Triathlon: Camp Pendleton Sprint Triathlon and AFC Half Marathon

After months of training, I finally got some real race experience this weekend. I did the Camp Pendleton Sprint Triathlon on Saturday morning and the AFC half marathon on Sunday morning. I know that some of you are probably going to say that I was crazy or plain stupid for doing 2 races in the same weekend. Initially I was just going to do the sprint tri. However, when I heard that a number of my teammates were doing the half marathon, the competitive juices started flowing and I told myself that it was just about the same distance as my planned base building run that I'd be doing anyways. Before I knew it, I was signed up for the race.

The Sprint Triathlon on Saturday ended up being a great training race. I got some of those first race nerves out of the way. More importantly, I validated a lot of the things I was already doing and saw some things that I should work on. The swim was only 500 yds and I can remember telling my buddy Nelson before the race that the course looked really short. However the swim was a lot harder than I was expecting. The water was both rougher and colder than I had been used to over the last few weeks. I had signficant problems breathing and sighting the buoys. The swells were big enough that you had to be at the top to see the next buoy. As anyone who swims with me knows, I can't swim in a straight line to save my life. So I swam off course two times. Thinking back to what our coach told us, I did try and draft. But I had problems finding someone who was going at my pace. As I was swimming in, I did try and catch the waves. However, due to being out of breath, I had actually stopped twice after catching a wave so that I could catch my breath before the next one came. Coming out of the water, I did try and strip off my wetsuit as I was jogging out. I did pretty good getting it down to my ankles. But I couldn't get the damned thing over my feet. I actually fell over into water before I got it off. I ended up doing the entire swim in 11:59 (20th out of 80 in 25-29). Not bad, but I definitely need some more time in the ocean.

T1 went smoothly with the exception of the aforementioned wetsuit problems. The bike ride was a 20 mile out and back. There was some rolling terrain, but no significant hills. The wind was not bad at all. It was actually in the first part of the bike that I felt the after effects of the swim the most. It felt like I had just been hit in the gut. For the first 15-20 minutes, I was still gasping for air. I felt nauseus when I ate an energy gel. Over that time I was only averaging ~17 mph and getting passed left and right. Around the 20 minute point, my body seemed to settle down and I started feeling better and better. Over the second half I was averaging 20-24 mph and started passing some people myself. On the bike, I came in at 58:42 (25 out of 80). I came into the race thinking that the bike was my weak area and this result just reconfirmed it.

T2 went great. I was in and out in under 1 minutes. The run was 3 miles and consisted of two loops around the Amphibious Craft Unit Five area. Going into race, I already felt that the run was my strong point. I felt great throughout the entire run and was passing people the entire time. I came in at 19:56 (5/80). In retrospect, I definitely could have pushed it a little more. But at the time I was worried more about cramping.

Overall, I came in at 1:30.37 and had a great time. There was a lot of great competition there and I now have a better idea of what I have to shoot for to do better. The following are my lessons learned from the race:
1) The swim sucked. Need more time in the ocean. Pool workouts aren't the same.
2) More Interval Bike Workouts. Got to get faster.
3) Buy an Aerobottle. Everytime I went to take a drink, I'd slow down by 3-4 mph.
4) Set up extra towel and foot basin in transition area to clean off feet.
5) Use bodyglide on feet to help get wetsuit off faster. Must practice this more. Don't want to fall over again. Highly embarassing.

This morning I set off at 4:40 to head off to the AFC half marathon in downtown San Diego. If you're thinking about doing it next year, disregard the statement about the last bus leaving for the start at 6AM. That's not true. However, be aware that the traffic on the 163 is pretty bad. It took me 45 minutes to go a grand total of 2 miles to the parking area. The race itself was a lot of fun. There was approximately 6000 runners. Being a late arrival, I literally started at the very back. Unfortunately, I had to run through the entire field as I got started. But that was good in that it forced me to start off at a slower pace.

Initially I was worried that my legs were going to give out due to being tired from the triathlon the day before. So I started out at an 8:30 pace my first two miles. My initial plan was to eventually speed up to a 7:30 pace and hold it there. But I got caught up in the moment (it's so fun passing people!) and to my surprise, my legs kept feeling better and better as the race went on. So I just went with it and trusted that they wouldn't fail me. I averaged 7-7:30 for miles 4-7 and 6:30-7:00 the last 5 miles. The hardest part by far was the hill at mile 12. By the time I got to the top of it, I was genuinely gasping for air. It was very similar to how I felt after the swim yesterday. But luckily it was just a short coast into the park from that point. I ended up with a time of 1:37:15 which was good for 47th out of 406 in my age group. I feel pretty good about my performance in the race. I can't keep but wondering how I would have done if I wouldn't have run a triathlon the day before.
As for lessons learned from the half marathon, the big one is that I obviously didn't push it enough in the triathlon. If I would have truly been pushing my limits on the bike and in the run, I wouldn't have been able to run as fast in the half marathon. What I need to do in my next triathlon is to dig down, push through the pain, and go harder. Maybe my next brick workout goal should be to push myself until I find that limit where my body gives out.