San Diego International- Take 2!

San Diego International Triathlon (1k swim, 30k bike, 10k run)

SDIT is my first repeat triathlon, so i was excited to be able to try to better my times from last year. given my hip injury and lack of run training going into it, i just wanted to improve on my bike & run from last year and support all my breakaway-training friends...of course i wanted to do well, too, but i was just really excited to be racing my first (full) triathlon of the year...

saturday was expo time...a pretty big one! with PLENTY of walking. this race requires miles of walking to and from transition in addition to bike drop off the day before the race. james remembered the pain from last year and brought his skateboard to get around.

race morning came early and james was up too for his own race out in temecula. so, i was sherpa-less, but determined to be self-sufficient and not blow it. i (barely) made it to the race on time and finished putting my transition area together on our team racks....

i made it down to the swim start and right before i was about to get in, my hair rubberband snapped. anyone with any type of hair past their ears knows this is not acceptable. i started asking everyone around for an elastic and found one quickly! thank you, nice elastic band lady!

i hopped in the water without a warm up and we were off.

i swam easy and hopped on some feet. i didn't feel like i was expending a lot of energy. i went off course a bit and stopped to ask a paddler which buoy to go to next. despite this stuff, i actually (delusionally) thought i was having a decent 1000m swim. i came out of the water in 15:13, uh. almost a minute slower than last year. i just told this to james and he told me i need to "step my game up." and i swam "like a loser". he's right. what happened? next time i need to remember to swim HARD!

the bike started out ok and i began to pick up speed and energy and headed up the hills to cabrillo national monument. i passed a bunch of people and never got passed by any girls. i felt like i had a good ride. my time turned out 2 minutes faster than last year for 30k. yeah! i'll take it!

on to the run.....i was just glad to be running and settled into a hard, but do-able pace. i passed the girl in 3rd in my age group right out of transition and set my sights on my buddy colleen. i knew she would be ahead as she's a crazy fast college swimmer and can drop the hammer on the bike as well- so i wanted to find her! there is a loopy out and back section of the 10k run on harbor island where i had a chance to see colleen- about 2:30 ahead. i knew if i kept a steady and strong pace, i might be able to catch her. colleen's boyfriend, justin was on his bike and kept riding between us, so that helped me guage the gap :) . it was funny because he actually gave me splits a couple times, "you're 28 seconds back!" i thought that was hilarious. anyhow, eventually around mile 3 i caught up to colleen and ran hard to the finish. i felt surprisingly okay and turns out i ran a minute faster than last year in 40:37. hmmmmm...i think we're on to something with this extended run taper!

i was definitely running out of steam by the end and was oh so happy to see the finish. i crossed the line and got some ice for my hip. (it's definitely still a process with this thing- i'm now resting a few days).

(a side note about the transitions: my transitions were very "fast" in this race, but this was a combo of things: 1) i took off my wetsuit right after the timing mat, before making the long run to transition, i think this helped a lot and shaved some seconds. 2) i treated the running parts as a total part of the race and raced in and out of transition and 3) our team had ridiculously good transition racks- it turns out a lot of the girls in my age group had to run farther for their racks- so my T1 was 1:34 and most T1s were a little over 2 minutes. And, my T2 was about a minute faster than a lot of the girls in my AG.
For the race to be really fair, i would have been racked with my "age group" racks. but, there were lots of other girls in my AG (and people in general) who were also racked with a team or race sponsor, and you could also pay $ for VIP racking....which isn't totally (or at all) fair either! so, had i opted out of the preferential racks, there would have been others who still had them. it's a tough call. i think it would have been a fun race to the finish if colleen and i had been racked together, since my time was about 2:20 faster than hers.

overall, i had a blast and it was great to race with the breakaway team again. i definitely blew the swim, but had a solid bike and run. i WILL own that i had some fast transitions (i compared them to others racked with me), but there was definitely cushion time as well. i also did (finally) a non-embarrassing bike dismount, complete with the leg crossed over the top tube. yeah! when all was said and done, i had the top female amateur time and 5th overall with the pro women (who had awesome racks too, so not feeling bad here!) . the best part was....i got leid!

i was so very happy to be out there and have fun racing. i have lots of great people supporting me this year that i want to truly thank because i was so bummed to not be able to show up earlier in the season and i know i'm new to the sport and all these great people are supporting me and they really don't have to. seriously, without their help, i probably wouldn't be in triathlon, as i'm a recent graduate (hire me!) without disposable income- every little thing counts BIG time in my book.

you know, sometimes its just a little discount, or a little extra time or TLC, but these things are huge to me: so thank you thank you breakaway training, zoot sports, lululemon athletica, betty designs, hi-tech bikes, and i know its odd to have more than one bike shop, but the dudes at B&L (james' bike shop) have been so great to me this year, dealing with all my daily "issues" as they're so much closer to my house than hi-tech and they are honestly just all really cool guys, our new fave, Nuttzo nut butter and also dan the man selstad, for keeping me a little less creaky than i would be without him.

i also have some buddies that have let me borrow gear and thus have also been great sponsors this year- trevor is keeping me honest on the bike with the power tap, and matt helped me bigtime for honu with zipps and a bike case. and last but not least, my training supporters, who offer advice, or even humor me with a workout or two even though i can't quite hang: so thanks mac, katya, james, colleen and the greater san diego community for letting me hang on your wheel. having people like this helping me become a little more of an athlete instead of a trainwreck without a coach is the most valuable thing of all.