Pacific Coast Triathlon

New Port Beach, California

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I celebrated my 42nd birthday by doing this triathlon. It was a good pick too. There was a kid’s race also for my son Christian. This race takes place in a very beautiful place called Crystal Cove in the Newport Beach area. It is part of the Best of the U.S. Series and made both Competitor Magazine and Inside Triathlon Magazine’s best race list. It was also the race chosen for the USAT Sprint National Championships last year. I can see why, it is really a great race. As I mentioned earlier, 2007 Ironman Champion Chris McCormack (Macca) was there competing in the race.

I loved this race. They really don’t do a good enough job of selling this race. The race had the great with free smoothies among other things. The transition area is on a cliff above some beautiful coast line. You walk down a steep path to the beach which makes you start thinking about running up that path after the swim. If the path were any steeper, it would need steps. You walk down the beach to the swim start as you watch the pounding surf. Last year the lifeguards canceled the swim portion and turned it into a duathlon run due to dangerous surf. This year came close. In fact my son Christian got pulled out of his swim for safety by a life guard, even though his swim had already been severely shorted by officials.

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The Swim
This was my first beach start. So cool! Don’t get many of those in Arizona. I loved sprinting into the pounding surf. Now having grown up in Southern California, I was not anxious about getting through the surf like some. However, I learned a valuable lesson. I just ran into the surf and dove into the first wave that hit me like I have done all my life. In the past I had not been wearing goggles. My goggles got knocked of my face a bit and filled with water forcing me to deal with that issue. That distracted me from the surf and the next wave caught me off guard and I aspirated sea water. Then I was trying to swim through the surf coughing up the water and trying to clear my lungs. While getting batted around by the surf I took my first real good kick to the face from another swimmer. It took me several minutes of coughing under water to get my lungs clear. It was breathe, cough, breathe cough for quite a while. Meanwhile I lost ground on the swim. After we cleared the breakers the ocean was still rolling with swells which made swimming a little harder. On the low end of the swell it would drop us occasionally into kelp. You would be swimming along and then suddenly your visibility is blocked by fans of kelp. It was awesome! Heart pounding, out of my comfort zone adventure on the swim! I friggin loved it. Then you hit the beach and have to climb that path. I walked it with vigorous strides. No one else was running either. I think I know why. There was no blood in my legs and my hamstrings were threatening to cramp as I tried to run. I decided a cramp would threaten my finish and it was better to be safe. Especially since I had just done an Olympic distance triathlon the day before. That hill is a killer.
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The Bike
As I began the bike course some heavy mist rolled in. I had to take my glasses off because I couldn’t see with all the water collecting on my glasses. I have a leash on my glasses and I am glad I do. I saw more than one pair of glasses lost on the course that had obviously fallen. The entire bike course took place on Pacific Coast Highway. The course was interesting from the stand point that it had many areas where you couldn’t visually tell if you were going uphill or downhill. I ended up having a really decent bike split although I am not sure why.

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The Run
The run starts out normal enough but there is a gradual and steady incline that eventually wore on me. I don’t know if I was feeling the race the day before or the incline, but it became difficult for me. Right about the time I was really tired of the incline the course moved into some dirt trials a top the cliffs with the ocean below and then headed steeply down through this little village where the trail met the beach. Running on the beach was beautiful. The shore wound its way through some rock formations. Talk about a scenic run. I wish I could have enjoyed it more, but that sand was making my legs burn something fierce. After the beach was a hill that almost stopped my running. I knew about the hill. Everyone knows about the hill. I had even scene it on U-Tube. I told myself I was not going to quit on that hill and I didn’t, but that hill slowed my run to almost no forward progress at all. Once you get to the top it was a 600 meter slightly downhill dash to the finish in which I picked up speed and passed a few of my age groupers. My legs seemed full of super-charged blood after that hill. Or maybe I was not running fast at all and it just felt like it after that hill. Chris McCormack won the race in just under an hour. I would have liked to watch him run that hill. One of my favorite races to date.

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Last year this race was the USAT Sprint National Championships

San Diego Classic Triathlon

San Diego, California

This race made Competitor Magazine’s Top race last year for Southern California. Also, this year 2007 Ironman Champion Chris McCormack was there competing in the race. My son Christian met him and got his autograph as he volunteered handing out GU on the race course. When I was planning this weekend, I looked at a lot of races. There were triathlons taking place all over southern California this weekend. I chose to do two of them back to back because I just couldn’t resist either race. It is not often that my wife Lori is in Indiana giving me and Christian permission to race our hearts out. What was interesting about Chris McCormack being there is that he chose the same two races I choose for this weekend. Race officials did not announce that he would be competing in the race. In fact, but for my son Christian telling me, I never would have even known. The bike course had some pretty butt kicking hills for me. These San Diegans called it a flat course and made mince meat of me on the hills. The course took us past a clifftop military cememtery with the lines and lines of white headstones backdropped against the ocean. The cementery is a top a cliff over looking the ocean and was very moving. McCormack did win the race with a time well over an hour faster than me. How does a human being do that? He was even 4 minutes faster than me in the swim and I had a very strong swim. It was a good race and I always enjoy when a hotel sponsors a race and everything is so close and there are no parking issues. The race was sponsored by Moment Cycle Sport who did a great job.

Tri Rock San Diego

San Diego, California

This was the inaugural race for this series. It was put on by the Competitor Group which also does the Rock & Roll Marathon Series. This race was sold out. This is the first triathlon I have done where we had assigned transition spots with a name plate. The racks were made out of wood and evenly spaced with a box for you stuff. I loved that. No fighting for a spot. My spot was a great one too. I thought the race was top notch. Everything was well marked and well staffed. There were cones every six feet on the bike route. There was a rock band playing on the boat for the swim. I was first out of the water in my age group division and swim heat with a time of 6:44 for the 500 meters. That lead was sort lived. Remember how Bostonians can run. Well San Diegans can ride! I watched as one guy after another with age group category 40 tattooed on the back of their left calves passed me on the bike. This race introduced me to Tri Tats. They are temporary tatoos that you put on the night before. Very clean looking. It made it very easy to read all my age groupers as they passed me. The bike course went through the navy yard. It was the roughest and bumpiest course I have ever encountered complete with railroad crossings. I burned myself out on the bike trying to stay with some of those guys and by the time I hit the run I had no legs. It was the hardest 5k for me I have done in quite awhile. The finish line was awesome complete with stadium seating and very impressive and well done finisher medal. The expo was cool and they had eggs, sausage, and pancakes for after race food not to mention the usual stuff. It was a well run race and I would definitely do it again. Well done Competitor Group.