Los Angeles Triathlon Race Report

On Sunday Sept. 30th I raced in my last race for the season, The Herbalife Los Angeles Triathlon.  This would be my third consecutive year racing LA, so I had a pretty good understanding of the course going into the race.

Pre Race:
I had three weeks following 70.3 Worlds to prepare for LA. The first week was rough.  My IT band became quite irritated following Vegas and it took about 4 days following the race before I was even able to walk without a limp.  I basically rested for a week and then slowly tried to get back into the swing of things the following two weeks.  My training was very sparse as I didn't want to further irritate my IT band injury.  In the days leading up to the race, I didn't feel close to 100%, but my body was in a way better condition than it was in immediately following Vegas.  I was ready to go.

Swim:
It seems that every year, a big swell comes in just in time for this race.  This year was no different.  There were consistent overhead sets coming in as we were waiting to start.  I was excited to get out there and swim through them.

Photo courtesy of triathlon.competitor.com

As the gun went off, I made my way through the surf and ended up reaching the first buoy with the lead pack.  I latched onto the feet of one of the guys and ended up swimming in a group of 3 for the remainder of the swim.  The sun was out and I was having a very difficult time sighting the buoys, so I basically ended up following the guy in front of me hoping he would do a decent job of navigating.  As I was swimming into the shore, a decent size set came through and I chose to just duck under it rather than trying to ride the wave and risk getting pummeled.  I came out of the water in third place with a split of 21:21, about 15 seconds out of 1st.  

Bike:
Transition went smoothly and I was off on my bike headed towards downtown.  As my heart rate started to settle and I began to get into my groove, I noticed that I felt sort of flat.  I just didn't have the kick I normally have for an Olympic distance race.  I believe it may have been all of the recovery time I required after racing in Vegas.  Although my body was rested, it felt flat.

One thing I like about the LA Tri is being able to ride through all of the communities as you approach downtown.  The bike course definitely provides a different type of scenery than I experience at most other races.

I came into T2 with a split of 1:02:09.  Comparing my bike split the other athletes in my division, I can see this is clearly an area in which I need to improve.

Run:
The LA Tri run has gotten me for the worse the past two years.  Both years I developed bad stomach cramps and last year my left ankle was injured.  Knowing that my leg was still a little gimpy due to the IT band issues I was having, I decided to hold back at the beginning a little more than I usually do for a 10K run.  This ended up working fairly well.  The run course is two loops, each with a pretty massive hill to run up.  Once I made the first loop and noticed I was feeling pretty decent, I realized that all I had to do was make it up the hill again and then cruise the last 1.5 miles to the finish.

I finished with a run split of 34:22, which on paper looks great, except it appears the run course was about 0.4 miles short.  Still, a much improved run from the previous years.

Here's some moving pictures from the race.  If you pay close attention, you will see me adjusting my goggles at 0:54.

I ended up finishing 4th in my division (elite amateur) with a time of 2:00:03.  Hmmm, this is the second time this year I was three seconds short.

Overall, I am happy with my race.  I dropped about 5 minutes from my previous year time, although I believe some of that may have been due to the run course being short.  Cracking the top 3 in my division was a goal going into the race, but some fast guys showed up and and prevented me from doing that.  I guess that's just the way things go.  It was overall a good way to end an up and down year.

Next up is vacation!! While most of the triathlon community will be focused on a little race going on in Kona, I will be making a trip to Kauai for an extended weekend to wind down from the busy triathlon season.