The Return of El Nino

From what I've been reading over the last week, it sounds like El Nino is back. It just remains to be seen how strong its going to be. As of now, it looks like a weak El Nino. The weak El Nino brings causes a split flow through California. The good news is that this means more precipitation for Southern California. The bad news is that it usually means a dryer winter for Central and Northern California. I'm no weather expert and I certainly don't wish a dry winter on the northern half of the Sierras. But it would be awesome to for the SoCal ski seaon to start before March this year. Who knows, maybe we'll be skiing Baldy by the beginning of November.

For more information on El Nino check out these links:
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WEATHER/09/13/weather.nino.reut/index.html
http://64.29.226.243/dweeb.htm
http://www.elnino.noaa.gov/

Triathlon at Pacific Grove

This past weekend, the big day finally came and I competed in the Triathlon at Pacific Grove. To give you an answer to the big question from my previous post, I didn't shave. I know that if anyone who wants to be a hard-core triathlon geek shaves. But I'm a lazy triathlon geek and just never got around to it.

I left San Diego for Monterey on Thursday morning. Before going up, I knew that the water would be a lot colder than what I was used to down here in San Diego. But I completely neglected the fact that the air temps and gusty winds were closer to San Diego in January than anything I had been training in. So I got a rude awakening during our first course preview bike ride that we did Thursday afternoon. As I sat freezing on my bike, I was wondering how I'd feel 2 days later during the race after spending 30 minutes in the ocean. (Yes, I know that I've become a completely spoiled San Diego warm weather weakling!) Despite the cold, I was amazed at how beautiful coast was. Both bike and run went along some of the most beautiful stretches of coastline in all of California.

Friday night all of the Team in Training participants got together for a pasta party. All told, there were over 350 of us taking part in the triathlon through Team in Training coming from as far away as Georgia. Altogether, we raised over $1.2 million. Afterwards during our final pre-race team meeting, one of my teammates (Dana) told us that she had just found out two days before that her brother's leukemia had come out of remission and he had just started chemotherapy again. It was a big shock to us all as the whole team had met him at some time throughout the season. It hurt all of us to see Dana in so much pain. She asked all of us to think about her brother's challenges whenever our bodies were hurting us during the race and to use his fight as inspiration to push ourselves to keep going. No matter how much our bodies hurt, it's nothing compared to what he's going through.

Enough for the sad talk, the next morning we set off from the hotel at 5:30 AM to make our way to the race. Luckily, it felt a few degrees warmer than the previous few days. The first wave started at 7:15. My wave, the Team in Training Men's wave, started at 8:30. When the gun went off, we all charged into the frigid waters (58F, cold by SD standards) and started the swim. There are a couple of things to know about the swim at Pac Grove. First, its a 2 loop course where you actually have to get out of the water and do a small (25 yd) run up the beach between laps. Second, its cold. Third and most important, there's lots of kelp. In fact, there's so much kelp that you need to be as concerned about steering away from the kelp as swimming towards the next buoy on the course. The problem with kelp is that its so thick that both your legs and your arms get tangled in it and you're stuck until you rip yourself free. Consequently you waste a lot of energy. At first when I got in the water, I was freezing. But once my face and feet went numb, the pain stopped and it was all good. On the first lap I did a great job navigating away from the kelp and found myself in second place at the end of the first lap. On the second lap, I pulled into the lead and no longer had anyone to follow through the kelp. Consequently shortly before the first buoy, I basically came to a complete stop. I freed myself after 15s. But it was exhausting. By the second buoy, the wave of 20-29 year old girls coming up behind us caught up to all of us and I felt like I got ran over by a freight train. Because of the kelp, everyone swims in a very narrow path (a couple of swimmers wide). Luckily, that gave us a carrot to chase and we no longer had to concentrate on finding our way through kelp. By the end of the lap, we had passed most of them again and I came out of the water in second place in my heat with a time of 28:36 for the 1 mile swim. As a team, we represented San Diego well. We ended up with 9 of the first 11 male TNT swimmers out of the water.

The first transition did not go as well as planned. I wasted too much time trying to get socks and a vest on (cold hands don't work quick) before my coach told me just to get out on the bike. Once on the bike, I felt fine. The bike went real well. The course itself consisted of 25 miles over 4 laps. I felt like I was riding pretty fast. For most of the ride, I was consistently passing people and moved into first place among all of the team in training participants. At this point, I started wishing that I had started with the rest of the people in my age group as opposed to those in team in training. I was pushing myself hard. But I was missing the competition that would push me to do better. I ended up finishing the bike in a time of 1:11:56 averaging just over 20 mph. The bike to run transiition went much smoother. Unfortunately, as soon as I started running my lower back just started killing me. It was more intense back pain than anything I had every experienced. If I could have paused the race and gotten a cortisone shot for my back, I would have. But as I didn't have the option, I kept going. I thought of Dana's brother and his fight against cancer. But I also though about my grandfather and the fight that he is currently going through against lung cancer. If they could keep on fighting, I could keep on running. A sore back, even though every step hurt, wasn't an excuse to stop or event to take it easy. The run was 6 miles over 3 loops. I ended up finishing that in a time of 39:16. Altogether, I ended up with a time of 2:24:09 which was good for 12th place in my age group and 51st overall. Although satisfied, I definitely feel that I still have a lot of room for improvement and hope to be down to a 2:15 by next season.

Last but not least, I would like to thank my parents for flying in to watch the race. Seeing and hearing them cheer for me on each lap was really energizing. They were awesome! Yes, I think I have caught the triathlon bug and hope to continue with them in the future. My next race will probably be the Mission Bay Sprint Tri on October 1st. But due to the soon approaching ski season, that will most likely be my last one until next year.

Triathlon Update: The Shaving Dilemna

So I've now got less than 5 days until the big race and I'm feeling pretty good. Our triathlon team had a practice triathlon last Saturday. It was half of the distance (750m swim, 12.5 mile bike, 3 mile run) we'll be doing next weekend (1 mile swim, 25mile bike, and 6 mile run). The swim, although I was still breathing pretty heavy when I got out of the water, went better than at the Camp Pendleton Sprint Tri the previous weekend. I came out of the water in 4th place. By the halfway point on the bike, I had moved into first place and extended my lead on the run. I ended up with a time of 1:08:40. This puts me squarely on track to meet my goal of a 2:25 in the actual race.

Again, I learned a few valuable lessons from this practice race. First, I learned not to put my wetsuit on the bike rack after the swim. Although I saw lots of people doing it at Camp Pendleton, its apparently against the USA triathlon rules. To teach us a lesson, our coach grabbed all the wetsuits belonging to us "low life bottom dwelling scum" who left our wetsuits on the rack. All he did was throw the wetsuits in a pile. However, all of our wetsuits looked exactly alike and I had neither labled my wetsuit nor ever bothered to look at the size. So after 40 minutes of trying on wetsuits, I ended up with a wetsuit that fits fairly well...although I'm still not convinced that it was the one I wearing earlier in the morning. (It just feels a bit looser in the arms.)

Secondly, I decided that I needed a GU flask for my bike. Once again, I lost my gels. This time they fell out from under my tri shorts. I also learned that if I were to lose a Gu pack in the race, it's a potentially disqualifying penalty if you don't go back and pick it up. I don't want that to happen in the race.

I started tapering last week on the bike and the run. We had our last ocean swim on Saturday morning. I ended up doing ~3 miles. Surprisingly my arms weren't hurting too bad at the end. I ended up making an appointment for a massage on Wednesday. I'm pretty excited. This is going to be my first massage in over a year and I've heard they're just great to loosen you up before the race.

So now I get to the big question: to shave or not to shave? Being the big race, I do want every advantage I can get. But how big a difference will shaving actually make? In high school, we always shaved for the big sectional swim meet at the end of the season. However, we're wearing wetsuits in the water and I have a hard time believing that it will make that big a difference on the bike and the run...at least at my level of competition. I was surprised with the number of guys on the team who I heard were going to be shaving. Its not even all of the most competitive guys on the team. But maybe shaving is just part of being a triathlete. So if I do consider myself a triathlete (and I do now), maybe I should just do it.