Aug 25 2008
2008 Santa Barbara Triathlon
I had a great weekend in Santa Barbara. After work on Thursday I was giddy about the potential of three whole days without work related stress. I love road trips and I couldn’t wait to race again on the upcoming Saturday.
PRE-RACE
Marty and I left for S.B. Friday morning. We had our two Cervelos and two very expensive wheel sets on a rack on Marty’s Dodge Charger SRT-8. Sweetness. We took our time on the way up, cruised the coast through Santa Monica, Malibu, Ventura and Santa Barbara.
Marty is a natural dork, and I’m a numbers geek so we had plenty to talk about as far as race predictions on the way up. Armed with our past splits and results from the previous year we were excited about the potential of placing really well in our age-groups. The race would be a 1 mile swim, 34 mile bike and a 10 mile run. Marty was thinking we could both pull 3:07s, I was thinking 3:09. Both would have put us easily into the top three in our age-groups (me - 25-29; marty - 35-39).
We arrived, registered, got a 90 minute ride in on the race course and a quick 10 minute run. Marty checked into his hotel (a sweet find about 500m from the transition area) and I met up with Laura and Emily at the Tait residence. I am very much in debt to the Emily’s family and can’t thank them enough for their hospitality throughout the weekend.
Race morning I woke up early (much to the dismay of Emily, Laura and Karim - who was also taking advantage of Tait lodging) grabbed a quick bite to eat (english muffin) loaded up Emily’s car and headed down to transition (with a stop at Starbucks. I didn’t want to deal with caffeine withdrawal headaches while racing). The weather was comfortably cool, the sky looked overcast in the darkness and there was almost a fine mist hanging in the air.
I got situated in transition while the sun came up and spent a good amount of time visualizing my race and fidgeting with gear. I took time to listen to the race brief and noted that the race staff seemed to be paranoid about the open bike course. An open bike course means that many of the roads we would be traveling over would be open to vehicle traffic. They made it very clear that traffic laws were to be followed and crossing a double yellow line would result in disqualification - no questions asked. Soon enough the national anthem was over and I found myself with the rest of my wave lined up at the race start.
I feel like typing so stand by for excruciating detail. If you don’t like long blogs, then bug off. I didn’t ask any of you to read this and its more for me than you anyways.
SWIM
My swim went really well. There was just a little bit of swell in the water and the conditions were very, very clean. The start wasn’t too crowded, intense or anaerobic. As I passed the first buoy and turned north up the beach I was very comfortable. My stroke felt very long and strong. I like letting my recovery arm complete about 75% of the stroke recovery before my other arm starts the catch-phase. When somebody swims next to me during races I usually find that I take about 1 stroke to their 1.75.
About 500 m into the race my age-group’s lead pack started to run into speed bumps. And by speed bumps I mean people in the 45+ wave (dare I call them “old dudes”?). I have no idea why race organizers put the oldest racers in the second wave right behind the elite-pro wave. It seems cruel to them because some were destined to be run over almost immediately by the aggressive guys like me in the 18-35 year old male wave that left three minutes behind them. More then once I unexpectedly slammed into floating old dude feet. I don’t mean to call the master’s of triathlon slow (see the beginning of my run), and I certainly hope I’m still racing when I’m 55. I’m sure some of them didn’t appreciate being run over by kids half their age either. The race organizers save maybe 30 minutes on the back end by letting the “slower” age group go first and I just don’t think its worth clogging up the swim like that for such a small chunk of time when your talking about a race that can take as much as five hours. Just a thought. Maybe race organizer extraordinaire Karim can weigh in. Probably not, since he hates long blogs.
Anyways, as soon as my lead group ran into the first big pack of these folks we seemed to get pretty split up and I lost my drafts. No worries, I like clean water anyways. At one point I ended up right next to another guy who had to be from my wave. We seemed content to stay about even and a meter apart. I like to think we were working together, taking turns sighting, breathing towards each other and using each other to keep a straight line down the course.
I lost my buddy when I turned back south. We only had one buoy to sight off of and it was the left turn that marked the move towards shore and transition. Everybody seemed to want to hug the shoreline and I was all alone for the last 30% of the swim. I exited the water alone.
BIKE
Transition went well and I got onto the bike without any hitches. There were only a few other racers around me which was a bit unexpected. It took about 20 minutes for me to really feel like I had turned from swimmer to cyclist and get comfortable. A considerable portion of a 1.5 hour event, something to work on. The amount of time it takes me to get into my cycling rhythm is one reason I like long events vs. short ones. My issues may have been because the first part of the course was a gradual climb that led to a pretty gnarly decent. Toro Canyon Road.
Remember how I said the weather was overcast and misty? And how the race organizers were paranoid about crossing the double yellow line? I’ve done a bit of climbing and descending with Felipe recently (another blog I need to write) and I was pretty confident about my cornering ability as I crested the gradual and long climb. The mist seemed to thicken up there and the visor on my helmet coated with water, hurting my visibility. Regardless I started the plummet and was having a good time picking fast lines, moving my weight to my outside pedal and working the bike. There were no other cyclists or vehicles around me. I approached a wet patch of road right in front of a sharp corner and in the next few seconds an awful lot happened that would effect my mental health through the next few hours.
I hit the wet spot, felt the water spray off the tires and onto my legs, tried to slow into the corner expecting my tires to get loose, spotted a person wearing a red shirt and a reflective vest on the outside of the second half of the turn, noticed the camera he was pointing at me, focused on the person instead of my line, drifted onto the yellow line and inches over it, corrected and brought myself back into my lane and then saw the camera flash.
“He must be an official” I thought. The camera must have been to keep track of race numbers of the guilty as riders came speeding by. I figured my race had ended at that point. I slowed my descent through the rest of the canyon and my mind started racing on the flats below.
“Should I quit?
No. I can still learn from the race and I want to see what I’m capable of. Plus I can’t let Marty beat me.
“Should I hold back and save the intensity for another race?
Maybe.
Maybe they’ll lose the picture. Maybe I’m not the only one who accidentally deletes their film”
In the end I decided to just keep plugging along. Even if I was officially DQ’d, I wanted to see how I would finish. I wanted to run down Santa Barbarian’s.
After the descent, the course rode through a flat scenic below the mountains that shelter Santa Barbara. The course was an out and back that “looped” or separated inbound and outbound racers in three places. This included a loop at the far end of the course with another notable climb and more technical turns. The climbs and turns made it hard to maintain speed but a fun (though slightly dangerous) course to ride. When I doubled back on the course after the climb and descent on the far loop I got to see all the racers who started behind me. I was thankful to be riding so far forward where traffic was light. I was only passed by two riders along this stretch, one in a Cialis Team jersey.
The climb back up Toro Canyon was uneventful and the gradual descent back to transition was a ton of fun. My speed crept above 25 mph with spurts above 35 mph. The open course was a bit frustrating at times. I even found myself having to slow for traffic once. I can’t see how an open course can be fair since everybody is going to be affected by traffic in different ways. This was a fun course, but I wish it was closed to traffic.
Back on the beach and headed towards transition I was greeted by crowds and cowbell (my favorite). Again, I made it through transition relatively easily and headed out for the run.
RUN
So before the race I thought I would be lucky to fall into my marathon pace (6:52 min/mile) during the 10 mile run. I was a bit concerned when my garmin started showing me at a 6:10 pace in the first mile. I slowed a bit to stay under control and make sure I had gas in the tank to finish. Before I knew it I spotted the Cialis jersy up the course and I focused on reeling him in. The course left the flats along the beach and started a gradual climb up to the turn around. The halfway point was actually a few hundred meters down the other side of this hill. After the turn I caught my Cialis jersy and put some good distance on him back up the hill. On the way down the other side back to the beach I started to push and managed to keep a pretty good pace all the way through the finish line. I averaged 6:23 min/mile over the 10 miles, much better then I had hoped for.
AFTERWARDS
Props to the race organizers for getting the results up so fast. After I crossed the finish line I waded back into the ocean to get some icing effect on my legs. When I returned the results were posted and I saw that I had finished 3rd in my age group and 13th over all. But I was still convinced that the USAT officials would DQ me. Marty came barreling across the finish line a few minutes later and we reflected over a pitcher of beer at the nearby beach food stand. Only after the penalties were posted did I relax and start to enjoy the afternoon.
THOUGHTS
-Michellie Jones beat me by 12 seconds. I guess getting chicked by an Ironman World Champion and an Olympic Silver Medalist is ok. But not again if I can help it.
-Nobody younger than me beat me.
-My swim and run times were remarkably faster than what I thought I was capable of.
-There were two gnarly crashes out on the course. One sent somebody to the hospital. Nobody was eaten by a shark. Cycling is way more dangerous than swimming in the ocean.
-I can’t wait to race again.
-Pictures to follow
Garmin Data
Bike
Run
Numbers
