Bonelli Olympic Distance Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

I was in Wave 2 of 3 waves. The start was easy enough; no surf crashing on the shore, or big swells trying to push you back toward the beach. But the bottom was pretty rocky, so I waded out a few yards then dove in and started swimming. Oddly, even though this is a small event with less than 200 people, the swim start was just as crazy as ever. I tried to get a fast start, but lots of people got ahead of me and I was boxed in somewhere in the middle with some guy kicking furiously in my face. So I swam over him. It took almost to the first buoy to get away from people that kept bumping into me from the side. I had planned to go out fast and draft behind someone, since it had worked so well in the Pier-to-Pier race in August. By now I was toward the front of the "pack", if you can call it that, as we were spread out laterally about thirty yards apart. Apparently some had veered left and some right. For once it wasn't me as I seemed to be only a little off course for hitting the second buoy and a left turn that angled us toward the finish line on the north shore, well east of the start. I made that turn and did a few strokes with my head high above the water to sight the next buoy and realized I was now ahead of everyone in my wave. So much for drafting. From that point on I was focused on keeping a strong pace and maintaining good form. Soon I was passing people from the first wave pretty regularly. As I approached the last hundred yards or so of the swim course, I realized I was just cruising along, so I picked up the pace for a faster finish. Again, no surf to deal with on the exit in this lake, but I kind of like catching a wave at the end of a swim and getting pushed up onto the beach. So I swam in until it was real shallow, stood up and ran out of the water and onward to T1. My self-timed split out of the water was 24:09, and then I took another split as I crossed the mat into T1, 36 seconds. So 24:45 for the unofficial swim split vs the 24:44 for the official split. Close enough for me. The official results also confirmed I was first in my wave out of the water, with the 6th fastest swim split of the day. Nice. And I was still very fresh thanks to the moderate overall pace.

Get a better warm-up. Arrive early enough to get in about 10 minutes of stretching and a 2 to 300 yard continuous swim.

T1 was my usual slow performance, especially getting the wetsuit off. I'll swear it seems to take longer every time I do it. Self-timed T1 split was 3:11. Terrible.

Do the same things, but much faster.

Having little idea of how the bike course was going to go, I figured that the first lap would probably be my slowest as I got a feel for the hills. I did get off to a good start as I did a nice running mount and was pedaling past a couple others right away. The first part, which loops around the small airport to the east, was virtually flat, but very windy. I was expecting three good uphill stretches as the course worked its way around the lake, and got them. By the third hill I was out of the saddle trying to keep some speed as I approached the top. The down hills were just steep enough and long enough to get up a fast decent. Later I would find a 42.4 mph max speed on my bike computer. With just over 26 minutes for the first lap I was optimistic of having a good bike leg. The second lap seemed to go by faster, but it turned out to be about a minute slower. By the third lap I was really wearing down. I was feeling the hills more than I cared to, and the heat didn't help. I dropped another minute, for a 28 minute lap, and was real happy to see the small crowd gathered at the turn-off point to the transition area. My self-timed bike split was 1:21:24. So my T1 + Bike split + T2 times = 1:27:24. Oddly, this was eight seconds slower than the official split posted on the website, 1:27:16. I'll gladly take the faster time! My bike split was good for 3rd fastest in my AG and 68th over all.

I'm not sure what I could have done differently that would have made a difference. However, I felt that I should have gone faster.

T2 was another slow process with a few errors thrown in to boot. First off, since I was late in arriving and rushing around trying to get to the starting line, I didn't count the rows of racks so I'd know where I left my stuff. Coming out of the water it was easy to find my bright red Scott road bike, which is not like any other bike there. Easy to find. But as I came into T2, I realized I still didn't know where my stuff was, but spotted my towel and my inside-out wetsuit pretty soon. So I racked my bike pulled off my helmet, glasses, gloves, shoes, then reached for my running shoes only to discover they weren't my shoes. They were similar, but definitely not mine. This wasn't my stuff. I was at the wrong rack. The towel was just like the ones I got from the Redondo and the Hermosa Beach Triathlons two years ago. Anyway, I stuffed everything into my helmet, grabbed my bike and ran down a few more racks to find my real spot. Once my running shoes were on, I was off and running. My self-timed T2 was 2:49.

Always know where you left your stuff in the transition area.

I started the run with the usual lack of decent leg muscle coordination, and almost no idea of what the course was going to be like, other than it was a hilly one loop circuit around the lake. I very much enjoyed the run through the heavy lakeside undergrowth, trees, bushes, etc., in the first stretch. It was nice to get some extended shade and cool off. It reminded me more of a cross-country course than the typical road-run-type venue of most triathlons I've been in. As the dirt path turned into an asphalt roadway, the course made a fairly flat, out and back dog-leg just south of the small airport, before continuing around the lake. By now the weather had really warmed up and the clear, bright sunny sky indicated there would be no relief from it. As the course made its way along the lake, I tried to keep a good pace, but the kind of fatigue that you just know isn't going to go away had set in. I re-focused myself from pushing the pace to concentrating on my form. Keep the knees low, don't over-stride. Keep the foot-strike at mid-sole or forward, and don't start doing a heel-strike. Keep each foot on the ground for a split second longer as it passes behind you to get better core rotation and forward propulsion from the hip flexors. Maintain a slight forward lean, but with a perfectly straight bodyline from the trailing foot to the forehead, without bending at the waist. Etc., etc... I found that I needed to slow up into the water stations and walk while I drank down most of a cup of water, pouring the rest over my head. I had the feeling that my body was absorbing the water before it even got to my stomach. Every small bit of shade that I ran through was welcomed. Gaining on other runners is usually at least a small psychological boost, but passing them in their completely wilted state made me worry that this could be me any minute now. Getting passed by stronger runners who didn't seem wilted at all didn't help. Running along the road over the dam was like being an ant under a magnifying glass, why didn't I wear a hat? But I had other questions crowding my mind, like how much further until the finish line? Am I going to make it? Time to re-focus again and get back to concentrating on running form. But as I came to the next water station I had to ask, "How Far?" The guy said he had no idea. At the next water station the guy said one mile. The next water station guy said 1 1/2 miles. What? These guys are just guessing. Next water station was back to one mile, as the course turned right, went off the road and onto a trail. Before long I was running closer to the lakeside and then onto the cement walkway. Someone said 300 yards to go, as I passed a runner who responded with, "That's still too far". Took the words right out of my mouth. Should I believe it this time? Then, coming around a bend I thought I could see the finish area up ahead. Yes that was it! Finely I was on the last straightaway, maybe 75 yards to go, time to see what's left. I sprinted as hard and fast as I could and kind of surprised myself that I did accelerate by a noticeable amount. Crossed the finish line, stopped my watch, and walked on wobbly legs as voices asked for my bib number tag. I'm pretty sure I tore it off by myself and gave it to someone, then struggled to remove my timing chip. But all I was thinking of was where to find some water. I looked around. I was all by myself. Where did everybody go? Even more importantly, where's the water?

My self-timed run split was 46:18. Wow, That's way too fast. I couldn't have been going better than 8:30 per mile pace. Pre-race I was hoping to break 48 minutes, but after a couple miles I re-adjusted my goal to 52 minutes. By the end I was hoping for 55 and would have been happy with 58. I really couldn't tell how fast I was going, but that 46:18 seemed to confirm what I'd heard, that the run course was short by at least a quarter mile. When I finally found where the water was, I heard someone commenting that the swim and bike courses were a little long. So I said that I thought the run course was more than a little short. He told me it wasn't all that short, as his Garmin Forerunner had given him a distance of just over 6 miles. Well, even at 6 miles, a 46:18 means 7:43 per mile pace. I can't believe I was running that fast over those hills in that kind of heat. No way. Then when the official results were posted on the website on Wednesday, I found that my run split was listed as 43:01! That's 7:10 pace. Absolutely no way. Well, I've seen wacky times/splits at other triathlons, and I'm not sure what happened here, but I'm going to have to decline that generous 2:35:01 official time in favor of my 2:38:27 self-timed one. But on the bright side, regardless of time, overcoming my suffering translated into a first place AG finish and a 27th place finish over all. The run itself was the fastest time in my AG, and 31st over all. Very satisfying indeed.


Wear a hat. Maybe drink more while still on the bike. Do more training in the kind of weather the race will be in.

Just walked around, with a little stretching for about 40 minutes, eating PBJ sandwiches and drinking lots of water.


The hills were a limiting factor, to some degree, especially on the bike. But the heat was the killer on the run.


This was a good, low-key, fairly informal event, in a nice country-like setting. If only we had a nice big, undeveloped piece of open land like this near the beach in the South Bay...