Good conditions for a swim, warmer than last year and overcast so the return swim directly east wasn't into the sun.

Lined up about second row, ended up right on Holger and Ian Murray's feet, but I lost them soon after rounding the first buoy, just couldn't keep up with the lead pack. The outbound course was sort of an arc of four buoys to the turnaround, and my navigation absolutely sucked, veering left much worse than normal. I looked back to see the poor sucker drafting off me.

All of the caps were white, so there was no way to judge progress, unfortunately.

Felt a little choppy and a bit of a current on the outbound leg. Smoothed out for the return, which only had two buoys but navigation for some reason was much better, hit the buoys right on. Looked back, no one drafting. Figures.

Had one episode of "is that vertigo?" on the way out, seems like i have one or so of these a swim.

Turned towards shore and stroked until I hit the sand, one dolphin and I was up. Saw Wendy and my mom who came down after me. Always nice to have support, especially since I didn't know more than 2 or 3 people in this race.

FTR, Holger beat me by a couple seconds, Ian by about a minute

Better navigation

Run from the water was a 100 yards or so of soft, deep sand. Great. Ran all of it, but have to admit that once in transition I walked a bit to collect myself.

I also did a couple silly things, wanted to put my Garmin on, but my watch was on, so spent time and took it off. Oh well........

Got into cycling shoes without socks pretty easily.

go faster

This is a pretty challenging bike course, with 3 major climbs (by "major", I mean not long and/or super steep, but relatively enough to slow you down a lot) and a lot of technical turns. Several sections of the road are in terrible shape, and there were bottles and tubes all over the place. That said, it's a nice course that goes from SB down around Montecito (western home of Oprah :) ), through Carpinteria, up to Casitas Pass Road and then return.

About 2 weeks ago I found a crack in my 57 Saber frame, so I was using a friend's 55 Saber. I got the fit close, but it's not the same. There were times when my legs would just be burning but my HR would be 150, and climbing on it is obviously different.... something wrong with that, but just gotta deal with it.

The course is not closed to traffic, but they had CHP and volunteers manning intersections that did a good job. There was also a lot of drafting going on, both inadvertant since the course is narrow at spots as well as blatantly adverant. USAT marshalls were on the course though.

Each climb is different, the first is subtle but long and a burner. The second seems like it should be harder but it's just short and a bit steep. The last is the longest, a roller coaster of steeper sections and interval sections that you can recover on.

I was intentionally holding back a bit so as to not burn out my legs for the run, so I would sort of surge on the flatter/easier parts and then back off on the climbs. I was only out of the saddle a couple times. Then I would forget and try to bridge a gap, the burning in my legs reminding me to slow down. I was hoping I hadn't already gone too hard by the time I reached the third hill.

Did have one unhappy chain dropping incident at the base of the third hill. The bike I am using has such senstive front deraillieur (I guess) that I have not been able to re catch the chain on the fly (in two tries) as I can on my bike. Lost maybe a minute between stopping, getting it back on, and starting again.

According to motionbased, course was .20 miles shorter than last year

Ride my bike. Still more hill training.

OK, there's no reason for this time except I couldn't find my spot. I had counted the racks, and was at the right rack, but thought I was closer to the end than I was, so I missed it, ran to another rack. DOH!

figure out where I am going

What a great run for me. In my last two races I've discovered a run cadence, just a quick, comfortable stride that doesn't kill me. I haven't done more than 2 runs past 10 miles in the last few weeks, so I wondered how I would hold up.

Had my Garmin, and my pace during the first mile was showing 8:35. I was comfortable, but I knew I couldn't do 10 at that pace, so worked on slowing down. Didn't go by HR at all, just went by RPE and comfort

I broke the run into sections - bike path, hill, park, street, park, residential area, the "pit", and back. breaking it down into bite sized chunks made it easier.

Although my pace was faster, I did walk through each aid station, as I plan to do at IMAZ. This also broke up the run. Unlike last year, I didn't walk either of the 2 big hills on the run.

I got passed a lot, passed a few myself, but knew I was having a prety good run. I wasn't keeping mile splits, but hit the turnaround at 46:00 and change, and knew it was a faster course going back, so I had hopes of a 1:30 something finish. Having run 1:47 last year, this gave me the motivation to go on.

This was also the first time I had worn my LA Tri race jersey. It's a XXXL, but Garneau sizing (i.e., ridiculous) and I always felt ridiculous in it since it didn't stay down over my stomach. Finally I felt like I could wear it without looking like a complete dork (more than we already do), and I have to say all the 'go LA" comments, "great job" etc. really helped. It's good to have that kind of support in a race.

As good as most of the run felt, about mile 7.5 it got hard. At the top of the hill I finally saw gailg, and gave a wave. Mile 8 was painful, but I was holding it, and I was passing people (a few, but still passing). mile 9 was just getting miserable... but it's only a mile, right? You can see the finish from a long ways off. Sometimes that's good, sometimes not so. Just have to stop thinking about the pain, and as Simon Whitfield said, do it because you know you can.

Splits
8:46
8:55
9:17
9:43
9:16
10:01
9:19
9:11
8:51
8:40

right now, not much

Went into the ocean and just dunked myself, floated around for 15 mintues or so. Felt great.

Saw Jocelyn (sealiongirl) registering for the sprint. I'm afraid I was a sweaty incoherent mess :)


weight, bike training


Lots of great stuff about this race. It's a small local race, but very popular and lots of people racing. So lots of traffic, drafting, etc. Road surfaces are also frankly dangerous in a couple spots. But it's the most beautiful So Cal course I think.

Compared to last year's race:
Swim
2007 - 26:39
2008 - 24:38

Bike
2007 - 1:56:06
2008 - 1:49:01

Run
2007 - 1:47:10
2008 - 1:31:50

I am very pleased, my run in my last two tris, an Oly and this, were very strong, consistent, and negative split. Still my weakest event, but getting better!