My coach and 2 other friends of mine will be there duking it out in the M 25-29 AG! Can't wait to see how this goes down! Good luck, Fitty!!

I'll be there, not duking it out in my ag but just doing it. It's my first 1/2 ironman and i'm excited.

Good luck to everyone down there this weekend; it's a great course, so have fun!

Ready to get the season rolling in Oceanside! Temps are supposed to be in the upper 60's low 70's which should make for a fast day... It usually takes me until the day before to really get pumped up and to get the usual nerves and twitches out of my mind. Let's race!

fittycent
calilargeguy
bogornes
wesmeyer11
mikedonia (Mike)

Have a great day guys!!!

So how did everyone do?

Mike's goal was in the 4:30s... and he went 4:37. Although far from his PB, he's happy as it was his first big race since 2005 and after healing from a heel spur :)

They were somethin' weren't they? And how about that all-concrete run leg? Brutal...at least the weather was nice! :)

I'll try to report on my experience there soon.

Congrats on finishing guys! I'd love to read your stories, too.

I ran the run course while Mike was on the bike, and I was thinking the same thing about the concrete. At least there wasn't all concrete and a sand section like last year!

Wow…what an education!

There were a lot of “firsts” for me last weekend: first Half, first wetsuit race, first “big time” race, first time flying with my bike, first race outside of Texas – and many more. I’ve never been much of a long distance guy, so this race was quite a stretch for me.

I can’t emphasize enough how much of an eye opener this experience was for me. First of all, there were no fat people there! That was amazing to me! I was also amazed that there were so few people who had “average” bikes – it seemed like every bike was $5000+. Everyone also seemed to have similar tastes: the Cervelo P3C was clearly the most popular ride. I also saw a lot of Kuota Kalibur’s, Felt DA’s…but not one Litespeed, no Scott’s that I can recall…I only saw one other Cervelo Dual, but it was the DA version: mine was the only yellow Cervelo, which made me very happy.

The Swim:
The water in Oceanside Harbor was 60 degrees, which they say is relatively warm for this race. I wore my new Orca Apex wetsuit, along with a DeSoto neoprene swim cap underneath my rubber swim cap. The wetsuit and swim cap did an amazing job keeping me warm – the only part of my body that felt cold during the swim was my face.

I have mixed feelings about this swim. The good news is that I felt strong – I didn’t get fatigued at all. Another bit of good news is that I “won” every time I collided with someone :) . The bad news is that I’d never been so disoriented in a swim before. About 10 minutes in, I had to stop and even lift my goggles off my face to see where everyone was! I’ll never know how far I actually swam, but I know I zigzagged an awful lot.

T1 went pretty smoothly. I felt fresh coming out of the water, got the suit off pretty quickly and didn’t forget anything as I left with my bike.

The Bike:
This is where I really got educated. I learned two important things about myself on this ride:

1) I have bad bike handling skills
2) My bike fitness is weaker than I thought

Guys were pretty much blowing past me the whole time. I expected some of this, but I was surprised that the stream of dudes flying past me never let up the entire 56 miles. Thanks to my poor bike handling skills, I twice narrowly avoided crashing.

Due to several factors, I didn’t finish the bike with fresh legs. First of all, the hills were steeper than I expected. I envisioned rolling hills, but what I got were San Francisco-type hills. I went into it thinking I could stay in the saddle and spin up the hills, keeping my heart rate in zone 3. There were at least two hills where this was simply not possible. I had to be out of the saddle, huffing and puffing, the whole way up. The upside is that I got to enjoy some really fast descents while coasting – that was a rush you can never experience in my part of the country – unless you have a motorcycle :)

The second reason I didn’t finish the bike fresh is that I tried to stem the tide of passers by increasing my pace the second half of the bike. I knew it was a gamble, but I felt like I was going so slowly that I needed to speed up a little, even if it meant fatiguing my legs more than I would have liked.

Third, my legs were ill-prepared for this bike leg. Not only had I not practiced on hills (they’re hard to find on the Gulf Coast), but more importantly, I still have a weak base on the bike. I hadn’t given myself enough months of bike prep for this course.

When I finished the bike, I had a suspicion that my quads were overly fatigued, but I didn’t realize how hammered they were until I started the run.

The Run:
As mentioned, I began the run realizing my quads were really fatigued from the bike. Never in my life had I been on a run that FELT so long as this one. Each time I passed a mile marker I was amazed that I was ONLY that far into the run.

In a word, the run course was terrible – 13.1 miles on concrete. Even so, there were three redeeming factors that made the run more enjoyable than it otherwise would have been:

1) The volunteers were awesome
2) When I began my first loop, I was able to see the pros and top age groupers pass by in the opposite direction as they finished their second loop
3) There were gorgeous women everywhere – among both the spectators and competitors

This run was an education too, because I was able to see and appreciate how fast some of these athletes were running. In my previous (and limited) triathlon experience, my run splits have been at or near the top, so to see the kind of pace these athletes were pushing at the end of their run was shocking to me. Every time a pro (or fast AG’er) passed by me I couldn’t help but think “You people are SICK!” I just looked at them in amazement – how could they run with so much spring in their step?!

I noticed a ton of other guys with the same red “2XU” singlet I was wearing, but none with the “Trifuel” lettering. One spectator did say “Go Trifuel” when I ran by, and I waved, but I have no idea who he was.

When I crossed the finish line and stopped running I suddenly felt famished. Strange – I ate a 1300 calorie breakfast and stuck to a pretty thorough nutrition regimen during the race and felt nourished just fine during the run, but a shockwave of hunger hit me when I crossed the line. Fortunately there was food close at hand!

Oh, and my results were as follows:

Swim:
34:17 (1:43/100yd), 81st (of 274) in AG, 580th (of 1950) overall

Bike:
2:49:22 (19.8 mph), 114th in AG, 635th overall

Run:
1:41:40 (7:46/mile), 70th in AG, 378th overall

Overall:
5:12:01, 78th in AG, 444th overall

I was slower than I predicted on all three legs (I thought I would go under 5 hours), but my expectations were unrealistic, given my lack of long distance experience.

I hope at least some of you can learn something from my experience. I love reading and learning from race reports. I appreciate everyone’s support and look forward to hearing about more of your experiences!

I have to add that there was one particular Marine on the run leg that always seemed to have the right words to say as I passed by him... 'MOVE IT"...."TIME TO DIG DEEP"....or my personal favorite "YOU CANT BE A QUITTER NOW THATS NOT WHAT YOUR MADE OF". The Marine voluteers at this event were simply awesome :)

Fun in the Sun

Here is a chronological rundown of my first HIM experience:

June 2006 - after 2 decades of non-exercise begin commuting by bicycle, start running again

August 2006 - jump in a pool, can't swim free-style across the pool, decide to try a sprint triathlon, start lurking on TriFuel for pointers

November 2006 - drop 25 pounds, race in my first small sprint triathlon, still swim like a rock. In a fit of insanity I sign up for California 70.3, setting the following goals: 1.) Have fun 2.) finish 3.) break 6:00:00 4.) try to approach 5:30:00 (super secret dream goal)

March 28, 2007 - 45th birthday, somewhat concerned about 3 issues: still a terrible (albeit earnest) swimmer, too few long rides and too few bricks (due to work/family/weather).

March 30, 2007 - Arrive at Oceanside, I am struck by two things, the large number of really awesome and sleek bikes, and the large number of really awesome and sleek humans. Resolve to wear baggy clothes and keep my shirt on.

March 31, 4:00 am - get up, discover that all my water/gatorade bottles were placed in the freezer accidently, thaw them out, pack in a hurry, have a SMALL breakfast, leave late.

6:00 am - set up my transition, talk to many interesting folks who have done this tri thing a lot. contemplate all the things that could go wrong.

6:30 am, 7:00 am, 7:15 am - pee

7:30 am - get ready, feel a breeze on my back, realize my wetsuit zipper is split down the back, perform transition #0 (scramble out of wetsuit, unjam zipper, test zipper, put on, rezip, pray it holds together)

7:41 - SWIM

I was in the 17th wave (out of 19). The water was 59-60 degrees which was on the warm side for Oceanside in March. Because I seeded myself correctly (at the back), I had an uneventful leisurely first half

The kayakers that kept telling me where to go were very nice!

I finally figured out how to take a straighter line, made the turn-around and headed home. The second half was uneventful until a 25-29 year old swimmer from the last wave swam over me, and kicked me in the mouth. Toward the end I was feeling pretty good and fresh, so I gathered myself to sprint out of the water to T1. Instead I staggered out, lost my balance, kept drunkenly veering to the right, and had to take several seconds reorienting myself while volunteers asked if I was going to be okay. The long transition jog helped my clear my head, and I fumbled through T1, noticing that ...almost everyone was gone!

Swim Time - 44:30
-----------------------------
BIKE

8:30 AM - BIKE

One of the best things about being nearly last, is that very few people pass you.

Coming from Northern California, I felt really comfortable on the hills, and blew by dozens of folks. (Sorry, flatlanders!)

One small misadventure: I was cruising down a hill, hit some small bumps, and lost a PowerBar(tm) that I was trying to unwrap. (this would haunt me later)

I was astounded about all of the people on the flats who had aerobars, but were riding upright.

My back really started to ache on the final half, but I stayed in aero, all the way through the final headwind.

It was a lot of fun, and a beautiful ride. A few bikers blew by me, but I held my own.

The advice of TriFuelers was invaluable for keeping me on a good pace, and letting me know what to expect.

I didn't keep track of time, just cadence (~90rpm)

T2 - I unclip awkwardly (only been in toe clips for three months), nearly fall over, nice volunteers ask if I'm okay?

Bike Time 2:56
---------------------------------
10:30 am - RUN

I sprinted through T2 (2 minutes), had a gel, gatorade, and a sodium tablet and started the run, but couldn't find the chocolate bar that I had laid out somewhere. In all honesty, I felt quite good, but started conservatively. I used to be a runner in high school, and I was looking forward to the next hour and a half. Then -

1/2 mile - major cramp, left quad, keep running keeping knees bent a little bit extra.

2 miles - major cramp in right quad, keep running, they loosen up a little.
miles 2-13 - Continue running, primarily out of concern that my legs might freeze up if I straighten them while walking.
Every time I try to accelerate, my quads tighten.
Still passed many folks who are dealing with other issues at that point.

~13 miles - feeling pretty beat, final straightaway, but know it's in the bag and gather myself for a final run, and photo op -
~13.01 miles - stagger, nearly fall, body goes into Gumby mode, downshift into Granny gear, WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?
13.1 miles - keeping going in something that slightly resembles a jog. Fall into the arms of nice volunteers, who ask (you guessed it) if I'm okay? Earn free ticket to medical tent.

Run Time 1:47

TOTAL TIME - 5:34:34
-------------------------------
1:15 PM - Post-Race

Spent fifteen minutes in medical tent shooting the breeze with other athletes and volunteers, eating a lot of food, and doing some math:

small breakfast + dropped PowerBar(tm) + lost chocolate bar. = only 600-800 calories = BONK

Finally limped out of the tent under my own power, called the family, packed up, and gingerly walked my bike back to the car.

Overall, this was the greatest HIM I have ever done. The weather was great, the volunteers were great, The atmosphere was electric. I learned a lot about myself and triathlon, especially the HIM distance. I nearly achieved every goal I had for a first race, and I think there is definite room for improvement. I can't wait to do another one (as soon as I stop walking so funny)!

That is one of the reasons I love running the USMC marathon here in DC!!!