Carlsbad Sprint Triathlon 2010

3rd Time's a Charm!

This is my third year in a row doing this race. Boy time flies. Three years ago it was my initiation into the whole wide world of triathlons. And I feel like I’ve improved leaps and bounds, so I’m pretty excited about that.

Yesterday was packet pickup. And we drove all the way down to Carlsbad only to find out that my Dad had paid for race-day pickup hah. Woops. Not only did he forget that, he also forgot that he signed Garrison up for the race. Woops again.

Well Dad already knew he couldn’t do the race because he got assigned a flight leaving early in the morning, and already knowing that he has to call in sick for next week’s race, he didn’t want to chance the suspicion. Garrison on the other hand, had made a comment that he would have liked to do the race a couple days ago. However, he wasn’t “mentally prepared” and declined to do the race. Lame. So it was all up to me to represent the Naumans this morning.

Well let’s go step by step again through the race. Why not? If you’re reading this, you must care at least a little bit what happened to me this morning…

Wakeup

Woke up at 4:30am, aiming to leave the house by 5:15. This time it was just me and my madre. Loaded up the bike and all the necessary crap. Made my bagel, grabbed a handful of blueberries, and made a cup of tea. Then, after suddenly realizing I had forgotten to grab my goggles as soon as we started the car, I ran back into the house before we headed off to San Diego.

Setup

Supposedly the transition area was to open at 6:00am. We showed up around 6:10am and there was a line starting down PCH of people waiting to get into transition. It wasn’t open yet. Okay, probably a little delay, no worries. Well about 25 minutes later they finally opened it up.
All the comments going around the triathletes was that the race was being run by the “City of Carlsbad” this year, as opposed to “Spectrum Sports” company that had ran it in the past. Therefore, we were all prepared for a bad government-run race. And don’t worry, there are more signs to come of the inadequacies of the race compared to previous years.
Everyone rushed in for an hour-ish of setup. I got a good spot because I was the second person to pick a place on my rack. I saw one other guy who had the same bike as me, that was cool. After everything was in place and I was body-marked, I made my way up the hill to sit with my mom for a while and tinker around with the camera.

Wetsuit

Now it was nearing 7:30am, so I walked back down to transition to make sure that my stuff didn’t get moved. Well, on the way down I started shuffling my feet down the hill quickly in anticipation. To my huge surprise, I did a flying leap as the front edge of my sandal hit a bump in the hill and I tumbled into the asphalt ground. 3 triathletes jumped to my aid. But in complete embarrassment, I just straightened up and kind of limped downhill yelling I was ok. After a last look at transition, my stuff was good, and I went back up to my mom and put on the wetsuit.
Great discovery of the day, I can finally put on my wetsuit without aid. It’s something that should seem simple. But my wetsuit has a “reverse zipper.” It zips down instead of up, and it hooks at the top. Usually I’ve had people help me hook it, the funniest of whom was Aaron Williams in Lubbock approximately 5 minutes before my wave start while I was freaking out. So yeah, success at the reverse zipper for the first time!

Race start

Well, back to the comment earlier about the “City of Carlsbad” running the tour.. the start was terrible. They were yelling at people for being in the water when the first wave was about to go off. Um, I’m pretty sure we all know how to not get in their way. Come on. And then they didn’t even do a countdown for the 5 minutes between waves. They just yelled, Go! It took me so off guard that I was just annoyed when they yelled it. Also, I was 30 minutes behind the first wave. And, to top it off, the wave in front of us were the Clydesdale men. That makes sense.

Swim

Smooth glassy water just like the past two years. Really nice conditions. The water was pretty cold though. Luckily, this was my first year wearing a wetsuit and it really helped. The first year I won the swim without a wetsuit. But the competition has gone up the past two years and the wetsuit played to my advantage today. I was with a girl for a majority of the beginning of the race. I passed her about halfway when she started tapering off. There was some other girl way out in front from the beginning, but I didn’t feel like sprinting the swim. Later found out my hr avg was only 119 for the swim, hah.

Exit

After I finally got around that 2nd place girl, the rest of the swim was cake. However, coming into the beach, the girl caught this perfect wave and surfed right on by me to run up to the timing pad right ahead of me. Annoying. Just bad luck for me. But we both know I outswam her. Pft.

T1

Like always, it takes me a few extra seconds to take off the legs of my wetsuit. I need to figure out why haha it’s always so annoying. At least I didn’t sit down and fix it like I did in Lubbock. Put my shoes on and ran to the mount line.

Bike

Unlike the Redondo beach race, I remembered to put my bike in a low gear for the uphill climb. I floated up the hill and started pumping over 200 watts to get moving. I saw the girl right ahead of me and I surprised myself by passing her so quickly. Clearly I was going to have a biking advantage. Passing guys is so motivating. However, it is humiliating for some men.. and some of them can’t stand seeing a girl pass them. I have heard the term is coined getting “chicked.”
One guy was so annoyed that he would pass me. I would pass him. He would pass me. Get over it bud. He did. And then he started drafting some guy. So I yelled at him to stop drafting. Hah. Never saw him again, sucka.
The funny thing about the bike was that I was so focused that I didn’t even know that I passed the lead woman. I was just going, and I thought she was way ahead of me somewhere. But I felt awesome, and I was really moving, so I concentrated on getting to the finish.

T2

I dismounted with my shoes on. I didn’t want to chance taking off my shoes going down that steep hill. Next time I do a sprint, I’m not wearing socks for the run. I took way too much time putting those on. Grabbed the belt and off I went.
I saw the girl who ousted me on the swim coming down the hill as I started the run. Psh, catch me if you can.

Run

Well during the bike, I noticed that my heart rate was constantly in the 180s. Afterwards, it was recorded at 186 average according to my watch. That’s a bit high. Clearly I was sprinting. Now for the run, I know that pushing it is in the 180s. Well, I was in the high 180s and low 190s kicking as high a cadence as possible. I was killing myself, but I wanted to keep the lead more than anything. At the end of it, my hr avg was 190 for the entire run portion : O
Ultimately, the high heart rate was gnawing at me. And although I wasn’t fading, the previous leader girl I passed on the bike was closing in on me. I saw her at the last turn around to the finish.
Ugh, so tough. As she passed me, I tried sprinting to keep up with her. Couldn’t. Even if I hadn’t biked 22+mph on that bike, I probably wouldn’t have been able to keep up with her the way she was running.
Always makes me want to be a better runner, I just don’t know how to do it yet. Hoping it’ll come to me someday, magically. For now, I’ll just stare at the sky while I run and focus on a high cadence and good form.

Finish

Finito! It was over, and my lungs were saying thank goodness. I had to sit down afterwards. It was probably the hardest I’ve ever tried in a triathlon. Especially because I think I could only muster a smile for one of the cameras.. that’s always a bad sign that I’m dying haha.

Results here: http://www.y-events.com/10cbadf.htm

2008 = 1:41.04 & 78th overall female
2009 = 1:27.30 & 28th overall female
2010 = 1:22.48 & 3rd overall female

I don’t have official split times as I’m writing this yet. But I do think a majority of my time drop this year came in my bike split.
The final complaint about the way the race was managed came during the awards presentation. They only gave an award to the top overall female finisher, who happened to be an elite girl. Then they mentioned the second and third place elite women.. not even a nod to the fact that the girl Christina and I had beat both of them in the overall time for overall 2nd and 3rd place. Redondo had the awards presentation down to a science. This just wasn’t showing any respect for the top finishers in my opinion. And finally, they had the race ages incorrect. Last year it displayed that I was 20 and the girl Christina was 24. Thus, shouldn’t I be 21 and she be 25 this year? I think so. Meaning, she won her 25-29 age group and I won my 20-24 age group? Bah, how hard is it to follow the USAT age group rules. I emailed the y-events contact email to ask them.
Give me a race to run and I’ll handle it better than these guys any day.

Now, considering I was only 6 days tapered for this race in the middle of my taper for the Vineman, I’m pretty satisfied : )
Also, highlight of the day… beating 3 out of the 4 pro women at the race! Yeahhhhhhh