Sierra Trip Reports

Date: Sunday, April 20, 2014

Location: Half Moon Bay, CA

Photos: Sarah (unless otherwise noted)

Well, race season has now officially started for me for 2014 (although training season started back in February)! I have a pretty decent schedule of events this year, with my highlights being Ironman 70.3 Hawaii on May 31st and Ironman 70.3 Vineman on July 13th. Rounding out those half-Ironman distance events, I also have the California Sprint Triathlon on June 28th, which will be my first sprint-distance and I am excited to go “all out” for a race, and the Mammoth Fall Century & Grand Fondo 102-mile bike race on September 6th. Add in a 10-day trip planned in August with Jon climbing in Bugaboo Provincial Park in British Columbia and the Big Sur Half Marathon on November 16 (which I ran last year and loved), it will be a pretty busy season. Fortunately, Sarah lets me get away with all of this stuff!

When I originally signed up for the Silicon Valley International Triathlon, it was scheduled to be held in Morgan Hill, just south of San Jose. I thought this would work as a good training day within my build-up in training to my “A” event this year of Ironman 70.3 Hawaii. While it definitely was perfect for that perspective, the event location changed to Half Moon Bay along the coast on account of the drought this year. The Morgan Hill version would include a swim in UVAS Reservoir (which is too low to swim in this year).

Nevertheless, the race venue was changed to Half Moon Bay. The distance remained the same with the SV International Triathlon being an “Olympic” distance of a 1.5K (0.93M) swim, a 40K (24.85M) bike and a 10K (6.2M) run. However, in moving to Half Moon Bay the biggest changes were the weather and water temp. To put it bluntly, it was COLD!

I do have to give a HUGE props to Ryan from USA Productions (the race director) who found my camera after the race (as Sarah and I had left it while grabbing my stuff) and he contacted me and returned it yesterday! THANK YOU!.

Ultimately, I was very happy with my day, although it was a rude awakening that I need to do more open water swims in cold water before these types of races as the water sucked the life out of me. I had a very slow swim, but a good bike and run. My race times and splits were as follows (with relevant rankings including – which I did not include those participants who did not finish):

Swim: 29:49 (24/44 in my age group);
T1: 4:40 (30/44 in my age group);
Bike: 1:11:36 (8/44 in my age group);
T2: 2:00 (22/44 in my age group); and
Run: 40:50 (6/44 in my age group).

My total time on the race was 2:28:55, which put me at (i) 12/44 in my age group finishers (27.3%), (ii) 46/247 (18.6%) out of male finishers in the race and (iii) 49/332 (14.8%) of all finishers in the race. My slow swim and slow transitions (with numb hands!) definitely cost me some time here. All in all though, I am very pleased with my bike and run and will continue to work hard in training for the longer distances where pacing and nutrition is all the more critical.

As the competitors headed down from T1 to the swim start at the Half Moon Bay Yacht Club. Photo: Sarah

There was a thick fog covering the swim course (which actually go thicker). Here is a stitched together 5-shot panorama of the swim course location that Sarah took. Click the photo for a larger version. Photo: Sarah

The weather in Half Moon Bay at the start of the race around 7 AM was 53-54 degrees, and the water in the Bay was, wait for it, 53-54 degrees! Pacific swimming in April – no thanks! I just can’t handle that kind of water, even with a wetsuit and neoprene cap. Believe it or not, my hands were numb for virtually all of the bike, and my feet stayed numb through 2/3 of the run.

I went out in the water for 10 minutes or so to try and acclimatize, get water in my wetsuit and swim around to get used to the water temp. Didn’t’ see any seals, though… Photo: Sarah

No dice on getting used to it! Even with the skull cap (and ear plugs in) I was getting ice-cream headaches. What was crazy to me is there were a ton of folks without a neoprene cap, a decent amount of folks w sleeveless wetsuits and even one guy without a wetsuit! I personally wouldn’t last 30 seconds in that water without a wetsuit. I am already dreaming of the nice warm water in Hawaii for the next race. Photo: Sarah

Trying to look optimistic about this swim. Photo: Sarah

Well, after waiting for the first wave of participants in the 20-29 age group to go off, we headed out to tread water. The fog rolled in thicker such that you couldn’t see the buoys anymore. Oh well, just swim on someone else’s feet and hope they are going the right way. At 7:14 or so, my wave went out. Photo: Sarah

I actually lined up in the middle towards the front thinking I would put in a good swim and started off pretty strong. I was getting off-course a bit and then the cold hit me hard. After about 5 minutes I was breathing much harder than I should and honestly panicked a bit. My hands were numb and I was having trouble controlling my breathing, so I would stop and breaststroke for like 10 seconds to take deep breaths with my head above water. I had to keep doing this every minute or so and was really having trouble getting into a rhythm. It was a bit disappointing as I didn’t think I went out too strong and have really been working hard in my training sessions at the pool. So I just backed off and took it easy to really try and build into a rhythm.

About half way through the swim I finally warmed up in my face (hands and feet were totally numb so that was actually good then) and was able to get into a normal routine. I tried to speed it up delicately, but was worried about over breathing/panicking again so just settled in. I knew I was behind on the swim, but hoped I could make it up on the run.

Meanwhile, Sarah was at the swim exit working on her photo skills  Photo: Sarah

I was PUMPED to be out of the water and heading into T1. I exited the swim at 29:49, which was not inside the top 50% of my age group. I had some time to make up. Photo: Sarah

The path to T1 had carpet, which was nice. It was also organized by assigned racks, which made getting your space very good. The unfortunate thing is my hands were totally numb so I had an extremely long transition time – 4:40! That should be like 2 minutes shorter, easily. I think I spent 1 minute blowing into my hands, and 2 minutes trying to buckle my helmet chin strap. No joke, I literally could not get it closed as my fingers wouldn’t work! Ha!

As an aside, this was also my first official race on my new triathlon bike. I have been training on it since last September (and a ton of indoor riding on it on the trainer this winter). Colin at Studio Velo has been working with me on fine-tuning the fit. I am likely going to drop the front stem even lower, but want to wait until after Ironman 70.3 Hawaii so I can have some longer-course feedback.

All geared up for the race. I threw the disc cover on my rear wheel, but it really didn’t fit my frame that well and it was rubbing against my large rear cog a bit. This is just a temporary solution until my actual Flo Disc Wheel hopefully arrives before my next race. Other than that, the bike is fitting great right now.

Still nice and cold, getting ready for the bike. I was confident I could make up time on the bike and run. Photos: Sarah

Meanwhile, Sarah headed over to T2 via the shuttle and got a funny shot of what the course looked like in the distance. They say Half Moon Bay is foggy – go figure! Photos: Sarah

The bike course was actually a lot of fun. The first third along Route 1 was very foggy and I had to keep wiping the moisture off my glasses. In retrospect, I should have taken them off. But I was able to get into a good aero position and work my way up passing quite a number of folks. I honestly had not looked much at the course description before the race (or any elevation profile), so I was pleasantly surprised when the middle half of the course had a nice large climb. It got us out of the fog and up in the sun (and warmed me up). Photo: Captivating Sports Photos

The descent back down into the fog got my hands numb again (and my feet were still numb), though. The only other issue on the bike course is there was a turn that looked correct (and no volunteers), and I followed another participant back to the main road. Fortunately, a number of other participants were coming from the correct direction and yelled out that was the wrong way and to loop back and continue up the road. So I turned around, waited for a car to pass and headed back to the appropriate part. It only added maybe 30-seconds of turnaround time so it was not a big deal, and I was glad to get to complete the extra mile or so of the course. I wonder if anyone else ran into the same issue?

Once back on Route 1 the course was way less congested as I had moved up towards the front and was able to really hammer it back home. I finished with a bike split of 1:11:36 (8/44 of finishers in my age group). Coming in for the dismount. Photo: Sarah

Once again, I had a slow transition (2:00) because I was having trouble with my numb hands. It was actually comical at that point, but I felt really good heading into the run. I started out running around 6:30/mile pace and held it there for a bit, but decided to back down to around 7:00/mile pace after a couple of miles (with a strong push back at the end). I think my average pace was around 6:55/mile for the full run leg.

The course went out along the beach, which was cool (although the fog blocked any ocean views). Photo: Captivating Sports Photos

The finish was up a hill (it is hard to tell from these photos), and I could see Sarah cheering for me – so that definitely sped me up! The sun was also finally out. Photos: Sarah

I felt good after the finish, and grabbed some food and water to wait for the results. We also had to sit in the sun and wait for the bags to come from T1. Photo: Sarah

All in all, it was a very fun race. There were definitely some logistical issues with the dual transitions and some difficulty on route finding. I also heard there were issues in the Sprint distance with volunteers sending runners the wrong way, but ultimately this was a contingency location that they had to move to on account of the drought. Nevertheless, a great day out training.