Sheila Runs

So this past Sunday, July 18, 2010, I raced the Olympic Distance at the Strawberry Fields Triathlon in Oxnard, California. One thing I will say about this race, is that if we do it again, we are going to stay overnight in Oxnard the night before the race. Under ideal conditions the drive from our house is about 1.5 hours, but when is traffic through L.A. ideal? OK, at 4 am on Sunday morning yes (heading to the race on morning of), but for packet pickup the afternoon before NOT. Must have spent 8 hours driving to/from Oxnard this weekend. Blech!

Saturday, the day before the race, we went down to the packet pickup. We got there late in the afternoon, about 4:30 PM. It was chilly and windy. After the 100-degree temps we’d been experiencing at home the past week, the tank top I wore was just not sufficient. It seemed the race might be cold the next day. Packet pickup was well-organized. Transition area was nearly set up. We drove the bike course just to see what I had in store the next day. One thing about this race, the run and bike courses are some of the flatest I’ve had the opportunity to run on.

So early Sunday morning we arose and left the house at 3:30 am. Ugg! Got to the race site about 5:10 am and got primo parking. The weather was nice. Not windy. Calm and a bit cool, but not cold. Got my body markings. Set up my transition area. Note that positions on the bike rack are assigned by your bib number. You have to find your spot and set up there. This is different from any of the 4 races I did last year where you just show up and choose your own spot pretty much. Sometimes your age group goes on a certain rack or two. Anyhow, I got very lucky with an end spot. It had nothing to do with my arriving early. It was assigned.

The spacing seemed a bit cramped on the racks, too. But the other races I’ve done have been the same, so…? Another racer complained about it and it seemed like she meant in comparison to other races she’d had more space. Dunno.

Took a walk out onto the beach to see the water/surf conditions. (It was still pretty early and we had time to kill.)

The waves looked pretty mild. Looked like it wouldn’t be much trouble at all getting out past the waves. Went and stood in line for the porta-potties. Did my warmup run.

Then it was time to put the wetsuit on, listen to the pre-race meeting, the national anthem, and parade down to the beach where the swim start would be. The olympic distance swim was starting quite a bit further south than the sprint distance, so we had to walk a ways down the beach. Things were pretty casual and people were taking warmup swims. That suited me fine. Some races I’ve been to have been very restrictive about swim warmups, only allowing them during a certain time-window and when the life guards were in position. This was pretty casual. I need a swim warmup.

The water was fairly chilly (about 61 degrees) and unfortunately the waves had gotten quite a bit larger by this time. I went and swam out about 2/3 of the way to the first buoy and then back in. Very glad I did that and acclimated myself to the swim conditions. Then we had to stand around and wait for quite a while. Women’s Olympic distance was the last wave of the day. But finally it was time to start.

I am quite confident in my swimming, at my pace, which is medium. Not fast and not too slow. A bit slow. But anyhow, I definitely don’t start in the front. I start in the middle and towards the side. We had to run about 50 feet or so down the sand to the water.

And then you had to get through the waves, and by the time my wave started my hubby agrees that we had the roughest conditions of all for the day. Still, not terribly horrible. But not as nice and calm as it had seemed at 6 am (it was now after 8 am).

I probably need to learn to be more aggressive at getting out there, but I didn’t hang back too far. I was in the middle.

And once we cleared the waves and got to the first buoy I settled down into a fairly good rhythm. Turn right at the first buoy and swim parallel to shore, following the buoys for about 3/4 mile or so, I guess. There were people swimming over me, and I was swimming between others, and around others and getting bumped or kicked. Not too bad. But in any case, I didn’t skip a beat. I’ve been practicing my ocean swimming about once every week or two with the L.A. Triathlon Club, and the practice really helps. I was not unsettled in any way by all of this. And the waves were tossing about, 2-3 foot swell, but I just kept plugging away with my head down. I really did feel like I did a strong swim. We were swimming against the drift in the current, too. Made for a challenging swim. I also thought about some of the stuff I’ve been practicing in my Master’s Swim classes…powering through my stroke, stroke below the water surface,  faster turnover/rhythm on my stroke. I’m sure it helped some.

At the last buoy, as I turned right again to go into the shore, there were two less confident swimmers just kind of stopped there and blocking my way talking to a life guard who was hanging out there. Kinda irked me. I said, “C’mon…move!” but they didn’t. Oh well, swim around them and get on with it. The life guards were very helpful as we came in, cautioning us of waves and directing us towards the swim finish area. Finally, after about 39 minutes I emerged from the waves.

We had to run up about 100 feet or so on the sand to the beach path and then to the transition area. Total about 1/4 mile from the water to transition. I do not know why, but after I came out of the water and tried to run I was quickly out of breath and panting and found it very hard to run, even an easy jog for a short distance was very hard. I guess I recall experiencing the same thing in my Santa Cruz triathlon last year, too. While I was in the water I was fine, but trying to run through the sand…out of breath. Maybe I need to practice this more at my ocean swim practices.

But a fairly decent transition and I was off on the bike. My transition was better than similar ones last year. Not the slowest in my age group. The few minutes of rest in transition let me recover my breath and I was strong and running with my bike. Passed up a few people coming out of T1. Heard Bob Frein yell “hi” to me, saw my hubby and daughter, too. You do have to watch out for some curbs and bumps as you head out. Don’t trip!

As I mentioned above, the bike course is pretty flat. There is an 11-12 mile loop. The sprint race rides it once. The olympic distance twice. Near the end of the loop is a moderate, short hill. Other than that, pretty flat. I tried to keep my power up and ride at a pretty fast pace, but was concerned about having enough oomph for the 2nd loop plus the run, so I didn’t give it everything I had. Never could get up to 20 mph, although close some times. It was exciting having some of the elites passing me (they were on their 2nd loop while I was on my first). Although this is advertised as an “open course” and that cyclists must watch for traffic and obey laws, they really did have it marked off with pylons and cops directing traffic, and I had no need to stop at any time. I was able to ride as fast as I wanted.

An Olympic course is supposed to have a 40K bike which is about 24.85 miles. This course advertises itself as 23.8 miles, so that is short, but I didn’t even get 22 miles on my Garmin 305 watch. So definitely a short bike course. 1:14 for me to ride the bike course.

On the bike I ate some little pieces of PB&J sandwiches I’d made the night before, drank Nuun and water. Also ate a Hammer gel near the end of the bike.

I got passed around mile 18 by a young woman who said to me, “Almost done.” I caught up to her in T2. She was just two bikes over from me. She was getting ready to run out as I came in. “Now comes the hard part,” she said. “No, this is my good part,” I replied. And she was off. I was pulling on my running shoes as quickly as I could. Helmet off. Running cap on. And off I went.

I was in a hurry. And I felt strong on the run. Still, I always need to be careful not to go out too fast. I can feel strong for the first mile or so and then fade or have trouble to hang on. It’s kind of funny…I felt a bit slow for the middle 2/3 of this race, but my run results actually came out pretty good. I did stop to get water 3 times during the run. The day had warmed up and I took some slower steps while drinking.

But as I ran into the finish I really hauled. So excited to be done!

Strawberries for the finishers. Yum!

My results (Bib 1055. 17 total in my AG women 45-49):

Swim: 41:40 (11th in AG)
T1: 3:08 (10th in AG)
Bike: 1:14:44 (10th in AG)
T2: 1:31 (10th in AG)
Run: 47:07 (1st in AG)
Total: 2:48:12.1 (7th in AG)

The funny thing is I felt so good about my solid swim while I was doing it. And I was passing people up on the swim, although they would have been the slower peeps from the earlier waves, I guess. When I saw how low I placed ranking-wise in my AG for the swim I was quite disappointed. I’m over it now. I realize this was so much better than I could have done last year. And this was my first triathlon of 2010 and I wasn’t even sure how I was going to be able to hold up for the Olympic distance. My recovery from my two marathons in March went really slowly and only recently have I begun to feel like my old self. So honestly, these were pretty good results. And my transitions…middle of the AG instead of at the bottom like last year. Still room for improvement, but…I need to practice them more, I guess.

But the run…which I felt I could have done better…I not only got first in my AG but 2nd for all women 40 and up. Only one lady in the AG below me ran faster.

I really enjoyed this race. Well-organized, and that is very important to me. I think I would probably fare better in the bike standings if the course were hillier, since I train a lot on hills. But that wouldn’t prevent me from doing this race again. The enthusiasm of the community and participants, the goody bags, the shirts, the after-race food…all was satisfactory or good. Also, well-marked bike and run courses with lots of police officers or volunteers directing traffic. Made for a very smooth race. I also did not have trouble on the bike course with people passing on the wrong side or preventing me from passing (due to being generally clueless about ettiquette). I did hear someone else complain about it, but it was not my experience.

More pictures here: Strawberry Fields 2010 – a set on Flickr

Official race results here: Results by Prime Time – Strawberry Fields 2010 Triathlon/Duathlon

Thank you to my Trisherpa and daughter who supported me, cheered for me, took photos, waited for me and encouraged me. They are the best.