Coming from Vermont and racing California 70.3 has been an interesting experience the last 2 years. I arrive knowing that I am not in top form yet, but excited to kick off the season. To make things even more interesting this year I was making my pro debut. Lastly, adding another level of complexity to the race was the fact that the participant list read something like a world championship race!
I arrived in Oceanside Thursday, got a quick tune up from Doug, the stellar Timex mechanic and a quick ride, the first outside on my new orange Trek TTX 9.9 SSL , man that bike is fast, hence forth referred to as the flaming rocket!
My home stay host Rob, his girlfriend and her son were incredibly gracious and welcoming, giving me a great pasta meal, a private bedroom and bathroom as well as anything else I could have needed. Thank you again!
Race morning the water temperature was 60 degrees, significantly warmer that I expected, yet still a little chilly. I placed myself right up front opting to BE swum over rather that have to DO the swimming over. I wasn’t able to get the first pack, but caught the main group and was following a good draft until the turn around where the group began to spread out and swimming into the rising sun made for some guess work on exactly where to swim. All in all not a stellar swim, but respectable exiting with the main group around 27 minutes. I definitely need to work on my swim start and hanging on a little longer to catch the faster feet.
Running through T1 I saw many familiar faces and got some great encouragement from a lot of the age groupers lining up for their respective swim starts. I was off the back of the main pro field, but used my PowerTap , to focus on a consistent/steady effort at my goal power. This bike course is great, the first half is pretty fast and flat with a few small climbs and on the back half there are a few tough climbs, this year there was a pretty stiff head wind on the back side of Camp Pendelton as wel,l which made it slightly more challenging. I was able to pace myself well and pass several cyclists in the last 10 miles of the race. Overall normalized power of 288w with a VI 1.02.
I was feeling very good heading into T2 and ready to run hard to see if I could make up any ground. However, within the first few hundred feet of the run my lower back began to cramp very badly and I was forced to hobble most of the run. Many of my friends and family who were watching the race commented on how “not myself” I looked while running. Let me tell you, I didn’t exactly feel like myself either. This cramping was probably due to a combination of an early season race where my body was just not accustom to the high intensity efforts, lack of stretching over a very busy previous month and just bad luck. My goals changed and it became a survival run to just finish. I have never considered dropping out of a race before, however, at mile 3 I was seriously considering it. I always finish what I start and in addition there are many people who struggle through a triathlon and just because I was having a bad day I was not going to let myself quit. I pushed a little bit the last 3 miles to try to salvage what was left of a frustrating run.
Disappointing as it was, I finished 25th in a field of almost 50 pro triathletes and ultimately, I am pleased considering it is only March and I have a long season ahead of me. This race was not perfect and as a result it has only sparked my motivation to train even harder which will ultimately make 2008 a great year. Lastly, even though it was a “bad day at the office” it is truly a privilege to be following my dream racing as a pro triathlete.
Train hard, train smart!
