Today's race was great. I was really strong, and came 2nd in age group
(W30-34) and 8th woman overall.
The swim was cold but survivable - 57 degrees. It was nice to have those booties on the feet. It was only cold in the beginning and hard to put my face in the water, but it got better after that and I was trying to draft off people when I could. There was some current and surge while crossing the channel.
The bike was strong, and a tough course. I have been doing some power attacks (like a hill sprint) when I bike w/ Tom Fields and that was really helpful. There were some small hills in the beginning, but not bad.
We had a nice tailwind going south on Hwy 1, but then a massive head wind heading back north on Los Osos Valley Rd. There were a few small climbs at the end that I attacked. Another "cool" thing was that coming back into transition, there were very few bikes in the women's racks, so I had an idea I was up near the front.
The run was interesting. It was actually all along the beach. The first part I was just going steady and did not feel like I could pick up the pace. Then we had to go over some rocks where the tide pools were (but it was low tide), so I sort of hiked those to recover a little. THen the turn around was still further down the beach. On the way back I picked up the pace once getting back onto the packed sand. Mentally I was "acquiring targets" like large piles of kelp in the sand, then would run to the next one. At the end of the run, it was back through the soft sand near Morro Rock, then onto the bike path.
Jaime