Malibu Triathlon

Last Sunday was race day!  The Nautica Malibu Triathlon to benefit Childrens Hospital Los Angeles.

I've been training for a few months, I did my best to taper the week leading up to the race.  Saturday night found me with pent up nervous energy from tapering, ready to do this thing, but feeling anxious about my prep.  Nonetheles, my calmer side prevailed.  I knew that I was as ready as i was goign to be. So, I managed an early evening to bed and a blissful sleep until 3:45 when my alarm went off.

The first thought as my alarm blurted out Indigo Girls music was I need a new hobby!  Still it was race day, so I got up.  Stretched, made breakfast changed and drove to the beach as what still an hour before Oh Dark 30, the freeways were empty.

I made it to Zuma dealt with the parking mess, got my stuff to the transition area and got my stuff arranged for the feat to be done.  I got myself into my wetsuit and headed out to the beach to wait for my wave to start.

As we all gathered on the beach the prerace meeting, the energy in the crowd was palpable.  They announced that we had raised over a million dollars for cancer research at CHLA, amazing!

Then began the long wait to start my race.  I was in one of the last waves to race, so I was standing on the cold beach for over an hour.  My foot, never a fan of the cold with its poor radiated nerves, was so cold and numb.  I started to worry, once my foot goes numb it usually stays that way.  This could go poorly.  However, I couldn't focus on that I had the ocean to contend with.

Finally it was time for my group to enter the water.  We ran into the surf that was blissfully not too violent this year.  I did my best to just focus on my swim, but I really don't like getting kicked and hit while in the water.  There is just no way to make me feel comfortable wtih that.  Each time someone ran into me, I'd lose my rhythm.  Oh well, I was able to keep going.  I rounded the last bouey and was able to catch a wave partially into the shore.  0.5 mile ocean swim 20 minutes.  I'll take it.

Into the transition area I ran, now painfully aware that my foot was completely numb.  I managed to get out of my wetsuit, into my bike stuff and out of the transition area in just over 6 minutes.  Oh well, I haven't really practiced fast transitions.

The 18 mile ride along PCH was beautiful.  There was one scary moment when the woman in front of my crashed getting onto the little ganglplank to go over the flooded underpass, but other than that the bike was a nice recovery.  My numb foot didn't hinder me too much. I was able to eat some food and drink some water.  Kept to my rhythm, I kept to my pace.  It was good.  18 mile ride along PCH 1:05.  My goal was to do the ride in about 1 hour. OK, i was a few minutes over.

Back into the transition area, this foot thing was a problem.  I could barely manage to get completely numb foot into my shoe.  I tried stretching briefly, no improvement.  Undaunted, i headed out.  Each step felt like little needles coming up through my leg, but I carried on.  I was encouraged by all the people lining the rae course cheering on the CHLA team.  The few peopel I knew cheering me on. It helped to keep me going.  I made a quick pitstop and kept running.  There was no way my will would allow me to stop.

My timing chip thing didn't work on my exit from T2, so I don't have an official fun time, but it was about 40 min for a 4 mile run.  Slower than my usual pace, but considering my pitstop and the pain from my numb foot I'm good with that.

Total time 2:17.  I called two hours and 15 minutes Friday night and was pretty close to that.

It was a great event, great energy, great comaraderie.  So fun to have gotten to know some of my work colleagues in a different way.  I'm so proud of the community support for CHLA.  It was funning seeing all the other teams out there racing away.  An amazing day!