It was my second go at this course, the first having been my first tri. Unlike last time, where I was hyper-focused on everything, I was rather zoned out as I got everything ready and and waited for the race, otherwise chatting with three others I knew who were doing the race as a relay. A famous person sang the national anthem, but I’m so far removed from modern pop culture that I really don’t know what she does. But she sang really well! There was also a crazy heat wave, but Malibu in the morning was decently cool.
I started in the fourth wave, and the breaking waves were a bit bigger than last year. Getting out to the first buoy took a while, but I picked up a good pace when the course turned parallel to the beach. Coming in was a bit of a slog; there was a pretty strong rip current behind each wave that broke. I don’t recall much of T1, except getting cheered on my the relay team we had in the race.
The bike was fun, and probably my favorite part this time around. I kept a good pace, faster than last year, and really enjoyed the hills, despite it being a hot day. I didn’t get surprised by any of the notorious speed bumps this time. In T2, I found my running shoes to be soaked—the person next to me had hung his wetsuit over them.
This run is a beach path out-and-back run. The strong bike pace really knocked my run pace down, as everything felt tight and immobile, but I had a decent speed increase as I continued through the course. By this time it was apparently hot. But after running through a Hawai’ian lava field, hot has been redefined to the point that I didn’t really notice, other than the need to hydrate rather often.
I finished in 2:11:09, about 6 minutes slower than last time, which was pretty much due to the current/breaks during the swim. Bike time was down about 4 minutes, and run time was slightly up, by less than a minute. The swim was 8 minutes over last year. Since the change in swim conditions was out of anyone’s control, I’m happy with that overall. This was also the first tri I did without stepping up distance—it was fun just zoning out and doing the race, with nothing hurting after the fact.
Notes for next time:
* Leave shoes upside down or covered in transition to account for rogue wetsuits (or other wet stuff) that ends up where it doesn’t belong.
* Add brick runs right after bike speed intervals. I’ve been doing them after longer, slower rides, but the much faster pace in this ride, compared to the training bricks, really hit the run pace hard this time.
* Moving the cleats back on my bike shoes completely cleaned up the heel pain I had on the run at Hawai'i.
Other data for my own future reference:
Swim: 23:43 (15:37 last year)
T1 4:42 (5:10 last year)
Bike 1:02:37 (1:06:41 last year)
T2 3:18 (1:56 last year)
Run 36:46 (36:01 last year)
85/175 age group (96/165 last year)
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