Southern California beaches where enjoying the biggest southern swell in apparently 4 years. Great. This was my first tri and I had never done a proper OWS before. I had been really nervous about it the entire week. But come race morning, I felt OK. I guess once I saw what the deal was, I just accepted it.

Anyway, fighting the shore break was tough, but finally I was able to time my "escape" between sets. Once I hit the first bouy (dead on surpisingly), I got a boost of confidence. Heading south along the shore with the current probably helped as well. Rounded the second bouy (again surpisingly) dead on and swam in.

I was sighting every 6 strokes or so. I felt my breathing was good but my overall swim form was terrible, especially my kick which was not smooth at all. Solana has about a 300 yard run up to the top of the bluff before you hit the timing mat, my watch said 11:10 when I got out of the water. So my actual swim was closer to 2:31 per 100 yards.

On the one hand, I am stoked I got it done. On the other, it's time to really work on all aspects of my swimming.

The transition times for T1 and T2 are built into the bike time, but I can tell you that the run from the beach to T1 (up a hill) shot my heart rate through the roof. So my T1 time was probably at least 5 minutes as I tried to get things under control.

Keep on working on overall fitness to better acomodate for things like running up the hill. Try to brick some swim/bikes to practice the transition.

I really enjoyed the bike. Since I was in the last starting heat, the course was relatively open, especially on the second lap. Passed a few people, and a few people passed me. If I take out the transitions (I'm guessing 7:30 between T1 and T2), I had a bike time of 32:49 or 16.46 MPH.

Just keep working on my biking to get my speed up. I'd like to pull this ride off at an average of about 20 MPH.

Felt good coming off the bike, transitioned much better than T1, about 2:30.

Work on getting the transition times down. I think I let myself mentally shut down for a minute here when I should have just powered through.

I thought this went pretty well, and I think I may have even had negative split times being that I felt stronger and faster as the race went on. The last 200 yards where awesome, finally getting to run down a finish chute.

This was my strongest event of the three, will just keep working at getting better and faster.

Some walking and a bit of sports drink they where giving out at the finish.


I just need to overall get better and stronger.


I thought it was great!!