The Day at the Beach Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

Water was cold and choppy, but I was prepared since I swim Hermosa quite often. I started on the outside left, about 3 from the front and just swam against myself and focused on pacing to avoid blowing myself out. Best race swim I've had so far.

Decent transition.

Not a great bike course. Way too narrow and the less experienced/slower riders ignore etiquette and don't stay to the right causing a lot of crowding and near misses for faster riders.

On a positive note, I decided to continue shakedown of my new P3C, instead of riding the P2C. Had some nasty chain slippage going on last weekend at Bonelli with my Zipp 808/DuraAce cassette on the back. Did a little adjustment of the rear derailleur Saturday afternoon and she performed flawlessly, so its official now - the P3C is my centerfold, race day rig and the P2C is officially the training mule and inclement weather (get real, we're in California :D ) rig.

Decent transition.

Nice run course. Breathing was erratic coming off the bike and my feet were like cinder blocks due to ambient air temps and numbness from the swim and the air rushing through my Sidis, but all in all, a great run for me, which I expected, since I focus on Oly/HIM distance runs and have been doing a LOT of 10K barefoot beach runs the past several weeks to build my running base.

I expected to do well in this race, since its the only sprint I've done and my focus is mainly on Olympic/HIM distance races. I've been doing a lot of base building on my run and really worked on my mental focus swimming, since my terrible showing on the swim at Bonelli last weekend. Swim was mentally tough since I was using a long john and the thermocline broke on Friday night, resulting in much colder water temps in SoCal, but I had a great swim regardless of the blue toes and hands. Overall, a very fun and enjoyable triathlon and I'm obviously happy with a 4th AG, 26th overall finish.