Solana Beach Triathlon 2018 Race Report

Solana Beach Triathlon – Sprint Distance

July 29, 2018, Solana Beach, California

The path to calf strain recovery has been long, longer than I thought it should have been. After a week of carefully running at 8-8:30 pace, I started to think I was back and ready to do the work again. Then on a 10 min transition run after an hour-long spin warm up, I started to see how a 7-7:30 pace felt. At 1 mile I felt a very slight sharp pain in the injury area. I immediately stopped and walked back home. It seemed I caught it before any real re-damage occurred, thankfully, but it was still a very discouraging situation and created a lot of anxiety about my upcoming 70.3.

All this week I wrestled with whether or not to risk re-injury of the calf; not whether or not I could finish 70.3m but how much would it hurt. It was an internal debate pitting mental toughness against logical, emotionally detached decision making. I decided to play it smart and, if the race directors will allow it, change my entry to either the long course Aquabike (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike) or the International distance triathlon.

Making the decision has lifted a huge burden and elevated my sense about how far along I am in my recovery. So in the end, logic and mental fortitude both won.

For Solana Beach, I tried not to have expectations and just go with how I feel, use the race for practicing transitions, etc. But if I felt good, I had the goal of completing the race in less than an hour.

Swim:

Water was CRAZY warm, 76.5 degrees fahrenheit. But still wetsuit legal so I wore mine because the bouyancy is a huge advantage for me. Beach start at very low tide and swells so small that duckdiving was not even necessary. Transition was set up about 1/4 mile uphill from the swim exit and with how low the tide was, the swim portion had more running than swimming involved. Garmin marked about 850 yards total (for what is supposed to be a 1/4 mile (440 yard) swim) and calculated my pace at 1:05 per 100 yards, so thats a fun confidence boost for a 1:30/1:40 swimmer.

Transistions:

If the idea was to work on smoother transitions at this race, then the mission was somewhat accomplished. Both T1 and T2 usually take me about 90 seconds and its mostly because I sweat so much that I put on a dewrag or headband before the helmet and I wear socks with my running shoes. Both of those things add extra steps to the process in each transition. I also consciously try to slow my heartrate and catch my breath before heading out so I’m not on fumes at the start of the next leg, so I am generally ok with 90 seconds. Today I skipped the brow-sweat-catcher to see how much worse the sweat coming down my helmet’s visor and in my eyes would be, figuring I could deal with it for only 9 miles. I was right, it was no worse than when the skullcap reaches saturation point – which is usually not long because it also adds insulation to my head. I was able to shave about 15-20 seconds of both transitions and didn’t feel like I was hyperventilating in the subsequent legs of the race.

However, the flying mount still needs work on this bike. I had it down on my old aluminum Specialized bike, but different bike, shoes and pedals have sort of broken the flow. I jumped on fine but couldnt get my feet on top of both shoes before the rubberbands broke so the shoes inverted and I lost momentum. I had to step off, push off the ground for more momentum and then was able to get my feet on top of the shoes and start pedalling. Once going, its never too dificult to slip my feet in and strap the shoe closed, so no major losses in the end.

Bike:

Flat and fast with one gradual hill, down to a turnaround and then back up, that we had to hit twice on the two loop course. Overall I felt pretty good; normal good. Could have maybe pushed a few more watts if my legs didnt start with a burn from the hills and stairs we had to run between swim exit and transition. I averaged a little over 22 MPH and normalized power at about 245 watts.

There was one little extra side leg in the middle of the course where we turned right down an intersection, then turn around to come back up to the highway within less than a block. The first time through I started pedalling too soon in the turn around, too deep in the lean, and hit my left pedal on the ground, tailwhipped the back end. But I was able to recover and keep going, hopefully not damaging my power meter pedal more than cosmetics.

Run:

Run felt great and it felt great to run. I didn’t feel the need to run with apprehension or a shortened stride to protect the calf. Mechanics were working and I maintained an average 7:34 pace for 3 miles – the first time in months.

Overall it was a really fun morning of racing and cheering with/for EHouse teammates.