Carlsbad Triathlon Race Report 2014

It's official. It's been one year since my first triathlon. How did I celebrate? By doing the same triathlon I did a year ago, of course! And what a great day it was.

Unlike last year, where I had signed up for this race to get my first experience in triathlon before I jumped deep into the world of iron distance racing, I signed up this year to give myself a good speed race/warm up leading up to Ironman Boulder. The main purpose? Don't screw up and hurt yourself 3 weeks out from race day. Primary mission accomplished.

Carlsbad is an interesting sprint triathlon because it is a bit longer than traditional sprints. It's a 1 km swim followed by a 25 km bike followed by a 5 km run. But the pace is still fast and furious.

Racked and Ready

In a nutshell, the race went great. I won't go into great detail, but over the course of the year I improved on my time by about 10 minutes, all of which was realized on the bike and the run. I finished in 6th place in my age group out of 68 overall, missing a podium by about 3 minutes.

In fact, I had the fastest bike split out of anyone in my age group. I was pretty proud of that! The run is also steadily improving with slower gains, but gains nonetheless. My swim has had zero improvement. It is becoming clear that this is my limiter. With a respectable swim I would have been on the podium. My swim was much slower than respectable. It is apparent that I will need to find additional help with my swim if I want to get to the next level in this sport.

I think what it is coming down to is that I still have an element of discomfort in the water. While I have been a water person all my life - surfing, swimming, etc., only recently have I ventured into actual "swimming". I'm learning that, much like golf, a lot of things have to line up in order to have good form. As an adult onset swimmer, I'm finding it very hard to improve.

So the next stop is Boulder, Colorado and over a weeks worth of training at altitude prior to taking on the Ironman for the second time this year. Should be a fantastic week filled with all sorts of fun, silliness, and inspiration. I'll keep my journal up as we get closer.

Results:
Swim - 18:14
Bike - 41:01
Run - 20:33
Overall - 1:19:50 - 6th/68 AG, 45th/743

By the way, this was the second race in a row where I was racing with Apolo Ohno. Turns out he was local training here for his big day in Kona. I am hopeful if these things happen in threes, then perhaps I will race with him there as well (very, very wishful thinking). In Boise I beat his time by about 2 minutes. In Carlsbad he smoked me, and actually won his age group. Clearly a world class athlete!