by For those of you who missed (read: chose not to go) the USTS Nationals, you
missed one of the best races I've done in a decade. It easily rated up with
'88 Hilton Head (where they had to change the swim course because even
Richard Wells couldn't make the turn at the buoy). This course easily had
the toughest 40K bike course I've ever ridden in a triathlon-- much tougher
than USTS Las Vegas or Boulder Peak.
The race started at 7am, but fortunately the time change (from Daylight
Savings to Standard) occurred early that morning so we had an extra hour to
sleep. Unfortunately, it was raining when I got up and apparently this was
the first rain in Oceanside for quite a while, so the roads were going to be
slick. I had driven the bike course the prior evening & knew this could be
a little dicey with the combination of all the cornering, fast winding
descents, embedded road reflectors and pylons. So I wiped all the
grit/dirt/grime from my rims and readjusted my brake calipers. Now the rain
had almost stopped and it was just barely misting. Got to the marking area
about 1.5 hours before starting time so I could get a could warm-up and
practice cornering on the steep/wet descents.
The transition area was off the "Strand" which is a narrow paved roadway
right on the beach. In order to get from the Strand to the main streets of
town, there was a very steep, but short (about the length of a long
driveway) incline. For the bike finish, you had to ride down this steep
incline and make a right angle turn at the bottom while navigating through
cones. We were warned at the pre-race meeting that this is a very
"crash-susceptible" spot, so I wanted to practice the corner a couple of
times. Riding up it was no piece of cake either, in our info packet we were
advised to keep our bikes in our lowest gear in order to negotiate this
hill. Heeding the advice, I put my QR into the 42 x 21 and grunted up the
hill. Yep, grunted... no spinning here. I warmed up for about 10 minutes
and rode back to the TA. I did a quick bike inspection and noticed that my
rear brakes were rubbing. So I rode back up the "hill" and sprinted to the
van to get my caliper wrench. Realigned my brakes and raced back to the TA.
Rechecked my brakes and the calipers weren't aligned left to right. What's
going on here? Crap, my rear wheel had slightly pulled out of the drop outs
(presumably caused from the previous hill grunt). Reseated my wheel and of
course, my brakes were no longer aligned. I now had 20 minutes until race
start. Raced back up to the van and finally got everything working in good
mechanical order. When I got back to the TA, I found someone had taken my
spot. Fortunately, "the someone" was still there and we were able to make
room for each other. Body Glided all the important areas and headed off
with fullsuit in hand for the last porta-potty stop.
THE COURSE. The swim was a roughwater 1.5K swim in the Pacific... followed
by a very technically challenging and hilly bike course followed by a fast,
flat looped run course. This course epitomized what I expected in a
championship course and was extremely spectator friendly. Spectators could
watch the swim from the pier and then watch from the street above the
transition area to see you go out and come back on the back; as well as, see
you 3x on the run.
THE SWIM
The 1.5K ocean swim was around Oceanside pier. There was also reports of a
southern swell from a storm just off of Baja which means that we'd be
swimming against a fair current. The surf was moderate ~4-5 ft. (from a New
Mexican's perspective) on the way to high surf warnings later in the day. I
was in the third wave (5 min after the over 50s & relays, and 3 min after
the 29 and under men) and competing in the M 30-34. I watched and learned
from the first two waves how the fast swimmers negotiated the surf. We did
have the pleasure of having the likes of Tony Richardson and Scott Molina
racing in our wave (M30-39). The gun sounded and there was a mad dash to
the water, which was soon followed by everyone losing their momentum as the
waves crashed ashore. My wife said we looked like penguins. Soon I was
diving under the waves, staying streamlined and kicking vigorously. As you
went down in the swells, the distant buoys marking the course became
invisible. As we rounded the first buoy, we already were passing many from
the previous wave. About 2/3's of the way, my right foot started cramping
from the cold water (63 deg F). In fact, the rest of the swim was spent
trying to relax, with a moderate kick and keeping my toes pointed towards
the bottom. As I neared the end of the swim, a giant wave crashed over my
head. It felt like someone had literally jumped on my back. I treaded
water to regain my composure and saw that 6 or 7 others had the same
experience. I got out of the water with about a 29 min split... about 10
min slower than my fresh water time.
When we ran up to the paved Strand (which led to the TA), I stopped a pulled
off my fullsuit before it dried too much. I usually have to sit in order to
quickly remove the suit and today was no exception. One leg popped out fine
but on the other, the suit rolled around the ankle which made it very hard
to get off as well as very time consuming.
THE BIKE
Zipped over to my bike and ran it out of the TA. Hopped on and rode up the
steep drive to the main road. I'm sure glad I practiced this. At this
point I had no idea where I was in my wave but I guessed I was in the top 10
somewhere. The first 3-4 mi of the bike was pretty flat. The main
technical challenge was that you had to ride through a narrow, one-lane
tunnel by making a right turn into it, and the tunnel was complete with
speed bumps. After that, the course was mainly rollers until you hit
Foussat (i.e. Fool's Hill). In the course descriptions and the course
talks, they always repeated the phrase "you'll appreciate the bike course
later". Sounded sort of ominous and I knew why when I drove the course, in
fact, I was pretty sure that a 42x21 was not going to be a large enough
gear. I had to adjust my bike strategy so that I would save some energy on
the flats in order to be able to push the relatively big gear up some of the
hills. As it turned out, Foussat was the only place I needed the 21. My
strategy worked for Foussat and my cadence up the 10% average (with 12%
rises) hill didn't drop below 60. Halfway up the hill, I passed my swim
training partner Christian Krueger. I didn't realize that I had just ridden
into the top spot for our wave at this point. I kept spinning the hills and
trying to keep a reasonable pace for the rest of the ride. The next major
hill was Hill X, where ESPN2 filmed the street louge for the X-Games last
year. Surprising, this hill wasn't as tough as I thought it would be.
However, I didn't hammer the hill since I knew we still had to ride up the
other side of Foussat.
THE RUN
The RD had a great idea. A biker with an orange vest was going to ride with
the leader from each category. That way the spectators and the other racers
knew who the "rabbit" was. When I left the TA, I noticed the biker start
following me and this was the first time I realized that I was in the lead.
The run was 3 loops with the first loop being ~1 mi and the other 2 being
slightly more than 2.5 mi. Right away on the first loop my quads cramped.
This is pretty typical for me and I can run through it. No exception this
time either. About a 0.5 mi in they cramped and about 100 yds later, I was
back at full stride. Usually this is a one time affair, but today it
happened at least 4 or 5 times. I kept on running hard and was able to hold
off the second place challengers while posting a low 35 min split.
All-in-all this was a racers course-- physically tough, fair, technically
challenging and best of all fun. My wife and kids thought it made for the
best spectator course as well. This is a race not to miss next year!
Regards,
Pat