I must admit that writing this report the day after is going to be a more positive review than yesterday when I questioned why the hell I do these events. I also had a HUGE sense of fear for competing in Ironman Arizona given how difficult this event was. When I woke up today, I couldn’t wait for IM AZ training to start. But for now, I’m on hiatus till May, with maybe a little strength work and fun rides/runs mixed in.

But back to the yesterday’s event. IM California 70.3 was much harder than I expected. The reason was the elevation climbs on the back that were unexpected (more unexpected because I’m an idiot and didn’t study the elevation chart), and these climbs really took the strength out of my legs for the runs. I accomplished my goal of under 5 hours, 30 minutes (barely), and i came in 94/240 in my field, with 74 DNFs (so really, 94/304, but that’s not the official stat). I’ll recap each event and then list my takeaways at the end

Pre-Race: Up at 4AM, ready by 5AM and not that nervous. Got to the race, parked, rode my bike to the start (and it was quite cold at about 5:15AM). Got to transition, found my spot, setup. Funny thing here is that I had to pee SO BAD. The type of pee where if you don’t go soon, it feels like you may have to pee blood because of the pain build up. Well, the bathroom line was about 40 minutes long, so I decided to pretend like I was doing a warm up run down the rocks of the harbor, and when I got to the end, I unloaded. I seriously think it felt better than having a first born child. After I got this out, I went back, setup my transition, put half my wetsuit on, and as the first wave went off, I got into the restroom line for my second potty trip.

Pre-Race2: Yup, last wave, so around 7:20 AM, I did potty trip #3. Fortunately, I saw my family and girlfriend right before I was ready to go out, as well as Zsolt, Cale, girlfriend’s Mom Marian, and Matt. It was very cool to have a mini cheering section!!!

Swim: As I ran down the chute to the swim start, I was excited. Not nervous at all, which is strange given how nervous I was for my last tri. When I got in the water and swam to the wave start line, I immediately realized I was in a bad position. I was behind two guys, sort of like a triangle, and two guys behind me. But there wasn’t enough time to find a better spot. When the horn went off, the two guys in front of me kicked me in the head, and then the guys behind me swam over me while hitting me. Not the ideal start position. I tried finding a good swimming lane while I got hammered over and over. After about 300-400 meters, I found that lane. From here, I got into my rhythm, my heart rate slowed, and I was truly starting the IM 70.3. After we made the turn around the last buoy and started our way back to the transition zone, we caught the slower swimmers from earlier waves. This made sighting a challenge because now I not only had to look where I was going but also the fastest way to get there without swimming over other people. I think I swam quite a bit extra distance as a result.

Sidenote: it’s extremely frustrating that some people who do these triathlons do not sight! I can’t tell you how many people swam diagonally across me as a result. Even one guy swam across me BACK STROKE! If you’re going to do a triathlon, read up on sighting! It will save you extra energy as well as the frustration of those around you

T1: Ok, so after 34:46, I came out of the water. I slowly ran to my transition spot. I mention slowly because I was tired. I had cramped trying to get on the ramp out of the harbor, and my shoulder hurt pretty bad from bumping into people on the swim, and that didn’t help in trying to get my wetsuit off. I thought I handled T1 ok, getting out in 4:03, which isn’t bad for those long IM transitions. I was quite amazed at how far you had to run to get out of transition. They said 75 yards per length, so 150 yards total per transition. That’s about 1/10 of a mile. The one thing I could of done better in T1 was not clipping my shoes into the pedals. I ended up getting behind two bikes coming out of transition that were almost walking with their shoes clipped in, so I picked up no time by being able to run clipless out. Then I struggled to get my feet into my shoes. For an event this long, I think having the shoes out of my pedals may be better.

Bike: Let’s just say that I wish my bike was stronger. The elevation climb was only 2500 feet, but it felt like 10,000 because the hills were sudden, short and steep. Sudden is my fault for not studying the course before the race, but I couldn’t overcome the short and steep. The first hill was an 11% grade for about .75 miles. I’d say 1/3 of the people were walking their bikes up the hill. This came at about mile 31. At mile 35 or so, we hit hill 2, which was about the same distance of 8% grade. Hill 3 came a few miles later and was nearly identical to hill 2. This didn’t account for the steady incline that accounted for miles 30-44. For those reading, you could say what goes up, must come down. I agree, but what hurt me was that I didn’t really expect the bike to be so difficult on the legs, so I used a lot of energy on those hills that really came out of my run. My legs even cramped at one point. Plus, the wind was opposite it’s normal direction, so although the last 12 miles we had a tailwind, all of these inclines were into the wind, making them that much more punishing. If I could do it again, I think I’d do a little more hill training, and do more running after hill training. More importantly, I needed to take in more calories on the bike. The 100 per hour was not enough, and I had no salt replenishment. My body was covered in salt by the end of the race, and that’s not a good sign.

The bike course was beautiful. I just was in a lot of pain and didn’t get a chance to enjoy it as much. I wish I could do the back side of Camp Pendleton for fun because it was truly gorgeous. Here’s the bike course:

Here’s the elevation chart (note the elevation increases aren’t great, but they’re sudden, and that made it tough):

My Cheer Squad

Gun to my Head

T2: After 2:58:06, or about 19 mph, I came into transition. It felt good to get off the bike. I was worn out and ready for it to end, but a half marathon remained. Here was the debate – socks or no socks? I loaded my bike, and said screw it, I’ll put on the socks. And this decision may have cost me about 5 minutes on my run. I never trained in these shoes while wearing socks, and I know the golden rule is to never do something different on race day than you’ve done in training, but socks make everything better, right? Not in this case. I was blistered by mile 5, and it was PAINFUL! The type of blisters I could pop the same night. So in transition, I took the extra 30 seconds to put on socks, I grabbed my Clif Bloks and Gu and ran out. Both the Bloks and Gu fell out of my pockets before I exited transition. Thank you Zoots for making crappy pockets in your tri jerseys. Total T2 time of 2:39

Run: The run splits are below (and note it’s 12.6 miles because my Garmin didn’t kick up until .5 miles in). These don’t account for the pee break I needed at mile 1 or the 20 seconds at each mile for walking through the water stations. The run wasn’t too bad, but as you can see, as the blisters settled in, each step got progressively harder and my time slowed down. There were so many times I wanted to stop, but I just forced myself to never stop running, even if I had to slow down. Just keep going. At one water stop, my legs cramped pretty bad, and this was the sign that if I did start walking, my day may be cut short. So I just took each painful step forward, gutting it out until I finished. You can see from the run videos below that the stride wasn’t too bad, it just hurt. And as you can see from the finisher video, I really wasn’t in a hurry to get across that finish line!

Total run time of 1:45:33. Run Splits (see how it got a little harder as time went by)

My total time was 5:25:05. As I posted in my race strategy, the only really disappointing time was the swim, and fortunately, although I missed it by about 15%, it only accounted for 5 minutes. So I like to recap what I learn from these events, and this one is not different. Here are my main takeaways:

• The Ironman Arizona is going to be HARD. I knew it would be hard, but once I have half the distance as an example, I realize truly what’s in store. I will need to seriously train, and really build a good base of miles on the bike and run. Yes I would like to do it in under 12 hours, and 5:25 + 5:25 = 10:50 does make 12 hours seem possible, especially since I wasn’t thrilled with my time. But the key will be to finish. This race hurt so bad at so many times that the thought of dropping out happened constantly, and I haven’t had that in a race before. I can only imagine what a full Ironman is like. So I will train with more bricks and more endurance, building a base before I build speed.
• I’m going to do more ocean swimming. I haven’t swam in the ocean since my last tri in October, and the wetsuit felt very strange for the first 500 meters. I plan on doing more ocean swims this summer simply to get used to the feel of a wetsuit
• I’m not that scared of the ocean anymore. I was deathly afraid before my last tri, and yesterday, it felt great to be out there. This is all about conquering fears, and I’m slowly breaking down barriers
• Transitions are important, but an extra 2 minutes in transition to get your head right is worth it in an event this long. Next time, I’ll spray sunscreen on too so I don’t end up with the sun blisters that I have this time around
• Races are fun, but I think I enjoy the journey more than the end. To truly master something, you have to enjoy the journey, and I’m thankful that a race is just part of that journey
• Do not break habit. Running in shoes with socks that I’ve only run in without socks is NOT a good idea
• Learn more about nutrition and what my body needs. Train that way and take in more calories on the bike. Buy salt replenishment pills

So thanks for taking the time to read my race report. If you have any questions or want to know anything about the race, feel free to comment below! Happy training!

Second loop of the run:

Across the finish line:

My photo set on Flickr