Originally, Justin and I thought we would drive to Oceanside (it would have been around 10 hours each way) but then we saw that the flights to San Diego were not that much more expensive than renting a car in SF and driving almost 1000 miles for the round trip (car rentals in San Diego were also cheaper). What's more, Alaska Airlines treats bikes as regular luggage, so the bike fee was only $30 each way. A slightly more expensive but more convenient alternative was Tribike Transport but in the end we decided against it this time, mostly to see how much work packing and unpacking my new bike would be (it was quite a bit more work than my old bike, sigh, but hopefully it's mostly a matter of practice).
We arrived in San Diego mid-morning on Thursday. Before heading up to Oceanside we had lunch with Kristin, one of my friends from MIT Triathlon. It was nice catching up with her and made me a bit more relaxed after an early morning of travel. Next we headed to our homestay in Oceanside to meet our awesome host Melissa and her two cute and very friendly dogs, Jaeger and Scarlet :-) We built my bike, took it for a short spin and headed downtown to pick up my race packet. I considered doing a short swim near the pier/finish but it was not exactly sunny or warm at that point (late afternoon) and no one else was swimming (just surfing), so I skipped it.
Next morning started with my usual short and easy pre-race run, after which we discovered that my bike stopped shifting because the Di2 battery somehow drained completely overnight. This got me quite worried - I've always been extra suspicious of electronic shifting! Fortunately, it didn't take Justin too long to figure out what caused this. The rear derailleur was supposedly not adjusted properly and that combined with leaving the bike in the lightest gear caused the derailleur to constantly self-adjust, which drained the battery very quickly. Justin adjusted the shifting and recharged the battery. Honestly, the shifting didn't seem off to me the day before, so the main lesson is to not leave the bike in the lightest gear in the future. After a short bike ride on a local bike path (thank you, Melissa, for the recommendation!), Melissa took us for a bike course preview. This was very helpful since none of us have seen the course before and we wouldn't have been able to pre-drive it ourselves without a sponsor pre-approved by the military (almost the entire bike course is on a local military base). Next we headed over to transition, mostly to check out the swim start since I didn't have to check in my bike the day before the race this time. I was hoping that the ocean would be a bit less rough than what it looked like at the pier the day before but it looked about the same. Justin suggested that I practice running into the water and dolphin-diving into the waves. It didn't really work (for one, I don't know how to dolphin dive, even without a two to five foot surf coming at me). So I tried to just jog into the water up to a bit above knee height and swimming through the surf. I knew that I was supposed to swim under the waves but I still somehow collided with one and breathed in a bunch of water. I felt like I was drowning for a bit as more waves kept crashing into me. It was quite scary and ended my little pre-race-day swim pretty quickly. Justin has swam through the surf many times as a child, so he easily got through it (the first 150-200m from the shore?), even without wetsuit - after all, the water was much warmer than the water in SF Bay! After our little swim we headed over to the pro meeting. It was much briefer than the AG meetings, which Justin appreciated ;-). They covered only the most important stuff, plus some differences between AG and pro rules specific to this race, which I wouldn't have known otherwise (in particular that one of the downhill sections with 25mph speed limit for AG had a 35mph speed limit for us - no chance of me going over 35mph there, haha!) It was very cool (for both Justin and I) to be in one room with so many world-class pros! We ended up getting a bit more groceries, ate dinner back at our homestay, hung out a bit with our host and a fellow pro, Lenny Ramsey, who we were sharing homestay with, and went to bed extra early.
Race morning:
We left the house plenty early (though not as early as our host, who was also one of the volunteer coordinators!). The pro athlete parking was about a mile from transition but it wasn't too bad since we could still ride our bikes over in the morning. After setting up my transition, using the bathroom (they had a few just for the pros - a nice perk for sure!), putting on sunscreen and wetsuit, I tried to warm up. Sadly, the ocean was not much calmer than the day before and I was still too scared to swim into it. So I jogged a few minutes along the beach instead.
Swim (36:56):
The gun went off and I cautiously ran to the water. I guess the plan was to follow everyone else and hope for the best. Hoping for the best was quickly replaced by panic as I collided with one of the waves, which threw my goggles off my face. For a painfully long moment I thought I lost the goggles and I'd have to swim without them (or the race was over). Fortunately, they were still hanging around my neck. At this point, one of the lifeguards was asking me if I was OK and if I wanted to continue. I was pretty freaked out but not ready to give up, so I put my goggles back on and started swimming again. The wave that threw off my goggles also threw me quite far to the side and this whole incident probably took close to 2 minutes, so any hope of swimming with the other pro women was gone. I carefully made my way through the surf (which seemed to have subsided a bit temporarily too). I was very relieved when I finally made it through the first ~250m to the first buoy. Surprisingly, there were quite a few people swimming in my vicinity. I was wondering if those were some of the age groupers warming up but then realized that those were the physically challenged athletes, who started 1min behind my wave (the age group rolling start was another 7 minutes back) I didn't get much draft off the PC athletes since at that point I was mostly passing them but it was nice to not be completely alone out there. Maybe halfway through the swim, the first group of age groupers passed me. There was little chance of me hanging onto their feet since they were probably doing well under 30min pace for the 1.2mi but I did try a little (OK, maybe not since I was afraid that they'd swim over me - something Lenny warned me about :-p). When I got out of the water, I was actually relieved to have swam under 40min, even though my original goal was closer to 30min. I was obviously dead last in my category at that point but better that than a DNF ;-)
T1 (3:48):
Nothing to report here other than that it was a pretty long transition (0.40mi according to my watch).
Bike (02:39:06):
Even though it felt like I was passed by quite a few people in the water, the bike course was not too crowded (or rather, pretty empty compared to most of my previous Ironman-branded race experiences). I did pass a few age group men, maybe one or two AG girls who passed me in the swim and two pro women (one in the first 10 miles and one in the last 15 miles) but other than that it was mostly me being passed by AG men and riding at my own effort. I think I paced the bike decently well, even though my normalized power dropped a bit after the first hour. There were two points during the bike where I almost crashed myself but fortunately stayed upright. The first time there were a few cracks along the road right before turning onto the bike path and I managed to ride my rear wheel straight into one. Then at the end of the bike path there was this yellow dotted surface (for blind people, I think) that was was very slippery and we needed to make a sharp right turn right across it. The volunteers were actually very good about warning us about it as we approached, which made me think that someone already crashed there. Later I learned that one of the male pros fell on it and broke his collar bone :-(
T2 (2:44):
T2 was only about half the run of T1 because we biked the first half of what we ran in T1. It was slightly awkward to have people ride along this winding narrow path alongside transition but maybe it was better than having people push their bikes for an extra 0.2mi?
Run (1:32:21):
The run was pretty much two out-and-backs, so it was easier to get an idea where the rest of the field was (quite far ahead of me). The course was mostly flat with one or two false flats and quite a few short but steep inclines between the beach level and street level. I knew at least one of the girls who I passed on the bike is a faster pure runner than I am, so that motivated me to keep pushing. Also, seeing how fast and focused most of the other pro women ahead of me were was pretty inspiring! Justin did a great job cheering me on at several points on the course. The run went pretty smoothly other than my foot cramping a bit with about 2 miles to go (not sure why) but it came and went and didn't really slow me down much.
I was very glad to cross the finish line still in 16th place (out of 19 female pro starters and 18 finishers) in a bit under 5 hours (4:54:55), though I wad also a bit disappointed about the swim. I almost immediately started considering signing up for St George 70.3, mainly to have another go at the swim (in a bit less scary conditions). We hung out at the finish line for a little bit (and got pretty sunburned in the process), then we walked back to the harbor area to meet up with Alon and Melissa (also friends from MIT Triathlon) and their two little boys. It was great to see them and catch up.
Overall, I really enjoyed my Oceanside experience. The town, the course and the volunteers were great. We had an awesome homestay experience (thank you again, Melissa!) and I'm very glad I got to know a fellow pro this way too. I might consider doing this race again if I learn how to swim through surf (or if they move the swim start back into the harbor :-p).
As always, big thanks to Justin for making the trip down south with me, for getting my bike race ready and doing the majority of packing, unpacking and lugging the 60-pound bike case around for me. Thank you, Mary Beth, for coaching me, thank you, Pedro for fitting my new bike and thank you to all my friends and family for support and encouragement!
