For a change, I didn't write my race report for the California 70.3 in advance, which has been my habit for many years. There were a multitude of reasons, not the least of which has been some knee pain that began three weeks ago during a 4 1/2 hour bike ride with a ton of climbing. I rested the knee for a week and rode again last weekend for an hour and the pain came back. I had my cleat adjusted and was hoping for the best today. Well, let me just say, hope springs eternal. But, I'll get to that later.
For some reason my allergies really were acting up this week and I kept hoping that I hadn't come down with the cold that my grandson had brought home with him. The good news is that it seems like I've skirted the cold. With that said, we checked into our Airbnb and I didn't realize until the day after we checked in that the pillows on the couch were made of feather, to which I'm highly allergic. No wonder I felt miserable.
I woke up this morning around 3:30 am (an hour before my alarm), and realized that I was excited to get going to the race. I had actually done this race for the first time in 2004, prior to getting a coach and really the year that I decided to commit myself to triathlon training. My times that year were: Swim 37:53 T1 4:24 Bike 3:10:51 T2 2:29 Run 2:12:27 Finish 6:08:04. Today would be my 8th time racing in Oceanside, but my last race seemed like years ago, which it was, in 2015, when I finished in 5:37:01. Seven years later, at the age of 62, I was interested in seeing where I was.
My swim has been coming back lately, and honestly, I'm swimming as well as I have in years. Today's swim would be the first time I did the beach start in Oceanside, and it was glorious! There were waves, boy were there waves! They kept coming. I'd dive under one and come up and the next one was on its way. I'd dive under that one, etc., etc. In some respects it was a little scary, but in another, it was fun! I was truly enjoying the swim when WHAM!, another athlete literally punched me in the side of the head. Now, I've been hit before (one year I got a blood lip at Oceanside), but this wasn't just any hit. Honestly, I felt like I was hit hard enough to almost knock me out. By far, the hardest I've ever been hit in the head. Fortunately, it didn't knock me out, and I just smiled and kept going. As I write this, however, my temple is definitely sore. Of note, I was avoiding other swimmers, but this person obviously wasn't avoiding me. They came up from behind and WHAM! Still, I stayed very comfortable, with a very solid swim stroke.
I came out of the water in about 38 minutes, which was actually close to my swim time 7 years ago. I could still use some open water swim lessons but I was really happy with my swim, and, I felt good enough to run to my bike. I took some extra time in transition putting on socks and my bike shoes, and almost forgot to put on my bib number (required to bike through Camp Pendleton). My transition time of nearly 7 minutes wasn't bad considering all of this.
On to the bike. This would be the moment of truth. The first several miles felt really good, and I felt very solid and was putting out decent wattage without too much effort. And then the knee pain returned. It didn't take long, and I tried everything, including focusing on where my foot was pointed on the pedal. The rest of the bike became a game of sorts, with me trying not to make the pain worse, while continuing to put out reasonable wattage (which I actually did, maintaining an average wattage of ~155w, which should be close to my ironman wattage. Still, I couldn't push too hard, lest the pain increased. I actually did fairly well on the climbs, though I did find myself standing more in order to relieve the pain. At around Mile 40, I massaged a muscle in my inner thigh and the pain in my knee went away for several minutes! Unfortunately, it came back and I struggled to find the spot again. As I rode into transition, I wondered what would happen when I started running. I hadn't given it much thought until then, as there wasn't much I could have done.
I racked my bike, put on some aleve/menthol on my knee, took a little extra time putting on my compression socks and my running shoes, and took off, stopping for about a minute to pee before actually starting the run. The good news: no knee pain! I kept my heart rate around 145 for the first 7-8 miles and managed to keep ~8:50 running pace. I picked up the effort for the last 5-6 miles and ultimately finished with an 8:43 average pace. My heart rate settled in to the low 150's. It was hard, but I was really happy to negative split the run. When I finished, I was done!
My age group was stacked! The best people in the country were racing today. Still, my run was right up there with many of them, except for the exceptional guys at the top of the age group. Now, I just need to figure out my bike position and deal with my knee pain. St. George is in 5 weeks.
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