:45-8:15 per mile (discounting the hill walks). I walked through the water stations about 3 times. At mile 4.5, while walking up the hill, I ate a gel -- that seemed to help with some energy.

I need to focus on the run... I plan to do a run focused training plan over the off-season. Need to focus better on pacing.

Nothing to speak of. Posed for a photo, ate some oranges, walked around aimlessly for awhile. Breathed.


Training and fitness. I think I gave away about four minutes due to stupid stuff -- 1 minute in T2 (couldn't find my spot) and 4 minutes on the swim due to sighting issues. Without those, I would have moved up about four spots in the standings.

The rest is just fitness. 1mph faster on the bike would have given me five minutes, and a 50m 10k would have given me another 5 minutes. I truly believe that I can do a 2:30 Oly, and I'm going to keep plugging away at it.


I really enjoyed this race. Riding the bike on LA city streets with no traffic was totally cool. There were lots of volunteers and police around, and they were all terrific. Fellow racers were really nice and considerate. I do apologize for those folks I smacked on the swim -- there were a couple of you. Also, sorry for standing too long in the aisle in T2 trying to fix my race belt -- didn't mean to hold you up.

My only complaint is that the swag was minimal. All I got in my swag bag at the expo was a small bag of potato chips and a bunch of advertisements! Come on -- how about a free gel or some other samples! I like swag. My kids each got a little Toyota backpack and a Kaiser plastic cup at the health expo. So they, at least, were happy with the swag.

T-shirt is awesome -- I love the design.

I was really stressing about the logistics of a point-to-point triathlon (with separate T1 and T2s). I feared my bags getting lost, me missing the shuttle back to the start, lost equipment, etc. But nothing like that happened. I was really well coordinated.

Next year, I plan to do Carpinteria instead, but I will be back for this race at some point. It was an adventure!