Fundamentally, I don’t believe in PRs (personal records) in triathlon. I mean, sure, you can declare your PR for a sprint / olympic / half / full, but so what? The course is different year to year, distances aren’t standard, and especially in the Ironman world, it’s not a time trial.
That said, I had a very good race on this course this year. Good indicators (and some would say a PR but… not) across all disciplines. I wasn’t sure how this race would go, as I technically ‘trained through it’ – though it happened to align with a recovery week.
I drove down to Aptos the morning of the race. It was a little foggy but mostly wet. Since I’ve raced here since 2014, this made me a little nervous. As gorgeous as the bike course is, there are some sharp turns that I knew I’d need to approach far more cautiously than usual.
I arrived, picked up my packet, and dropped my bike at a rack once it was semi-secure. Then I went back to my car to stay semi-dry! About 45 min before race start, I headed back to transition and set up my area (in 8 minutes) and got prepped to race. Fast, low key, and easy.
Now on to the race!
Swim:
The water was CHOPPY. Could see it from the beach. Could feel it during warm up. But I know I’m a strong swimmer and there’d be a few women around me so I figured we’d just be all along for the same ride. And that maybe I’d have a nice advantage over the rest of the field. Wind+fog rolling around=prime conditions for KJ.
The swim to the first turn at the end of the ship was rough! I got hit in the face by the chop a few times. The college athlete who is super fast and dominates this race just cut through the water like butter and I felt like a total clod – but I got to the end of the ship eventually and had finally caught her feet. We made the turns around the ship, and on the first leg to the beach, I made the pass and left her behind. I looked for her a few times (this being shark country I was nervous, ok?) and didn’t see her. For the parallel leg I got pushed around a couple of times but eventually made the last turn into the beach (avoiding male obstacles) and came out of the water first woman.
T1 was a little slow for me for this race due to my own spazziness. But no issues.
Heading out of transition, the collegiate athlete passed me briefly; I got my feet in my shoes and passed her on a short climb and didn’t see her again on the bike.
As I was climbing up the major climb on the course, I could tell a guy I had just passed did not drop back. Not only that, as we made a left turn, he almost took my back wheel out. I yelled at him to either pass me or fall back because he was drafting – so he passed me and everything was fine. How do people not know this rule? But still on the climb, I passed a small group of spectators who yelled to me that I was the first woman (thanks I know!) and so I waved back – I was trying to stay focused as the difficult handling was about to start.
After the peak, I started the best descent on the course. It’s long and straight, and has a slight upward pitch just before the SHARP right hand turn. I actually got passed by a few people on it and hey – they didn’t crash at the bottom, so good for them. Glad they were that confident! As the course heads toward Seascape, I saw a kid in a Cal kit talking to a cop. He yelled out that he had a flat so I briefly slowed and tossed him a tube. BUT he didn’t finish because I don’t think he carried ANY equipment – totally unacceptable and annoying.
I felt strong all the way through the end of the bike, AND I didn’t get passed by any women during the bike leg! I was so happy with the ride, got off the bike with a stellar dismount, racked my bike and headed out on the run. I don’t think my T2 lasted any longer than 30 seconds (I was busy doing things so I didn’t hit my watch).
The run started out ok – on the soft sand on the way down to the hard packed sand I definitely thought I was going to eat it, but I made it successfully.
I led the women’s race until mile 1, where the collegiate athlete finally passed me (where were you!) – she looked stronger than ever though. A woman who’s calf said “29” caught me just before the turn around. And at the turn around, I determined I had 38 seconds before the next woman, and a minute to the woman after her. One of them had a Stanford kit on so I hoped she was 20-24 (and really I was hoping I could hold the second of the two off).
I got passed around mile 3 by the Stanford kit (who was 25) who took the third place slot – I kept running because I knew I was closing on the finish line and that the second of the two women was probably chasing me down. I checked over my shoulder right after the pier and I was basically seeing blurs, so that wasn’t helpful! I checked again as I made the left hand turn into the soft sand toward the finish and didn’t saw one man trying to get by me but that was it.
I approached the finish line and thought I had finished because I ran through the arch, but apparently the timers didn’t hit the plunger until you passed them (learned this because they yelled this at me) – so I stumbled in the soft sand to them. THEN apparently they needed my bib tag in the right order and wouldn’t hold my place so I had to get to the next set of volunteers… Like, lifeguards! Can’t you tell I’m about to puke?! I eventually got to them and gave them my bib.
Post race, it turns out the first girl who passed me with the “29” doesn’t understand how triathlon age groups work – she was actually 30-34. So I raced myself into 2nd Age Group, 4th Overall (for the third time (?) here?) which was fairly successful, really. One current collegiate triathlete, one ex-collegiate triathlete, and one other random person. I’ll take it.
| Race Distance | My Distance | Time | |
| Swim | 0.75 miles | 0.60 miles (normal) |
15:08 (1:24/100yd)
|
| Bike | 13 miles | 13.2 miles |
45:18 (17.5 mph)
|
| Run | 4 miles | 3.74 miles (normal) | 33:41 (9:00/mile) |
| Total | 1:43:15 |