Day 326: Last race of 2010

For the last 3 years, I have been doing triathlons, and every year has ended with the same event. Scott Tinley's Adventures takes place 4 hours south from where I live at Lopez Lake near San Luis Obisbo, during the first weekend in October. Its honestly one of the most entertaining events of the year, and has lots of different distances over 2 days, with some pros showing up for the event, including the raining 70.3 Ironman world champion Michael Raelert.

Being the last race of the year, and only 1 month out from the beginning of my Ironman training, I decided to take on the sprint distance, consisting of a quarter mile swim, 12.4 mile bike, and 3 mile swim. This is actually the distance I first started with 3 years ago, and I was really excited to see how much I have improved over the years.

My day started at 5:30 am with a short ride on my bike trainer. I really wish I got a picture of this, but it was still fairly dark out with stars in the sky and our campsite overlooking the race finish line. Honestly, there is no better way to wake up before a race. After about 15 minutes of spinning, I pack up my race stuff and head down the hill to the start line.

I spend the next hour setting up my transition area, and hitting up the bathrooms for the last time before the race and make it to the start line with about 30 seconds to spare. This is way closer than I wanted to make it, as I had to skip my warm up swim, but it will have to do.As the horn blows I dash a few feet down the boat ramp and jump into the water with all the other male racers. The final race of the season has officially begun!

One of the things that makes open water swimming a challenge is the fact that its almost a contact sport. With so many other people swimming around you, its easy to hit arms or get kicked in the face which for the first 2 years of racing has always intimidated me. This year is different, and I'm noticing my practice and training kick into gear as I'm not letting other peoples strokes or some minor contact slow me down or cause me to let up. I'm making clean smooth strokes through the water, and am successful in battling for position over other racers. However, there was one obstacle I was not ready for.

One third of the way into the swim I begin to round the first large orange buoy, and I can feel my wetsuit zipper unzip. At first I thought this was no big deal, as I'll just zip it back up and keep swimming... but alas, trying to zip up a wet suit while in the water causes you to sink, so instead I just continued the swim with it unzipped. The water temperature was about 68 degrees, so being cold wasn't as issue. The pocket of drag caused by an open wetsuit was. I spent the remainder of the swim trying to keep my butt out of the water as much as possible to reduce the drag, and I got out of the water in 9 minutes and 39 seconds, just under my goal time of 10 minutes. After a quick transition I was out on the bike course.

The bike started out with a pretty steep climb out of the campgrounds, and continued along a fairly hilly bike course, during which I was able to reach a top speed of 58.8 km/h (or 36.53 mph) during a long freshly paved down hill, which may be the fastest I've ever gone on a bicycle, and is kind of scary to be honest.

With about 2 miles to go before the turn around point, I can see the lead racer heading in the other direction. A few moments later the next racer, then the next. I count as each one goes by, and I find out I am in 20th position half way though the race, with 3 racers within view. So far, this race is going great.

The last half of the bike has a little more uphill than the first half, including my speedy hill, which is allot slower going the other way. I power though all the hills, and finish the bike in 40 minutes and 23 seconds, just a hair over my goal of 40 minutes, but still pretty good. After a quick transition, I'm out on the run.

In the first 2 minutes, I see the competitor just in front of me, and notice that he is not as strong as a runner I am, and quickly pass him, but for the remainder of the race, hardly see any other racers. I'm some where around the top 25 racers, and I'm in front of the large pack of racers.

Nearing the end of the run is a long up hill and I see a small group of 3 racers. I push it up the hill, and catch 2 of the 3 racers before the crossing the finish with a final time of 1 hour, 16 minutes and 43 seconds. I'm feeling pretty good about my run, but have no idea how this stacks up with the other racers.

Well, I finished 25th over all (188 other racers) and got 3rd in my age group! I was more than stoked to be able to stand upon the winners podium and be awarded a bronze medal for my efforts.

Overall, I call this race a pretty big success, and a great close to the season. Special thanks goes out to my best friend, and brother from a different mother, Alex Alcoba who flew in from Toronto to visit me for a week, and took photos while he cheered me on at this event!

Links:
Race website and Results: http://www.tricalifornia.com/index.cfm/Tinley2010-main.htm