This was the third year that I have raced in the L.A. Triathlon. It is the first Triathlon I ever did and so it is sort of special to me. The first two times I did the sprint version. The first year because even the idea of running three miles was a little scary and the second year because I wanted to beat my time from the first year. Goal accomplished. This year I did the Olympic distance race. Every race I have done this season is really just part of training for Ironman Arizona in November. So, as I have told myself each time before the start of the race, "this is just a training day."
After the final turn toward the Staples Center I could see the finish line. I picked up the pace for a strong finish and was pleased to be done. A finishers medal was put around by neck and I was handed a couple of cold, wet towels. They felt really good. The Great Magnetic Wife was there to greet me and she was excited that she finally got a picture of me finishing. My total run time was 1:13:03. Again, not great, but I know I could finish the Ironman marathon in the seven hours allotted. Overall, it was a good training day.
One of the reasons I was looking forward to moving to the Olympic length race was that I would start earlier. The sprint race waves always go off last. However, the last of the Olympic waves this year was men 45 and older. D'oh! Oh well, I would go a little earlier. My wave was scheduled to start at 8:05. As is usual at the L.A Triathlon, the waves were not all starting on time. The wave before us went off at about 8:10 and we gathered in the starting shoot and figured on a five minute wait before our start. About fifteen minutes later we were still waiting. There was no explanation. The Great Magnetic Wife, who was waiting to watch the start, later told me that she had heard an official say that there were four hundred people in the water and they wanted to wait for more athletes to get out of the water before they started us. We finally started at about 8:27.
The swim, unlike a couple of other recent triathlon swims was rather uneventful. I started at the back of the pack just swam my pace. Fortunately the waves in the ocean weren't as big as they have been at the last two L.A. Triathlons, but the swells bigger than I am used to when I swim at Santa Monica. We swam out beyond a big buoy and turned south towards the Venice Pier. This was a nice sighting point and I think I was able to swim a fairly straight line before the turn around. I have often questioned my sighting skills while swimming in open water and often seem to take a circuitous route. Well, no problem going out because it was very easy to use the Venice Pier as a sighting point, but coming back, it was hazy enough that there was nothing identifiable on the horizon on which to sight. So, I felt as if I swam a little further than I had to as I was struggling to see the buoys. The nice thing about being in the last wave is that no one from the following wave, or the wave after that, or the wave after that passes me by. Because of the huge time gap between the previous wave and ours, I don't think I passed anybody from an earlier wave, but I did manage to pass some athletes from the sprint waves.
Swim time: 41:11. At that pace, I would do a 1:45 Ironman swim time. Not great, or even that good, but certainly well before the cutoff. The swim at Tempe Town Lake should be a lot easier: flat water, no currents.
Being a slow swimmer does make it easier to find one's bike. Always looking on the bright side. My transition time was a reasonable 4:40.
The bike course heads east on Venice Blvd. It is wide and flat and there is usually a bit of a tail wind from the ocean. However, on the morning of the triathlon, there didn't seem to be any tail wind. Not that there was a head wind, just no wind. So I wasn't able to go quite as fast as I expected. I did seem to pass a lot more people that passed me. That is always an ego boost. The second half of the course was changed this year. It becomes quite hilly. So, I played my usual cat-and-mouse with a few riders: they would pass me going up the hills and I would pass them going down. When going into downtown, there is one very steep hill going up 1st Street and a scary steep descent going down Grand Ave. Of course the thought that I was going to have to run up that that Grand Ave. hill twice was also a little scary. This has always been a part of the course, so I knew about it, but it seems to get steeper every year.
My bike time was 1:27:27. At that rate I would finish the Ironman bike course in about 6:40. Of course I would probably be a little slower over 112 miles, so even if you add an hour to that, I would come in well under the cutoff.
T2 was 4:53. The first time in this particular race that I have done T1 faster than T2. It had something to do with finding my rack space and t2 bag. As there is a great advantage being slow out of the water in finding your bike. In a T2 that I have never been in before, there is great disadvantage to being slow and trying to find your space and waiting T2 bag. When I finally did, the other racers had left no room, and so I had to move some bike over to fit mine in. I'm sure I lost at least a minute doing all of this. I just have to keep telling myself, "it's just a training day, it's just a training day."
I drank a lot of water in transition and so when I got to the first water station, which was less than a half a mile into the run, I did not take any. This turned out to be a mistake because the water station at the turn-around, after climbing that gnarly hill on Grand Ave. was out of water when I got there. They assured me they were getting more. At least the next part of the run was down hill. There was a beer garden waiting for me when I finished, and probably because I was quite thirsty, not having hydrated for a while, I really started craving beer. If they had it on the course, I would have had some. I walked slowly through the next water station and grabbed anything that anyone had, water, gatorade, it didn't matter, bring it on.
After a dozen or so of these things, The Great Magnetic Wife has figured out where to move around to see me run by and take pictures. She was at the bottom near the second turn around, and was probably disappointed when I told her that I had another loop instead of heading for the finish.
I had been playing a little bit of cat-and-mouse with another L.A. Tri Club member named Daniel. We were both doing the run-walk method and panting, "Go L.A." as we passed each other. Early into the second loop we got in sync and ran together for a while. Daniel told me that he has type 2 diabetes and was wearing an insulin pump. He said he can't wear it during the swim, but otherwise it is with him. He has to very closely monitor his nutrition during a triathlon. If I screw up my nutritional intake, I face the possibility of bonking, but for Daniel the consequences could be much more serious. When we got to the big hill on Grand I started to walk, but Daniel said that he was just starting to get his rhythm and so he ran up the hill. I never caught him and except for passing him after he had already turned around at the top of the hill, I didn't see him again until we both collected our bikes.
After I turned around at the top of the hill I started passing a guy who had a very peculiar gait. As I was passing him, he panted, "remind me to never do this again." I said he would be glad he did it after it was finished. I ran with him for a couple of minutes and he told me that he had Parkinson's. That explained the unusual gait. He was doing the sprint, and clearly struggling, but he was going to finish and I really admire him for doing so. Whatever little problems I have, I am certainly grateful and blessed with good heath.
I was still craving that beer and went almost immediately to the beer garden and had an MGD 64. It was cold, but it really wasn't very good. I finished it, but instead of having another, I sought out cold water.
The next day I was not sore at all. This is good. I did rest on Monday, but went back to a very heavy training schedule on Tuesday.
