Santa Barbara Triathlon 5:06:39

The Santa Barbara Triathlon

Swim: 1 mile

Bike: 34 miles

Run: 10 miles

The Great Magnetic Wife decided that since she was going to go to all of these events, she might as well volunteer. It would be a nice way to help out and to pass the time. And since she volunteered, it meant that she had to be there at 5:30 am. This was good because that is about the time I wanted to get there. She usually complains about how early I want to arrive. Now, we are on her schedule. No complaints.

By the time I got there the racks were more than half full, but there were enough empty spaces to get a nice spot by a big palm tree that would mark my transition space. 

The previous day I realized that I forgotten to pack my race belt. I didn't want to pin my number to my shirt, so I was going to have to buy a new one. This would be number three in my collection. I got it from Go For It Sports which set up a little under-the-tent retail store at the expo. I must really pack with a check list, I forgot my swim goggles at the Camp Pendleton Tri and now this.

I took a swim for about ten or fifteen minutes on Friday, and another five minute swim in the morning. The conditions were the same. There are no waves to speak of to get through, but the water is very choppy. Not ideal, but swimmable.

This is the first triathlon I have ever been in that did not issue different color swim caps for the different waves. In a way this is good, as I am being passed by waves that went off after me, I don't feel so bad. I can sort of convince myself that I'm not so slow if I don't have proof that that swimmers who started ten to fifteen minutes after me are passing me by. That being said, I had a decent swim. My time was 40:23 for a mile swim. That translates to a 1:36 for a 2.4 mile Ironman swim. That is well within the cutoff time. Since this was really just a training day for the Ironman Arizona in November, I am happy with that.

T1 was uneventful, if slow. My time was 6:24. I really must work on faster transitions. Most, but not all of the bike on my rack and around were gone, but there were still a few who swam slower than me.

When I picked up my race packet on the previous day, I listened to a course preview talk. The speaker kept emphasizing the difficulty of the bike course. He particularly stressed how treacherous the down-hills on Toro Canyon and Gubanador Canyon were. I felt I really had to drive the route as much as possible for a preview. The Great Magnetic Wife and I took the car over most of the route and that guy was right. This was a gnarly course. I must admit that I was concerned. There were some very steep ascents and some quite technical descents. The course was completely open to traffic and some of those roads in the hills were very narrow, curvy, and not necessarily in good condition. I decided I was going to bring my cell phone in case some thing happened. 

With all of this in mind, I took off on the bike. Since I usually start at the back of the pack in the bike, I usually pass more cyclists than pass me. This was not the case. I was passed my far more people than I passed. I did my usual bit of passing on the down-hills, but since there were a lot of steep climbs, I got passed a lot.

The one thing about the course that surprised me was that it was not quite as bad as it seemed when I previewed it in the car. There was very little traffic and the few cars that there were, gave everybody lots of room. However, there was an instance where I heard some honking in back of me. We were on a long, mild up hill climb on a narrow two lane road. The honking was followed by what I could tell was angry yelling from the vehicle. Then I saw a vehicle speed past, straddling the yellow line, going at least 60 mph on a street with a 35 mph speed limit. The only thing I could tell about the vehicle was that it was a white SUV with a peace sign bumper sticker. I guess we don't always follow the thoughts on our own bumper stickers.

The descent down Toro Canyon was not as scary as I had imagined. I didn't go full-out, there were some technical curves, but I went pretty fast. Looking at my GPS readout, I was averaging about 30 mph. The climb up Gubanador Canyon, which I imagined was going to slow me to 5 or 6 mph only slowed me to about 9 mph. Even the descent down Gubanador was not as difficult as I expected, but then suddenly there was a reminder how treacherous it can be. There was a volunteer in the road with a stop sign who was yelling for us to stop because there were emergency vehicles ahead. I, along with the other cyclists, came to a stop. There were two fire trucks, an ambulance and four CHP cars. There was a cyclist down, bleeding and on a stretcher. Yes this can be dangerous. They allowed us to go through after only fifteen seconds or so. It did remind me to be careful.

Coming back we took a slightly different route that allowed us to look down on the polo fields of the Santa Barbara Polo and Racquet Club. They were really quite beautiful. However, a part of the course I didn't preview was riding back up Toro Canyon. The descent was difficult and technical, the ascent was just plain steep. There was one woman who got off of her bike and walked. I was going as slow as 3.6 mph at one point. About every minute I would check both my front and back gears to make sure that they were as low as they could go. And even though I had checked them a minute before, I checked them again. It seemed like there must have been a mistake, because I couldn't be geared all the way down. But I was.

 

The good news was that when that climb was over, the rest of the course was primarily down-hill. There was about seven miles to go, but those miles could be done relatively quickly. 

My bike time was 2:10:33. Not great, an average of a little over 15 mph for the 34 miles, but considering the hills, not terrible. It would translate into me making the cut-off at an Ironman. And Ironman Arizona has a relatively flat bike course.

T2 was 5:19. I really do have to trim some time off of my transitions.

On the early part of the run I was passing a lot of really fast runners going the other way as they were coming back and finishing. As I got farther into the run, the runners coming the other way, were slowing down. 

About two miles into the run my cell phone rang. I still had it in pocket of my cycling shirt from the bike. I didn't really want to answer it, but I thought it just might be The Great Magnetic Wife with some sort of emergency. I couldn't read who was calling because the sun was too bright to make out the screen, so I just answered. It was Karen Lacey, the Head Usher at Church For The Nations. As I panted into the phone, I said I would have to call her back. She was obviously checking for my availability for services on Sunday.

The run was out and back. The first two miles were flat and then the rest of the first half was primarily up hill with the last quarter before the turn-around a relatively steep down-hill. So I should have had a negative split. But once I got back to the last two miles of flat, I slowed down considerably and ended up having a pretty even out and back. My total run time for the ten mile run was 2:04:03. Again, not great, but would translate into finishing the Ironman in the required time. 

My total time was 5:06:39. My expectation going in was to finish in about five hours. I did. Goal accomplished.

John Thum