San Diego Spring Sprint May 6 2012

Well my first Triathlon is in the books!!! And man do I have my work cut out for me for future races. I dropped my 2 year old off that morning at my brothers so my wife would have a little easier time only having to worry about my 6 year old son. My son Kyle was more nervous than I was about swimming in the ocean, he was sure a shark was going to get me.

Ha-ha we got to mission beach right when the parking lot and transition area opened up I was one of the first to my wave section and was able to set up nicly my area. I managed to get an end spot, i figured it would give me more room and for my first triathlon my transitions went fairly good. My training for the swim leading to the event was 300-400m workouts but not at the same time and in a controlled setting of the swimming pool. When I first checked out the swimming course I thought to myself, I got this it looked super easy and I was sure that I could at least finish in the middle of the pack, my biggest fear was finishing last in the swim or having to be rescued because I bit off more than I can handle. When I first dipped my toes into the bay I was surprisingly happy with the water temperature, I was surprised that it was fairly warm. My entire age group was treading water and I was looking around and sizing up the competition, I knew I was going to get smoked on the swim but was pretty confident in my cycling and running. When I looked to my right I was pleasantly surprised to see another dude out there with nose clips…Ha-ha. I don’t know what my problem was but I can’t swim with after my clips, my wife tells me just blow air out your nose..hmmm….That doesn’t work for me. The 3 minutes that we treaded water seemed like eternity with all my nerves on edge. When the alarm went off to go I tried to get into a groove and follow all the steps I used in practice but at about the 75 meter mark I panicked and pulled up and ripped my goggles off. I never swam in the ocean and I was out of breath and couldn’t see anything. I paddled over to the nice lady on the paddle board to catch my breath and she was all “this is your first race huh?” I’m like yup. She then asked if she wanted me to paddle me in, I said no even though I wanted to head back to land. I tried back stroking for a bit to help relax myself. This worked great until I noticed that I swam roughly 25 meters past the first buoy and was heading for land across the bay. I quickly made an adjustment and stayed on course, it was at this time the next wave started and it was pretty clear I was about 10 seconds from the last person in my wave. I continued to conserve my energy and continued to back stroke out until I was 50 meters away from the finish, I was beginning to get smoked by the women in the wave after me.

When I got out of the water I was completely out of breath and dizzy but I survived and headed to my strong sports cycling and running. When I was watching the first waves come in I was wondering why everyone is out of breath and not pulling their wetsuits down? Then it was my turn and I was slightly dizzy coming out of the water and I didn’t remember to pull my wet suit down until I was near the transition area. I was pleasantly surprised that my transitions went smooth. I ran my bike over and clipped in and was GONE! The course was 9.17 miles of a flat FAST course. This is where I made up a lot of time.

This is where I made up a lot of time. I put on some new aero-bars the night before and despite having some cramping in my calves I finished in 26 minutes flat, nearly a 22mph average. My transition into the run went fairly smooth again, I started my run off fairly slow since both my calves where cramping but once I was about a mile in the cramps left and I was able to put the hammer down.

I ended up finishing strong on the run with a time of 25:41 and a total time of 1h 11m 32s, my age group was fairly tough and I finished 40 out of 60 in my group and 333 out of 572 overall. With the fact I can’t swim for crap I was pretty pleased with my final results and can’t wait to do another sprint in July and a Olympic in September, I defiantly have my work cut out for me in regards to the swim. Below is the GoPro video of the bike section of the race.