2003 Malibu Triathlon
.9mi swim, 18mi bike, 4mi run

Results:
Looks like Cricket destroyed us all again. Not only by age group percentage, but by overall time. She's unstopable!

I'm pretty happy with my results here. My two goals were to run under 32 minutes and be in the top 50%. I sure felt like I ran under 8 minute pace the whole way, so I'm happy with the effort.

Pre-Race

Got up at 4 to leave at 4:30 to arrive by 6. Actually arrived at 5:42 and there was a huge line of cars. I think you have to arrive by 5:30 or face traffic. All the traffic seemed driven by a single individual asking every person if they were racing then telling them to park in the lot next to him. Not a problem we were in the transition by 6:15 and made the pre race meeting.

Swim
Very calm surf which is disappointing for Zuma beach because when it's big there the waves can be punishing. Which I feel would be a competitive advantage although I would worry about my friends (for about a second, that's why there are life guards!). The swim seemed long. I've done this swim many times because Larry and I did it as a relay three years in a row and I did it individually last year (no report). I do think my swim times in the past have been around 10-14 minutes. The time on my watch was 24 minutes when I got to the bike. It sure seemed like a long half mile I'll have to use my time as proof. I can easily do 1000 yards in about 15 minutes so this was long by all standards. Two weeks in a row, although this is an advantage for me so I'm not complaining. It would have been nice if they did this back in the days when I actually trained for the swim!

Hmm. I just looked up last year, it was 19 minutes so maybe it was only a little long? Someone did remind me that we had very thick fog last year and you couldn't see any of the buoys? It was a mess. Digging further, I looked up the 2001 relay where we got second place, I did a 13:38. I did train very hard for that swim. I would only have expected to lose a few minutes at the most.

Back to the race report. I got bashed in the head pretty hard on the way out by someone swimming diagonally. I picked someone to draft off of after the first buoy. After the second buoy he started breast stroke kicking every once in a while which is a bit scary. Smacked my hand pretty hard on one of them so I moved away and found someone else until the last buoy. Drafting in the swim is the only way to go. If you find yourself swimming next to someone with the same color cap for a long time, or better yet passing you slowly early in the swim. Pull up behind them just far enough so your hands don't hit their feet (about 4 inches). Do everything it takes to stay on their feet if they are swimming faster than you. It takes practice but once you have it down the effort is about 50% and you finish in the same time you would have if you did it by yourself since they were swimming the same speed as you anyway.

On the way back in I remembered an old ritual which I have neglected lately. I used to stand on shore before the race, in line with the final buy and mark a spot on land where I would swim towards. The best markers are those on the horizon where the hills meet the sky (lone trees on the horizon make the best markers). Sometimes the angle of the Sun is a good marker. In this case the buoys were so far out to sea that it would have been much less effort to just swim instead of continually looking towards shore not really knowing where exactly I was headed.

Bike
I got out onto the bike course and just after navigating the first turn onto PCH (a wet sandy and dangerous turn) I felt a sharp pain on top of my quad. I looked down and there was a bumble bee on my leg stinging like there was no tomorrow. Which there wasn't!. Immediate red spot and I can still feel it many hours later, but it was just nagging, nothing serious. In looking down I noticed blood on my other leg. About a three inch drip down my knee. Not sure how I cut myself (a minor cut), but the blood looked tough so no worries. At one point I checked my arms for road rash after thinking about my Dad's accident earlier this year. You never know if you hit your head and just don't remember getting back up and riding on.

I felt like I had a strong bike. I think the bike computer said 58 minutes and 18.9 mph speed. On the few hills I did slow down, but on the flats and down hills I was always at least 21mph which felt good.

Run
A four mile run on flat ground. I felt strong the whole way and I do think the turn around was a little further out than it was last year. My time reflected that as I was 7:50 to the first mile and around 16:50 to the turn around (2 miles) and I know I didn't slow down that much. My final run time was 33:21. I had hoped to break 32. Larry ran with me last year so I know that was probably a big factor in the 29 minute run.

Post Race
We got our bikes in the car and returned to the awards ceremony already in full swing. It looks like MESP may have finally fixed the timing problems although they didn't have it together enough to get Cricket's age group right. My dad got his award and we left shortly after that.

This race is full of celebs. The only one I really remember is from Survivor:Amazon. Had to look up her name Deena. Saw her on the run and later finishing while I waited for everyone else.
Tom Arnold did some announcing. Jessica Simpson did the national anthem.
Oh, I saw Sian Welch who crawled across the finish line at Ironman Hawaii (97) with Wendy Ingram in a (crawling) race for third and forth. It was quite a moment. She won her age group today. I can't help but be glad I'm not in that age group!

© 2003 W. Wood Harter - All Rights Reserved