Typical beach swim start. Each wave started from a coral about 50 yards from the water next to the wharf on Cowell's Beach in Santa Cruz. The course was sort of rectangular and went in a clock-wise direction. It's really hard assess how I did. The yardage was off (short), and the swim time included a 1/3 mile run from the beach to the transition area. I'm still not a very proficient swimmer. But I felt like I did okay. I actually like swimming in cold water (it was somewhere around 53-55 degrees). I wasn't sure if I'd need shoes when I was running on the pavement between the beach and the transition area, but it was no problem going barefoot.

I think I need to time my warm-up swim a little better. I felt really good during my warm-up. But after coming ashore, I stood around on the beach for about 10 minutes. By the time my wave started, I felt tight (not in a good way).

As I've done with every previous triathlon, I pre-mounted my shoes on my pedals. Most everything during the transition went well until I hopped on my bike and tried to slip my feet into my shoes. Yikes. It was not happening. I think the problem was a combination of sand, the salty water drying on my feet, the lack of lubrication in my shoes, and the fact that I didn't fully open the tongues of my shoes. At any rate, it took me about a 1/3 of a mile to actually get my feet securely fashioned in my shoes.

When I do future triathlons with ocean swims, I'm going to make sure I adequately rinse and clean my feet during T1. I'm also going to lubricate my shoes and make sure the tongues are fully open.

It's interesting that the bike ranking for the top six competitors in my age group (45-49) exactly matched the final overall placement at the finish. I didn't have as good of a bike as in some of my previous triathlons. It may be because I didn't do any tapering. I got fatigued a little sooner on the bike than I expected.

I'll at least give myself a short taper, even if it's just a sprint triathlon. I also need to work on muscular endurance.

I usually ride with my feet on top of my shoes at the end of the bike leg. But because of the problems I had getting my feet in my shoes at the start, I decided not to risk it. Also, the end of the course was tight and downhill, and crowded with several other riders. So I just kept my shoes on and ran through the transition area. That part worked fine. But I had a terrible time slipping on my socks and running shoes. Again, it must have been due to the salt and sand combo on my feet from the ocean swim.

In the future, I'll thoroughly rinse my feet during both transitions. Also, at some point, I'll consider going sockless for running and lube my shoes.

I was a bit disappointed with my run. I thought I'd have a little more spunk in my legs, and wanted to run at a 7:30 mile pace. But it didn't happen. I didn't have much of a kick at the end, either. I still had fun.

Even though I didn't feel too good, I should have at least tried to pick up the pace for the last half of the race. For whatever reason, I was content to hold on in cruise control.

Walked around the expo area. Did some light stretching.


Various problems during transitions, heavy legs.


This was a fun race. I liked the fact that the organizers paid a lot of attention to the Semper Fi (military/disabled) athletes. There were a lot of very inspirational competitors.

I wrote in detail about my experience and impressions of this race in my latest blog entry ("Getting Real in Surf City"):

http://stevendellago.blogspot.com/2011/08/getting-real-in-surf-city...