Santa Barbara Tri – Long Course

With a 50K looming and only about a week of real training left for it, I couldn’t justify an all-out effort this year for the SB long course. In short, I just plain can’t take time off for recovery – or worse, injury. I needed to be able to do a three hour training run the next day, so I decided to try to keep a pace that was right at the upper edge of feeling good.
The ocean had been unseasonably cold, so I wore my long sleeve suit. As expected, the swim was cold – really cold. Supposedly, it was 58 degrees, but I don’t think it was more than 54. The first half, besides being cold, wasn’t too bad though. There were a few collisions with other swimmers and a couple times when I was literally swam over by another guy, but definitely not the most aggressive group I’ve been in. Things took a turn for the worse after the turn-around. The ocean was super choppy, making swimming, sighting and breathing all really difficult. Strangely though, I felt like I was struggling less than the others around me and managed to pass a lot of people in the water.
Once out of the water, I saw that I had a 34 min swim split. This was about the longest acceptable time I had set as a goal, but given the frigid conditions and choppiness, I didn’t feel bad about that. T1 was smooth and I was racked up near the bike out, so that helped keep it under two minutes.
Right away, the bike ride just didn’t feel good, even going easy-ish. After about 4 miles some guy said “55? you must have had an amazing swim!” After a second of consideration, I responded, “no, 35, terrible swim.” As it turns out the body marker put 55 for my age on my leg instead of 35. I didn’t even notice until after I got out of the shower after the race. Then, that guy’s comment made a lot more sense. The middle part of the ride was pretty fun with some good climbs and fast descents. I did have the unfortunate experience of getting hit with two snot-rockets from a couple bikers who passed me going down Gobenador Canyon. I was going about 35 mph and each of them got about 5 bike lengths out in front and then let a loose with a farmer-blow. At 20 mph, I would have been in the clear, but at 35, I got it right in the face. They should have (a) gotten farther ahead first and (b) blown to the left side. I was going way too fast to dry to dodge the mucus, but I did have the presence of mind to close my mouth, which was fortunate since I got hit directly in the philtrum.
After about 25 miles of biking I started getting bad low back pain. This was rather unexpected as I bike 40-60 miles with hills every Saturday, so this should have practically been easy. It got so bad in the last few miles I just wanted to stop. Fortunately once I got off the bike and into transition, the pain let up significantly.
T2 was also quick, again partly due to proximity of the run out.
The run actually felt good, and immediately so, but I had to pee real bad. Usually, I’d tough it out and hold it, but it really was taking away from the enjoyment of the run, so when I saw a public restroom ahead of me, I got my skinsuit unzipped and the top pulled down around my waist so I could run into the bathroom and get down to business ASAP. I had probably the worst “stage fright” ever and it took about 90 seconds for complete relief, but it was worth it. After that, I was able to step the pace up continuously and still managed to run the 10 miles in under 70 minutes.
Relative to the last two years, my time was 7 – 9 minutes slower, but for an 80% effort, I think I did pretty well. Somehow, I actually placed slightly better in my AG versus last two years. I thought the M35_39 age group was supposed to be tougher…

Place: 134/720 overall, 118/494 Men, 18/76 men 35-39
Total: 3:35:21, swim 34:39, T1 1:58, bike 1:47:59, T2 1:10, run 1:09:35