2008 Redondo Beach Triathlon

So I finally did my first triathlon for the year. There aren't too many early season races in Southern California. So unless you are doing the California Half-Iron, June is about as early as it gets, and it is about time. I enjoyed the Redondo Beach Triathlon last year and so I was looking forward to doing it again. But I didn't really train for it, because I have been training for the upcoming LA Wheelmen Grand Tour Double Metric Century Challenge. But it was a sprint race and a C race on my race schedule, so I figured putting my run and swim training on maintenance would be ok.

The good news is that I finished higher in the rankings than last year, but the bad news is that I was nearly two minutes slower this year, which to be frank was disappointing. In the end the difference nearly all came down to the run, and reveals that my run needs alot of work.

The Swim

At 1000 meters, the swim is a little long for a sprint triathlon, so the event favors good swimmers. I'm not a good swimmer, but pathetically enough it is my fastest sport of the three. Last year I had a problem moving too far the the left and then swinging wide as I went around the final buoy. This caused me to get caught in some kind of rip current near the pier, and I made very slow progress in the final exit from the water. So this year I was determined to stay close to the buoy's even if it meant going through the inevitable crush zones where all the athletes are vieing for the same inside lane around the buoy.

I was feeling comfortable and confident and I was really surprised that I basically found a group of guys and stuck with them for the entire swim course. This has never actually happened to me before. I did swing a little too wide in the first half of the swim, but got back on course for the second half. The water was very calm so getting out was like a breeze.

My time was just a few seconds slower than last year at 22:57 for the 1000 meters. That is about a 2:18/100meters (not including the run up the beach) which seems pretty fast for me. I rarely go that fast in the pool, but maybe the course was measured short or my wetsuit made me faster. What I think is most likely is that I was probably swimming slightly slower than last year, but I swam a shorter course by staying closer to the buoys. My swim definitely needs lots of work, but it was about what I expected.

T1

Going up that hill from the beach to the transition area is murder, and I had to walk at least half of it. The only problem I had in transition was getting my wetsuit off. I had a little difficulty, but did not sit down so I probably did better than last year at 1 minute and 56 seconds, but I really should be able to get that down to around a minute to a minute and a quarter. That will be a goal for me for my upcoming events.

The Bike

I put on my bike shoes during the bike leg. I did that last year and had issues because another guy closed my bike shoes. Why didn't I learn?! I closed them this year. I thought I was closing them in such a way that they would be wide open, but no such luck. I must have taken at least two minutes to finally get those damn shoes on. I probably should have practiced more, as I haven't practiced since last year.

After getting my shoes on I kept the bike at around 220 watts for nearly the entire course. My lactate threshold is around 190 so I figured for such a short course 220 would be a good pace. People were staying to the right more than last year, but there still were alot of kids, and they had a tendency to weave back and forth right in front of you.

The best part of the course is a fast downhill loop followed by a short but steep hill. I did my best to pass as many people as possible on that downhill because I know they were going to get some distance from me on that uphill. Actually I had an advantage in my road bike on that downhill because I could stay aero in the drops and still maintain good control going around the loop, whereas alot of the people on tri-bikes had to get up on the hoods and slowdown to maintain control.

I had no problem getting out of my tri shoes as I was coming into T2. Now if only I could do a flying dismount. . .

So I did the six miles in 20 minutes and 42 seconds, which averages out to about 17.4 miles per hour. With all the bike training I have been doing I was hoping for better. I guess this just goes to show that specificity is the name of the game. I have been doing lots of bike training, but it has nearly all been long distance endurance training. I need to do those intervals!

T2

T2 was pretty fast at 1 minute and 24 seconds. I put on my running shoes without socks, which made it a bit easier. I was risking blisters, but I figured how could I possibly get blisters over only two miles. I also put on body Glide on my feed earlier, but I have no idea how much remained after the swim and running up the beach in bare feet. But it worked out ok, as I didn't get any blisters.

The Run

Here is where it gets ugly. My legs felt like lead. I haven't done a brick in several months. Boy, did it show. I was really working hard, but I was barely moving. My Polar RS800 was telling me that I was doing about a 12:30 pace. Ugh!

My legs started to feel a little better about a third of the way into the run, but by then my heart rate was really high. I'm not sure how high it was because my HRM lost the signal during the swim and so I didn't have any heart rate readings for the first half of the run. I finally remembered how to get it to find the signal later, but by that time the race was nearly over. I kinda miss my my S625x for races for this reason. It could keep the signal in the swim and I would have a heart rate for the entire event.

For the final hill I dug deep and ran the whole way with a final strong sprint at the end. I finished the two miles in 22 minutes and 7 seconds. That would be around an 11 minutes per miles pace, but probably the course was short. That was still nearly two minutes longer than last year, so my run has really slipped up.

My running has been really inconsistent since the LA Marathon. That's partly because I have been focused on my bike training, but also because I tend to want to run long and don't do much speed work or tempo running. This just trains you to run slow. So now I definitely know that I need to focus on short, fast running for the next few months.

My overall time was 1 hour, 9 minutes and 6 seconds placing 9th (out of 22) in the Clydesdale division (last year I was 22nd out of 41) so that was definitely an improvement.

LA Marathon Photo Log

LA Triathlon Pics

I did the Kaiser Permanente LA International triathlon back on September 9th and have long planned to write up a race report, but I have now given up on that idea. If it hasn't happened yet I ain't gonna happen. But here are a few photos.

Here is a photo of super triathlete Greg Bennett who was the overall men's winner. The LA Triathlon was one of the Lifetime Series and because Bennett won each event of the entire series he cashed in!















Here I am coming out of the water. It was a brutal swim. I had a severe side stich for about half the swim and got clobbered by two waves while coming in. Notice the pink swim cap. All the Clydesdales joined the older women and got to sport this fashionable piece of equipment.














Beginning to recover.















The bike ride was fast and was an excellent tour of some of the most famous parts of LA. The bike course was the best course I have ever done by far. I stayed in the drops for the most part. Here I am coming into T2.








The run was a long slog. I think I had pushed it a little too hard on the bike. I did run/walk thing.











Finally! It was a good race, but I need to work on pacing. I'll definately do it again.

Redondo Beach Race Report

It feels like it has been a long time since my last race. I originally had not planned to do the Redondo Beach Triathlon, because I was more ambitious and wanted to do something a little harder, the Wildflower olympic distance triathlon. But illness and other unplanned events meant that training went very poorly and I simply wasn’t ready. I’m glad now that I made that choice because I was dying out there on this sprint with a very flat course. I do have an Olympic distance race coming up, the San Jose International Triathlon and so actually I thought that Redondo would be a good training event just in time to peak for San Jose two weeks later.

Because I treated the event as a training exercise it took most of the pressure off, but I was still a bit worried, partly because it seemed I had not had any good training over the winter, and because a stomach flu pretty much took me totally out the two weeks preceding the race. Just when I was supposed to be peaking I was in bed with a fever and couldn’t eat anything. I lost five pounds and when I did start up with training again I couldn’t do anything more than jog for 30 minutes.

I just told myself that it is all about pacing, and yet I also didn’t have my most important tool in pacing, my heart rate monitor. I recently purchased a Polar Power Sensor for my bike, but unfortunately I discovered that it does not communicate properly with my Polar heart rate monitor. All signs point to the power sensor and not my monitor as being the problem, but I sent them both to Polar so they could test them and find out what the deal is. So until I get them back I am without a heart rate monitor. So because of all this Redondo was a training event and a chance to learn some pacing by feel, which is probably very useful anyways.

When we arrived at the event the temperature was pretty cold and I wasn’t sure if my triskin was going to be warm enough. I had brought some arm warmers and an extra bike jersey, but ultimately I decided not to use them. In California the beach is always overcast in the mornings in the summer, but it burns up pretty quickly and so I gambled that I would be ok.

The Swim

The water was very calm. For such a short event the swim was actually pretty long at 1000 meters (about a half mile). Actually I think it may have been longer. It seemed on the long side. My group (clydes and old-timers) was pretty small so there was no real jostling for position. I got into a good groove pretty early and just kept an even pace. I was passing a few people and after a while I passed a few people in the earlier wave which made me pretty excited. My problem with open water swimming is that I tend to swim to the left and no matter how carefully I sight I seem to swim too wide of the buoys adding extra unnecessary yardage. This time it really hurt me because the swim exit was close to the pier and I thing there was a greater undertow near the pier. I was swimming and going nowhere. I saw people about ten yards to my right swimming right in, but it was like I was stuck. I picked up my pace and swam as hard as I could and still was not moving. I could look down and some plants growing on the bottom of the ocean and I wasn’t moving relative to them at all. So finally I swam sideways toward the other swimmers and then powered in to shore. The whole exercise probably added a whole 3-4 minutes to my time and left me barely able to stand as I pulled myself out of the water. My swim time was 22:10 which I was happy with, because it was at least 2.2 minutes per 100 meters and actually much faster when you consider running up the beach and swimming wide of the buoys.

T1


I was so tired and my heart was beating so fast from the swim that I was hyperventilating and couldn’t run. I had to sit down to get my wetsuit on. Actually I thing I just used that as an excuse to sit down. This time I was trying something different. I left my bike shoes on the bike and would put them on during the ride. One of considerations I was giving to which pedal to pick for my new bike was what type of cleat is best to run in during transition. There is no good answer for this. All bike shoes are pretty bad for running (or really just walking quickly). Then I got to thinking that I have triathlon bike shoes and really the only point of having such shoes is that you can put them on while on the bike. So I figured I would take the plunge and do that. For the last few weeks, every time I came in or went out from my house on my bike I would practice getting in and out of my shoes. In fact, the day before the race I spent an hour riding around my neighborhood, and all I was doing is getting in and out of my bike shoes as fast as I could. I actually am getting pretty good at getting in and out of the shoes, but I still cannot swing my leg over the bike to switch from running to biking. I just don’t have the right balance yet and am too afraid of laying down my nice new carbon Bianchi. So I just stopped, stepped over then then pedaled away, without a running start. I wasn’t about to learn this all on race day. Unfortunately I don’t have my transition times, because the timing company is not reporting them.

The Bike

Putting my shoes on during the bike would have worked fine, but one of the Velcro straps on my shoe was partially closed. I know how it happened. I saw one of the coaches of the racer next to me on the bike rack do it. It was supposedly to keep it from touching his bike. Well excuse me, I racked my bike there first, so he should just move his own bike and should keep his damn paws off my bike. That’s what I was thinking at the time, but I had to rush off and get body marked at the time so figured I would deal with it later and then forgot. But here I am on the ride trying to get my foot into my shoe and it is all closed up. I tried to reach down and unfasten the strap, but while the shoe hangs down from the pedal it is upside down and hard to reach. I finally got it, but it probably took at least 90 second of me fiddling with it. The whole time I kept thinking, “is this really saving time or am I just extending T1 into my bike.” I don’t know.
Here you can see me before I get my feet into my shoes.



The bike course was short and fast – a two 3 mile loop course. The first thing I notice is that it was crowded with people everywhere. USAT rules require that you leave space between you and the rider in front of you unless you are passing. And if you are passing you must complete the pass in something like 7 seconds. The passed person must fall back and have the required space before attempting a pass. When that is just a ridiculous rule when you have so many people going so many different speed. There was about five different lanes of “traffic” on the course and the slower people were not always, or even often, on the right. There were little kids on their cruisers swerving every which way right in front of fast guys on their Cervelos and it was just madness. I just tried to stay to the right when I could and tried to stay out of other people’s way. I just which others were doing the same.

There was a short downhill to a roundabout in front of the pier. That was really fun. I tucked down low to get as little wind resistance as possible and tried to take the turn as fast as possible. It was pretty thrilling. Then there was a short hill to get back up where we started. Here is a picture of my climbing the hill and working hard. The lady in front of my is looking pretty good, but I think she went a bit too fast in transition because she put her helmet on backwards.



Taking my shoes off on the bike as I came into transition went smoothly with no problems. Total cycling time: 24:35. Now I believe that figure includes my time for both T1 and T2, because the timing company didn’t break those out. If it didn’t include that time it would be a slow bike at 14.6 mph. But if you estimate around 5 minutes for T1 and T2, then it comes out to around 18.4 mph which is more my speed for such as short course.

T2

Not much to say here. Just grabbed my shoes, visor and put on my race belt. I probably went harder on the bike than I should have and my legs where feeling a bit rubbery. But I just told myself, “slow and steady” and headed out.

The Run



The run seemed to never end, even though it was only 2 miles. While a few people passed me on the bike it seemed that everyone was passing me on the run. Usually it is this time in the race that the elite women who started several waves back from me start to overtake me, and there certainly where those. But there were also the old men and even little children. Man, you know things are going bad when the little girls start whipping your butt. You go girl!



I finally made it across the finish line and was hurting pretty bad, but I was excited to have raced again and felt the rush. My run time was 20:30, which I do not believe included any transition time, because otherwise I would of have a very fast run (for me at least). As it is, it would mean 10:15 minute miles, which is on the high end for me and certainly much faster than it felt I was going. I thought I was going about 14 minute per mile pace.

Overall, I completed the event in 1:07:15. Compared to my last race I did about the same pace on the bike and the run, and improved a bit on the bike from an average speed of 17.2 mph at Malibu to about 18.4 mph (estimate). I hoped for a better improvement, but frankly I’ll take whatever I can get.

I happened to mention to another racer the fact that I will be doing an Olympic distance triathlon in two weeks and he shook his head and said, “good luck going long.” I never thought of the Olympic distance as being that long before, but after feeling how tired I was at this event, it put some fear in me and I only have one good week of training left before I have to taper, so I am making the most of it.

Special thanks to Dan Field for the race photos!

I AM A TRIATHLETE!

Santa Barbara Race Report

I did my first triathlon, and I had a blast. I think my adrenaline was pumping for at least an hour after finishing the race. It was hard to relax actually because I was just so pumped up. My wife valiantly fought her way around the course to take photos. In fact, I think her legs were more sore than mine. Thanks, Honey!

The race was up in Santa Barbara, about 2.5 hours north from where I live. Because I would have to be at the race site at around six in the morning, I decided to get a hotel, and because all the hotels required a two night minimum stay, we made a vacation weekend out of it. I was signed up for the sprint on Sunday, but there was a long course race on Saturday, so I looked forward to seeing that as well. I loaded up the car and secured my bike on my bike rack. We had to be really careful what we brought since my car does not have a lot of space, be we made it work.



Friday night we had dinner with a group from the LA Tri Club. They were all doing the long course the following day and were all in carbo-loading mode. Of course I just had to have the big bowl of pasta!

Saturday we watched the long course event and cheered on fellow LA Tri Clubbers. Two of the guys I swim with on Fridays in the Pacific Palisades won their divisions, so that was really cool. I was really surprised how long some of the racers took in transitions. Some would change out of their swimsuits or slather on sunscreen. Hello! This is a race. Race in tri-shorts, and put your sunscreen on before the swim. I was just surprised that so many participants did not seem to have very quick transitions in a race that probably does not attract many first timers. The long course is nearly half ironman in length, which is just too long for first timers.

That night I was very excited, so I didn’t sleep very well. I got up extra early and rode my bike down to the race site and arrived at 5:30am. It was dark and only a couple of other people were there yet. I set up all my gear and got numbered and then put my wetsuit on.



I debated for a long time whether I should even use my wetsuit. The water was cold, but not so cold that I couldn’t tolerate the short 500 yard swim. There also would not be any speed advantage to wearing the wetsuit, since any gain would be lost in the time it takes to take the suit off in transition. I was primarily concerned that my arms would get tired since the suit is rather tight in the shoulders, and I had difficulty getting the suit off quickly in the past. Ultimately I decided to wear it after all because I figured my time should not be a priority since I would be in the back of the pack anyways, and it would give me more practice in taking my suit off during race conditions.



For the start we lined up on the beach between two towers of balloons. I was in the first wave with the young, fast guys. I stayed to the back and to the left since we would be turning right at the buoy and I didn’t want to get crushed. Turns out that it happened anyways. After turning past the first buoy I was flanked on either side by swimmers going about the same speed as me. But as we went along the guy on my left kept moving right and the guy on my right kept moving left. I kept getting squashed between them. I mean really! It is a big ocean people! Here we were just three swimmers, and these two have to keep getting in my way. I just responded by trying to out swim them and give no quarter. The guy on my right pulled ahead after rounding the last buoy and the guy on my right overshot the last buoy and ended off course.

I think coming up out of the water was probably the hardest part of the triathlon. Coming out of the water, you feel a bit dizzy and weak, but it was not that bad. I credit my frequent open water swims with helping with that. What is hard is the fact that you have to run up a hill of sand, while at the same time taking your wetsuit off my upper body. It feels like you are just inching up the beach, but my heart rate monitor was showing my heart rate going sky high! I think my heart rate monitor captured a rate of 184 beats per minute. I didn’t even know that my heart rate went up that high!



My swim time for 500 yards (and running up the beach) was 13 minutes and 31 seconds, which was 173rd out of 294 participants (59 percentile).

By the time I made it to the transition area I was out of breath and felt really weak. Trying to get my wetsuit fully off was difficult because my legs felt too tired to hold up my body weight, and my arms were shaking and felt too tired to get the tight rubber wetsuit off of my wet legs. I thought to myself that I was really in trouble because the race had just started and I was so weak. But I just did my best and eventually got it done. next up was putting on my bike shoes and helmet. Getting my socks on was also difficult because I was trying to stand on one leg and my balance was off one. It seemed that T1 took a long time, but it wasn’t too bad. Total time was 2 minutes and 32 seconds.

I ran up to the street guiding my bike, and I was very fortunate that I had put the pontoons on my SPD cleats. These are just rubber bumpers on the side of the cleats that allow you to walk in the bike shoes. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but you really have to run quite a ways with the bike and without the pontoons I would likely slip. Unfortunately the pontoons make it difficult to engage the cleats into my pedals. I have Ultegra SPD pedals, which are designed specifically for the pontoons, but they still are a little tricky to engage. So when I first got on the bike I had difficulty engaging the right pedal. I had to pedal with only my left leg and was so focused on my right pedal that I almost crashed into a bike on the right shoulder of the road. Eventually I got it to engage solidly, and I was off.

I was breathing so heavily that my sunglasses kept fogging up, and I was going east into the sun so I couldn’t see anything and had to eventually hold my sunglasses as I pedaled. I passed a few people, but then it seemed like everyone was passing me. It made me feel good when a guy in a really tricked out tri bike would pass me because I figured, well, he must be an experienced triathlte and at least I beat him in the swim. I thought that until the 50 and 60 year old guys started to pass me. I could tell everyone's ages, because it was written in marker on everyone's calves. These older guys were in a later wave, and I had a 12 minute lead on them! Oh well. There was one guy who was obviously a newbie like me, and he was in my age group. It seemed like we kept passing each other. That was fun.

On the way back there was a short but steep hill. Nothing I couldn’t handle, but I did have to shift down to my granny gear. At the top of the hill I was just wiped. I was literally cheering myself on out loud. I stammered, “Paul, get it in gear! Come on! go! …” Luckily there was a down-hill and I love down-hills. Time to pass a bunch of people.

I was a pack up other riders as we came into the transition area again. There was one guy ahead of me and few behind me. I unclipped the right foot and placed it on the ground, but I couldn’t get the left foot unclipped. Anticipating unclipping my left foot, I had already began to shift my weight to the left. . . so I just feel right over. I almost took out the guy in front of me as well. Luckily, my wife was right there to document the embarrassing event.



Fortunately I was not hurt. I just bruised my hand and my thigh. I could hear people, particularly my wife, call out, “It’s ok. Just keep going!” So that is what I did. I didn’t look around. I just jumped up and ran into the transition area.

Total time for the bike portion was 22 minutes and 6 seconds. That was 182nd out of 294 participants (62 percentile).

T2 was lightning fast. I used lock laces on my shoes, so it was just a matter of taking my helmet and biking shoes off and putting my visor, race belt and running shoes on. Oh, and a quick swig of water. Total time was 1 minute and 23 seconds.

My heart rate was under control on the run, but I really felt tired. I just kept telling myself that I would let myself slow down, but not stop or walk. After the first half mile I was feeling better and tried to push up the pace. I just had to keep a consistent pace. There were some really fast woman who were passing me like I was standing still, but mostly I was back with the older guys. The run was a short two mile. On the way back I had to run through the transition area to get to the finish line, and I started to sprint as I entered the transition area. That was probably too soon, because the transition area was really long. I was dying as I approached the finish line and almost had to stop, but I just could not bear to stop so close. I finally crossed the finish line and was just elated. I was on top of the world!



Total run time for two miles was 21 minutes and 43 seconds, which was 241st out of 294 (82 percentile! Ugh, I really need to work on that run. But at least I wasn’t last!) Overall, I finished in 1 hour, 1 minute and 14 seconds which was 197th (67 percentile) and 24th out of 28 racers of my age group. That was actually better than I expected. My goal for this race was just to finish, but I did do a calculation of how long I thought it might take for me to finish, and I figured an hour would be a really great time for me. Well, I just about did it.



Here is the heart rate chart of the race. You can see that my rate during the swim was relatively low, but it went really high out of the water. My rate was mostly under control in the bike but would go crazy on the hills. I finally got it under control in the run, where it was nice and flat.