These Playa del Run series aquathons are pretty informal. You can do just the 1,000 meter swim, or just the 5K run if you want. But most in the field of about 150 were doing the full swim/run event. While we were waiting at the starting line, you could see several dolphins milling around the lifeguard boat just past the breakers. The usual comments and jokes about sharks were made. At the same time we started, the "5K only" race started back behind us off Bernard Way and Ocean Park. There is only one wave, so it was a good mass start running down the sand berm into the waves. The water was pretty shallow, so we had to run well out into the ocean before getting to the real surf. I was trying not to tire myself out running through the water, but I didn't want to start swimming too soon and get trampled. Finally, I was through the breakers and swimming. I was able to glance at my watch, which read 54 seconds. It had taken almost a full minute to get to where I could actually start the swim.

The field seemed more crowded than usual. We were packed in pretty tightly together. I sighted the first buoy, and realized I was well to the inside of it. To move to the left, I had to swim over the legs of the person next to me. He (she?) seemed to be a good sport about it and just kept swimming as though nothing was wrong at all. I rounded the first buoy in a complete traffic jam, then headed north breathing to my right, facing the beach. There was some woman swimming just to my right who kept moving up along side of me. She actually bumped against me a couple times. I changed to breathing on the left and immediately realized the problem. The main string of swimmers was well off to the left some fifteen to twenty yards or so. I had veered off to the right and this poor woman wasn't bumping into me, I was bumping into her. I changed my direction and kept breathing to my left as I eased back toward the proper course.

The water was just choppy enough to make sighting the next buoy almost impossible, so I just sighted on those ahead of me. By about half way through the swim I was steadily passing the competition, but feeling like I just wasn't able to really get up to a good speed. As well as my swim training in the pool has been going, it just doesn't translate into good ocean swimming without getting time in the ocean. By this time last year I had done around ten ocean swims. This year I've only done one prior to this race, and it showed.

I rounded the second buoy by mere inches, in another traffic jam. About six or seven of us were all cutting the course as short as possible and arrived at that final buoy about the same time. Once past it, I made my move out of and around the pack to the inside and pulled away. As I approached the breakers, I could feel the current helping me along, right up behind two more swimmers. Anticipating catching a wave to ride into shore, I was now trying to move to the right so I wouldn't crash into these guys. But as I kept swimming, glancing back after every couple breaths, I never did see a wave to ride and wound up swimming all the way in.

Once in shallow water I got up and ran for the beach. I glanced at my watch, saw 8:15 and thought that's pretty fast for 1,000 meters. A moment later as I was peeling off the left arm of my wetsuit I wanted to look at my watch again because that time couldn't possibly be correct. Maybe my watch had stopped. But now my tightly fitting wetsuit was caught on my watch and I couldn't seem to finish pulling it over. Soon I was exiting the water and I wanted to get a split, but I still couldn't get the partially reversed sleeve over the watch. I ran up the beach with my arm trapped across my chest with my elbow sticking out to the side like a chicken with a broken wing. I pulled my right arm out of the wetsuit and then went back to work on the left. Finally it was out and I looked at my watch to see that it was showing the time of day, not the race timer time. During the crashing and thrashing of the first few minutes of the swim someone must have hit my watch button and switched the display back to time-of-day mode. Once back on timer mode I could see I was at about 14:40, still fast, but I had long since missed my opportunity to get a true swim split right out of the water. I figure that must have been right around 14:00. So I decide to take the split at the chute entering T1, 14:58. I'm certainly happy with my swim split, as approximate as it was, this was a nice improvement over last year's 14:48 split.

Get a better start. I really need to be more aggressive in getting to and then past the breakers. But despite the fact that I didn't feel I was swimming well, my unofficial swim split tells me I was doing OK after all.

I spent 1:56 in transition getting my wetsuit the rest of the way off, washing the sand off my feet and then putting on my socks and running shoes; too slow for a real triathlon. Then I took off on the run course, feeling pretty good. After all, there's no bike related wobbly leg syndrome in an aquathon, just fatigue. Then I panicked. I forgot to put on my race number. I instinctively pulled a U-turn and dashed back to the transition zone to get it. As I did so I questioned myself as to whether or not I needed it since the number was still quite visible on the backs of both hands. I guess I really didn't need it, but by now my 5K time was screwed anyway. I took a split as I entered the run course for the second time. Lost 34 seconds. Why did I go back? It really was that kind of day.


Need to be more organized. I've never forgotten my race number belt before, so I guess you never know what will go wrong. Mostly though, I need to be able to get that wetsuit off faster.

The first lap went well. I felt like I was running fast, but with a manageable pace. My split was 10:33 as I started lap number two. Somewhere around mile two I started faltering. Although I had passed a lot of people, it was sometimes hard to tell if they were aquathon competitors or 5K stragglers. Mostly 5K stragglers I was assuming. But now a few competitors who were better runners than swimmers were passing me. I wasn't able to hold onto anyone and had to let them go. The last stretch from Bricknell to the finish was a real struggle to hold my pace. I just kept reminding myself to focus on keeping my form from falling apart and the pace would take care of itself. With about 200 yards to go I re-doubled my efforts and pushed myself as hard as I could right on through the finish. My second lap was a 10:51, giving me a self-timed 5K run split of 21:24.

With the extra 34 seconds to retrieve my race number, my official run split would show 21:58. That is, if they got my official splits at all. Which they didn't. The official results show that at least a dozen people didn't get splits. I was one of them. It was that kind of day. At least I did get an official time for the whole event of 38:50, good for 28th place over all and 2nd in the 50 to 54 age group. And yes, the 34 seconds spent needlessly going back for my race number cost me the age group 1st place. As a consolation though, I did beat the guy who finished ahead of me and who took 2nd place to my 3rd in our age group at the Hermosa Beach Tri last October, by 5 seconds (actually, 39 seconds!).

I don't think there was anything I could have done durning the race to improve my run, but I was hoping to turn in a much faster run split. If I'm going to run faster in these shorter events, sprint triathlons and aquathons, which are mainly what I do, then I need to do more fast-run training and less of the longer 10 milers.

Walked a few hundred yards, then jogged about 1/2 mile, then did some stretching.


I need to do more ocean swimming since all my races have ocean swims in them. That is not a problem since I live close to the beach, it's more a matter of dealing with this year's colder water temperatures. It's getting warmer, but it's still about 5 to 8 degrees behind last year.

Also, I need to spend a day per week on faster running. So that means I'll be doing some interval workouts and running some hill circuits.



And the last thing that went wrong? These guys at Playa del Run raffle off an awful lot of stuff after the races, so it's worth sticking around. Last July in the aquathon they held in Playa del Rey, I won the shoes I was wearing in this race, so that saved me about a 100 bucks. What did I win this time? Diddley-squat. It was that kind of day.