It went by way too fast. The days leading up to the race I didn't feel too great, for some reason I had really tight glutes and lower back muscles. I didn't do anything different, so I have no idea where that came from but it wasn't a good feeling going into the race with tight muscles:-( I iced the night before the race in the ocean trying to wake up my legs.
Unfortunatelt it didn't work the way I would have liked. .My glutes and back were still really tight.
On race morning I went to transition, got my bike parking spot, was waiting in a 30 min potty line, and then had about 10 min to spare to put on my wetsuit. Those 10 min felt like 2 and I ended up not pulling my wetsuit up all the way...which resulted in wrinkels in the back of my knee and not 100 percent range of motion in my arms...grrr...therefore the swim ended up only being average. Into transition and onto the bike. I didn't plan on using arm warmers or any kind of warmers, but like a lot of other triathletes, I probably would change my mind now. It was freezing on the bike and I couldn't feel my toes for some time. But everyone had that problem:-)
After the average swim I had another round of bad luck: First bump on the bike. My rupper band holding the aero bottle broke, I had a bar and blocks under there...300 calories fell to the ground...LOST...oh man. So I only had one gel and blocks left. (since it was an out and back I got to see my bar and blocks on the ground on the way back!!! kinda funny). I had no legs on the bike, my glutes and my lower back were sooo tight and for some reason I could not make myself hurt and it felt a little bit like snail pace. I was hoping to bike in the low 2:30ies, since I know what I am capable of doing...that didn't work out.
The run was good-yippie- I felt strong. I ran the first 6 miles conservative and then tried to go harder on the next half. It worked out great and I think I could have gone even faster, considering that I didn't have to sit down after the race:-)
I think that Oceanside was a good experience including the obstacles. This was only my second ever race at that long of a distance and only my 3rd ever half marathon. I am glad I did it. Better to start off bad and then get faster as the other way around:-)
After the race we packed our stuff and went to the Long Beach Criterium where JR raced. He did a ton of pulling. Towards the end of the race he got into a crash, but got back up, the mechanic fixed his bike and got back into the race.
The crash left him with a bruised rib and back pain, so instead of doing a TT the next day we decided to go for a recovery ride and relax at the beach. By the way, cyclists have no color on their feet :-) compared to triathletes:
I went boogie boarding and JR watched since he had trouble moving. The water was freezing (56) but I just had to go. I realized after a while that I was the only person without a wetsuit:-)
On our way home we got to see a truck on fire in the middle of nowhere: poor trucker!!! The truck was in huge flames...
And when we arrived in Flag we took Chris and went to Pay'n'Take and had a good time. California was nice, but it is good to be back!!!
1 comment:
Oceanside was my first ever Triathlon and it was a real learning experience. Sounds like you had a great weekend in Southern California.
Congratulations!
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