4th Try at a Tri

Yesterday was the "Day at the Beach" sprint triathlon at Hermosa Beach, CA. I was late getting there and parking was filled, so I ended-up 1/2 mile away from the transition area at 6:30am; the first wave was scheduled to go out at 7am with a "mandatory" pre-race meeting at 6:50am.

In a rush I chowed down a tupperware-bowl of corn flakes standing in the street, pumped-up the bike, threw the tri bag on my back, and pedaled to the transition area in my flip-flops. First time for that!

I setup during the pre-race meeting (me and about 6 other people among the 1,000 setups) and being in wave 4 (going off at 7:28 as my new friend Derek told me) I headed down to the beach.

The sand was so cold that my feet got numb! I hit the water, which was warmer than the sand, and got in up to my knees. I looked over and saw a bunch of blue caps getting ready to run in and realized that Derek's estimate was 7 minutes too late so I ran and joined my fellow wavemates and the gun went off!

Not having warmed-up, the swim (1/4 mile) was atrocious. The water felt very cold and it wasn't until the second buoy (and heading in) that I started to feel comfortable. From start to the first bouy, about 100 yards out, took me 5 minutes! Awful.

The bike was a 3-loop course (10 miles) in a single, small lane. Billed as a "tri designed for beginners" it was tough to pass and get passed. Constant yells of "Left!" were the norm as people kept passing each other. Guys with $8,000 bikes shared the road with women on beach cruisers - in small lanes and some tight turns - it was crazy. As far as I know nobody got hurt though so all was well.

The run stared off badly: it felt like I had something wedged in my shoes. I finally stopped at around mile 1 to see what was up and all looked fine, so I threw them back on and continued to run. At about mile 2 everything started to feel good in my shoes, and it was at that point that I realized that my toes had been numb from the cold on the bike and swim! The "stuff" jammed in the front of my shoes had been my hypothermic toes!

Of course, after the fact I find out that either I missed the mat or my timing chip was malfunctioning as my split times were either missing or garbage (I wasn't the only one). I was timing myself on my watch, but as I've got a new watch I'm still working on figuring out how to retrieve the times!

I completed the ordeal in 1:18:06.5 (apparently the chip worked at least at the beginning and the end, which is good), 51st in my age group out of 66 and 294th overall. Top male time in my age group was 0:51:23.3. Obviously I've got some work to do. It's going to be a long, hard, indoor winter of training!