California 70.3

March 29, 2008
Oceanside, CA

The first race of the season is always an eye opener. I try not to have high expectations for this first race, but that seems almost impossible. I had put in some great training (or so I thought) during the past few months and thought that I would at least have a faster overall time this year compared to last year. Alas, it was not meant to be! My overall time was about 3 minutes slower than last year. The field this year grew from last year and although it's nice to see so many professional women racing, it is a bit intimidating and scary!

I must say though, that i felt really good in the swim and had not only a good time but pretty well placement as well (for me that is). The swim is in the harbor, but goes out just a bit towards the open ocean, so we did feel some larger swells and waves not to mention swallowing the lovely sea water; which for some strange reason always seems to startle me....salt water that is. I guess I forget that I'm swimming in the ocean!

I had been putting in some long rides that I thought would help me and I'm not sure that I could feel the effects of those long rides kicking in yesterday. I would have to say that I need to ride my TT bike more often than just the week before the race. Yep, rookie mistake! I plan to ride it more often leading up to Wildflower, which is the next race for me. I felt good on the bike starting out and although it was windy I thought I could manage at least 21 mph! Boy was I wrong! My legs didn't feel as fresh as I would have like them too and mentally I was struggling towards the end. Note to self, just because I can ride long doesn't mean I can ride long and fast!! Yep, need to work on more speedwork too. If I want to be among the top competitors, I will need to hone my cycling skills. I must say though that I was glad to be done with the wind and rolling hills of the course.

I wasn't sure how I was going to feel on the run, but there were a few people ahead of me that I wanted to catch, so I put that in my mind and set to get the job done! I was able to move ahead a few spots and felt pretty good on the run. I will need to work a bit more on the hills though and maybe start some longer track workouts and tempo type workouts as well.

What can I say, it was the first race of the season for me and I now have a baseline from which to improve. If you'd like to check out the results, go to http://www.ironmanlive.com/events/ironman70.3/california70.3?show=raceresults&year=2008&format=htm

Unfortunately, I don't think Jay snapped any photos, so we'll have to wait and see what the race photography folks got. Stay tuned.