San Diego ITU Worlds

I raced this weekend at San Diego ITU Worlds in the Olympic distance race -- 0.9 mile swim, 24 mile bike, 6.2 mile run.

The week leading up to the race was less than ideal -- the race was on Saturday morning, and at 2 am on Thursday morning, I was doing emergency angioplasty.  So, needless to say, I wasn't well rested before the race.  Then again, patient care always comes first.

This race was the triathlon club national race.  So, this wasn't a small race, and a lot of tough athletes showed up to compete.

Swim
My group, women 35-39, were the third to last wave of competitors.  Behind us were two waves of men in their 30's.  In other words, men to clobber us on the swim, so I was anticipating having rather aggressive men trying to get around me on the swim.

I started near the back of the pack on the swim.  I should have started toward the middle, but since I waited until the absolute last minute to warm up in the water, I was one of the last women in my wave start to gather, and I didn't want to push people to get toward the front.  So, as the gun went off, I ran past a few women into the water and swam around several of them until I got to the right position.

The swim was a bit choppy, and there were some currents, and with the men starting just a few minutes after us, I constantly felt like people were swimming very close to me and past me.

Swim time:  34 minutes.  Slower than my usual time which is closer to 30 minutes.  I blame the currents.


Coming out of the water....

Bike
Toughest bike course of any sprint or olympic distance race.  The road conditions were less than ideal with plenty of potholes and cracks in the road.  We rode two loops up Mount Soledad (I think that's what it's called)!  It's a long hill with some really steep points.  I saw one woman climbing the hill on her bike topple over as she hit one of the cones on the side of the road.  I heard of a couple other bike accidents on the course also.

Most of my pictures on the bike were of me sitting upright, not on my aerobars, because I wouldn't want to topple over from hitting a pothole the wrong way.

Here, I think I saw the cameras, so I got onto my aerobars intentionally for the picture :)

Bike time:  1 hour 31 minutes.  Not so great.  Reflects the hilly course, and my general lack of focus on cycling this season.

Run!!!

My favorite part of a short race.  There were a few women in my age group who I was going back and forth with on the bike.  And on the run, I passed them for good within the first 2 miles.

This is my running game face.  It doesn't look very convincing.

And this is the fun picture:

I was working hard on the run, but I had a good time.  The run course was around Mission Bay.  We saw the residents in their beachfront homes drinking mimosas as we ran by.  I ran by one woman I knew, but didn't recognize until she yelled, "Shenkman stop looking at your watch and run!" and left me laughing for the next couple of minutes.  A crew of my team members were on the course near the finish line cheering us on, which is always awesome too.

Run time:  51:38 -- my fastest 10k EVER!

Overall time:  3 hours, 11 minutes.

30th place out of 66 in my age group.

The race reflected my relative efforts over the past several months.  Excellent run, decent swim, and not-so-fabulous bike.  Great race, tough competitors, and beautiful scenery.