Superseal Olympic Distance Triathlon in San Diego

I was sitting at the beach yesterday, in the sun, eating some orange chicken after completing my swim workout...who would have thought that this would be my race preparation for the 31st Superseal Triathlon. When I came back from the beach I thought- This might be a good race to do before Oceanside, the last hard effort. But it is probably too late to register...that's what I thought:-)

6 am, Sunday morning: Starting my drive to Coronado.
6: 30 am: I almost run into a highway patrol, which was MAYBE 5 cm away from my car when I switched lanes...he was chasing someone...how could I know that the car I see in the mirror drives 120 miles per hour? He gave me a mean look and kept going after I put on my nicest apology/smile face:-)

7 am: I register for the race, yeah!!!

9 am start: This was my first race starting in an Elite field that goes off seperate from everyone else. How exciting and scary at the same time because I had no clue how fast I was to other Elites.

The swim was so smooth, no big waves, just nice, a few algae here and there which freaked me out and probably made me swim faster.

2nd out of the water with 1st in sight. I passed her in the transition and I was off to the bike. 2 loops. The nice thing about racing next to the Ocean is that it is always windy but very rarely does the wind come from the front if you ride parallel to the Ocean. I checked my watch every turn around and the gap grew from 30 sec to 1 min to 2 min. But since I didn't know my competition I didn't know how fast they could run. My watched stopped at 1:02 for 40 km. The Parkpre bike was flying!!! It felt so great and fast. I was happy to see that split!!!

Off to the run. 6.6 miles out and back. The first 2 miles were in the deep sand-yeah, I didn't know about that part, but maybe not knowing helped me run faster. My legs felt light and fast. I ran at a comfortable pace, not breathing too hard. I checked at the turnaround and was pretty sure that 2nd and 3rd could not catch me anymore, so I just tried to hold the same pace. I ended up running the 6.6 miles in 39 minutes with energy to spare-gotta think about Oceanside next week.

I ended up winning with a 5 min. gap to the next Elite female. At awards there was a rock band, I got a huge paddle trophy from the US Marines, some more stuff and also some spending money:-)

What a great race. If you ever search for a race in March, do this one, even if you have to fly out here. It is worth it!!!