That’s how I felt mentally coming into the Solana Beach Triathlon four weeks out on the flip side of Ironman Coeur d’Alene. Physically, this past week was the first week that I felt I was back at full strength, able to do regular workouts without feeling fatigued after 15 minutes. But if I had to do it over again, I definitely would not be signing up for any races for at least one month or more after completing an Ironman.

Is this the new normal when I actually sleep well before a race? Or is it a sign of waning motivation? In any case, I felt very rested waking up at 3:30 AM even if it was only five hours of sleep. Out the door at 4:45 AM with Gooberfish (racing in the Duathlon), and we still were not even close to being the first ones in line to enter Transition even at 5:15 AM. I finished setting up my transition area (in between going to the bathroom four times), then waited around for about 2.5 hours before the old fogies wave started at 8:25 AM. I chatted it up with an “old friend” (emphasis on old), Erik, from LA Fitness. We’re back in the same AG again since I turned 45; and with him being a venerable 47, we have couple of years to fan the flames of this “old rivalry”. Erik, why do you keep describing me as old?

Even as I put my wetsuit on to mozy on down to the beach for a warm-up swim, I just could not find any motivation to do this race. It wasn’t until I lined up at the front of the start line—why did I do that? Must be a glutton for punishment—that I started to feel the spark of competition again. I reviewed my three goals for this race:

1. Swim as hard as possible without hyperventilating. (Cue Star Wars: Let go of your feelings, Luke… Fear is of the Dark Side).
2. Kill yourself on the run (i.e. sub-7:00 minutes/mile).
3. And yes, I’m putting it out in writing: Cross the finish line before any “old rivals”!

Swim

When the horn went off for the swim, I ran onto the beach, no difficulties there. I dolphin dove to get over the water as it got a little deeper. When the water was almost waist high I started swimming. Here I questioned my strategy to start in the front when multiple people started to pass me, and I found myself in the middle of a crowded pack of swimmers. Mentally, I stayed focus on getting to the first buoy. Knowing it was not that far away helped keep my breathing relatively calm. As I made the turn right I found some comfort knowing the most unenjoyable part of this race was almost over. Not sure I was that successful in trying to keep my heart rate down because I could feel a slight sense of tiredness in my stroke, but I kept plugging forward as I headed back to the shore. I looked at my watch as I finished the swim. It looked like 10:xx. But I shrugged it off in disbelief.

T1

I have a love-hate relationship with the run back to the transition area. I love the fact there is a steep hill to run up after the swim. I hate the fact there is a steep hill to run up after the swim. On my way up the beach Gooberfish yelled out my time of 10:4x. It was true! I started to believe I could have a pretty good lead to build on instead of trying to catch up so much.

As I ran back to my bike I saw another Breakaway guy in my wave already headed out onto the bike course. Key point: he looked like someone who I thought finished 3^rd in the AG at Ironman Kansas 70.3. I didn’t worry so much about my transition coming up because I thought I might be able to catch and pass him on the bike course.

In any case my main goal was to get my wetsuit off as fast as possible. I think I was faster this time around. I decided to go with removing the left leg first since the left has given me difficulty in the past, but the right leg decided not to cooperate. Despite this minor glitch, I decided to celebrate in my mind that at least my T1 was faster than before.

Bike

This is such an easy, two-loop bike course, so flat and fast. The only change from when I last raced here was a right turn across a primary crosswalk/intersection.

<rant>Hey Koz, that’s just plain stupid and unsafe. Why not just extend the course on the straightaway parts instead of having us make a right turn, followed by an immediate U-turn?</rant>

Oh well, no sweat off my back. Fortunately, I didn’t hit any pedestrians foolish enough to walk through this intersection. I heard another athlete was not so fortunate.

I averaged 22.7 mph and 266 watts. Pretty good. I’ll chalk it up to a little tiredness from the swim for not reaching 24 mph average. I noticed that the bike course was not too crowded even though I was in the penultimate wave to start the race; I only had to yell “on your left” once. Before the end of the first loop, I passed “Mr. 3^rd AG”, which kicked my motivation up to another level. According to my watch, I finished the 9-mile course in about 23 minutes.

T2

Out of my shoes before the dismount, I felt good heading into T2. I was the first one back from my bike rack; all the other bikes were still there.

[Mental note: that’s never happened to me before, so I started to feel even better about my race, motivation meter through the roof.]

Bike racked, helmet off, shoes on, and most importantly, BLUE visor on and ready to go. I think my total transition time was less than 30 seconds (not sure since I forgot to press the lap button right when I crossed over the transition mat).

Run

With “Mr. 3^rd AG” behind me by a long ways and no “old rivals” in sight, I made up my mind not to give up this lead over them. So I headed out for what I hoped would be a sub-7:00 min/mile, two-loop 5k. It was fun knocking over two water cups out of two volunteers’ hands as I ran by trying to grab some water. Third cup worked: the volunteer actually held the cup properly, palm up on the bottom making it easy for me to grab the cup from the top. Took a small swig of water, poured the rest on my head, and then tried to slow down my breathing. But my lungs were burning so bad.

Gawd, I felt like a snail. My legs were so heavy. Gooberfish saw me out on the first part of the run. Told me I was moving well, but clearly suffering. What an understatement. I was pretty much grunting and yelling in my breaths for almost the entire run, lungs burning.

As I neared the end of the first loop I saw my “rival” who was just starting the run. I was more than one mile ahead of him at that point so I knew that he would have to run at a ridiculous pace to catch me. But I didn’t relax my pace at all. I feared that “Mr. 3^rd AG”, who is a faster runner than me, would overtake me so I pressed on for the remaining 1.5 miles.

As I headed around the final turn with about ¾ miles to go, someone advised me to keep pouring it on, but not waste so much energy with the grunting and yelling. Good point. So I mentally focused more on staying quiet, trying to be efficient, and controlling my breaths.

I was pretty stoked about my run (ended up with right at 7:00/7:01 min/mile) and this race in general. By my count, only three people passed me on the run, none of who were in my AG. I crossed the line with an official time of 1:00:26. Good enough for 8^th place (in a division field of 66) and 96^th overall (in a total field of 1108).

It turns out that “Mr. 3^rd AG” was not in this race after all. Good thing though because believing he was chasing me helped me work through the pain of burning lungs for the run. Very, very pleased with my race.

It’s time to keep training, working to shave off two more minutes from my swim and two or three minutes from my run. I’ve got a ways to go before I can earn some bling at these sprints.