Race Day!

Whoa - it's been two weeks since the race and I haven't updated this yet - sorry for that! Here's the play-by-play:

2,000 people competed on Sunday, September 14, 2008 in Malibu, CA for the Nautica Malibu Triathlon Presented by Toyota. It consisted of a 1/2 mile swim parallel to the beach, an 18-mile out-and-back bike ride along the Pacific Coast Highway, and a 4-mile run along the walkway next to the beach (known as "The Strand").

To cut a long story short: I did it! Really! I did a full triathlon. Longer than the Castaic sprints, shorter than an Olympic. Pretty much in the middle. I did it! And I only drew blood from two wounds, but more on that later.

Now for the long story.

Sunday morning the alarm went off at 4am. 4am. The team was checked-in to the Holiday Inn in Santa Monica and told to meet at 4:50am (yes, 4:50am) in the lobby to board buses for the 30-45 minute ride to Zuma beach in Malibu, a short distance north. I arrived in the lobby, late as usual, at 4:55. Turned out to be a good thing as I was last on the first bus. Why a good thing?

Think about it for a sec: how do you get 65 people on 3 school buses, with their bikes? Really, get creative, because our staff sure did. We sat one person to a seat (two per row) with the bikes stacked two-to-a-row across the aisle. These were long school buses. Being last on, I sat in the front row, not in the claustrophic, bike-barricaded, prison-like dark of the back of the bus, or even the slightly less cruel second row, for that matter.

We arrived at Zuma at about 5:45 and headed into the transition area. Dark, subdued noise, spotlights, sounds of waves crashing. 2,000 people unpacking and setting up. Chilly out, but not bad. My rack was in the middle. Nice.

My family (wife, daughter, mother and Craig my next door neighbor) showed-up around 7:00 and I met them in the Expo area to hear the pre-race talk.



I was in the 40-44 age group, wave 9, which went off at 8:00 (first wave went off at 7:20). The picture above doesn't show my wave as I was in a navy blue swim cap, but does show what it was like running into the 64 degree Pacific Ocean at 8:00am with 150 other guys going through their own mid-life crises.

Prior to jumping in, and hitting the bathroom "one last time" (so I told myself) I took a warm-up swim (well, as warm as you can be in 64 degree water). It actually felt good! I swam out about 100 yards and back in, giving me a great feel for the water and more importantly, something to do while I waited for our wave to go in.

I completed the swim in 00:18:56.9. Not bad. Not good, but then again, no panic attacks and no hanging onto a surfboard for dear life. I actually drafted in behind two guys I was trying to pass, when I figured out that I might as well take it easy and let them do the work.

T1 went very well, after I stumbled out of the water. Gotta work on that. T1 took only 00:02:23.4 as it also included running in and out of the (large) transition area. I was easily as fast on the change as I was at the mock tri, so all was good there. And this time I had my family cheering me on!



The bike ride was great! I mounted using a skateboard mount and enjoyed the ride, passing a bunch of people (ok, not all of them had flat tires), and getting passed by guys with woo-woo wheels (rear discs make a woo-woo sound as they go by). The guy playing drums at mile 10 was awesome. Total bike time: 01:04:34.2 Again, fair to middling, but completed almost without incident...

I came back to the transition area and underestimated where the dismount line was. Fortunately I was already out of my shoes but had to dismount going too fast. I banged-up both feet, my right losing a bit of flesh, dinged my finger, lost a shoe, but otherwise got off before the line. I hobbled to my transition area for T2.

T2 went fine, given that my feet were on fire. T2 took 00:02:22.2. Not too bad considering I was hobbling around with my feet on fire most of the time.



The run was great too! Saw tons of TnT people, all of us yelling "Go Team!" every time we passed. I ran the whole thing, no walking or stopping (except for a 45-second bathroom break at the beginning - gotta work on that). Three guys ran by me in pink speedo's with the text "Deb Won" (or something like that) written on their chests (ooooh, bad bet to lose!)

I dinged my finger on the dismount. Turns out it bled all over my hand. So as I'm running out of the area and see my coach, he yells "Hey Steve!" and I return-yell "I drew blood!" and hold up my hand - laughs all around.

The run was otherwise uneventful and I made it back in 00:37:14.0 (really about 00:36:30 as I had the 45 second bathroom break). Wait a minute, that's pretty much a 9-minute mile, for 4 miles, after swimming and biking: awesome!



Here I am crossing the finish line. Total time was 02:05:30.7. I was number 608 out of about 1,400 age-groupers, 113th out of 164 in my age group. Not too shabby for a first, big tri. Next year I'm going to kick it up several notches, that is for sure!



And here's the medal we all received for participating.

How did the fundraising go? Amazing:

I raised $2,850 with your help!
The three teams, Eastside LA, Westside LA, and Orange County raised $250,000 for LLS, just for this event.
The Malibu Triathlon ended-up raising $950,000 for the Children's Hospital of LA.

I ate 3 Roctane gels and about 32 oz. of Gu20 during the race.

Thank you to everyone who donated to make this such a charitable success:

Bruce and Elaine Mark, Michael Berns, Kevin and Michele Berns, Greg and Patty Bourdon, Gerry and Cary Philpott, Robert & Dalia Messinger, Willie and Lois Sakai, Alicia Calvo, Michael and Lisa Nocita, Rick and Diana Mark, Yan Huang, Josh de la Cuesta, Craig and Ellen Rubin, Keith & Lisa Breton, Rob Cohen, Chris and Jennifer Hardin, Kevin Lasky (Big O Tires/Tarzana), Antoine and Carmen Gabriele, Neil Einbund, Karen Van Tassell, Andy Brauer, Scott Sachs, Kevin and Nef Bromber, Darryl and Deanna Silver, Steve and Robin Ligerman, Darryl & Lisa Ballin, Phyllis & Sandy Beim.

I'd also like to thank my family for putting-up with the wacky training schedule and endless talk of triathlon training and equipment.

My "home team" of competition-training buddies: Craig for being a running-buddy and egging me on in our Father's Day Mock Tri, and Kevin for providing some great competition in the Castaic tri's.

Of course, I couldn't have gotten to this level without the help and encouragement of my Team-in-Training team and our awesome coaches and staff: Scot Harvey ("One more thing..."), Alison Jensen, Joy Rosenstadt ("Seriously, 65 degree water is warm!"), Peter Chandler, Kim Katz, Felix Dacumos, Debbie Robbins, Dominique Bianco, Hector Alfaro ("Thai or tacos?"), Louis Provost ("Write my age, not A-G-E!"), Nadia Valliani ("No refunds!") and my mentor, Gerry Philpott, who got me into this mess to begin with.

What an amazing experience all-around. I highly recommend it! And this is just the beginning...

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So why did it take so long to post this? Monday I came down with what must have been food poisoning. Medium-level case, but debilitating as all get-out. My outer right leg and knees were hurting, and the orthopedist says I now have two runner's knees and a strained/tight/whatever IT band. I've been given some exercises to do and am making room in my week to handle that. Tuesday wasn't much better, but I got a lot of rest. Wednesday was work-catchup day, Thursday I backslid, and that brings us to Friday, at which I was feeling almost normal. Then I just delayed things a week, no real excuses other than that.