Updates from Past Two Months

I have not posted here in a while, so I thought I'd post some updates on what I've been up to over the past couple months.  

Peru Surf Vacation

In mid February I took a 1.5 week trip down to Mancora, Peru for a little surf vacation before the race season got underway.  The trip and surf break were awesome.  The only bad thing is I got sick about half way through the trip which had lasting effects for over a week after I got back to the States.  This threw a wrench into my training and early season race schedule.  Regardless of the sickness, the experience in Peru was awesome.  Here are some pictures:

Mancora Strip at night 

Mancora Beach Early Morning

 Mancora Beach Mid Afternoon

Sunset in on Mancora Beach

Mancora Surf Break (this was a small day)

Race Schedule Change

Because of my vacation and the fact that I was sick for quite a while, I decided to not race two of the early season races that I had earlier planned (UCLA IronBruin and Superseal).  Instead, I decided to focus on preparing for Wildflower and added a couple later season races to my schedule.  The updated and likely to change race schedule can be seen here.

ITU Short Course World Championships

Through the 2012 rankings qualification criteria, I recently earned a spot to travel to London in mid September and race with Team USA at the ITU Short Course (Olympic Distance) World Championships.  I'm still mulling over whether I will accept the spot (of course I want to but it will cost me quite a chunk of change), but I'd say at this point I'm really leaning towards accepting. 

St Patrick's Day 10K

After pulling out of Superseal I decided to travel down to San Diego to race with my buddy Kosuke in a 10K race on St. Patrick's Day.  Because I was racing on about 2 weeks of training following my vacation/sickness, my plan was to simply take it easy.  Of course I took it hard when the gun went off because I don't know how to do anything other than that in a race situation.  I managed a decent time on a fun and flat course.  The best part of the race by far was the beer garden. Unlimited Stone IPA = best beer garden ever!  Here are some Garmin data for you geeks:

Team TriSports.com

This is a little late, but I am happy to announce that I will once again be racing with Team TriSports.com for the 2013 triathlon season.  TrisSports.com, based out of Tucson AZ, is one of the leading online multisport retailers. I encourage you to read about the unique culture at TriSports.com by visiting the link here.

Please, if you can, help support me by using the coupon code MTRIPP for all purchases made at TriSports.com and you will receive 15% off of your order. Yes, that is a whopping 15% off!  Go get your shopping on!

Superseal Race Report

This past Sunday I raced Superseal in Coronado, CA...sort of. Mother Nature decided to bring a huge storm through Southern California, intent on ruining any plans for racing.  First, the swim was canceled due to a small craft double red flag warning.  The bike portion was then canceled on race morning due to 30+ mph wind gusts making riding rather dangerous.  In the end, the Olympic distance triathlon was reduced to a 2.9 mile sand run.  That's not quite what I had in mind when I signed up for this race, but I figured I had traveled down to San Diego to race, so I might as well take what I can get.

Just before the run, the sun started to come out and a rainbow formed.

I guess one of the main takeaways I got from this race is that triathletes look really dorky.  I was especially dorky looking with my extra cold weather gear on.

There were around 1300 people signed up for the race but only about 250 stuck around for the run.  Since I was in the elite division and I found out they were still giving out the prize money to the winners, I thought "Hey, maybe all the real pros went home and I can take their prize money". That wasn't the case.  Some fast dudes stuck around.  I like the picture of the start below.  I suggest clicking on it to see the big version.

Photo by Louis Roberto

I am smiling because I was happy to be off the sand.  Out of the 2.9 miles only 0.3 mile was on pavement.

Hanging out after the race with some other dorky looking triathletes, Steven and Mott.

I ended up placing 6th overall with a time of 16:51.  Click here to see my GPS data.

Up next is Wildflower Olympic on May 6th. This weekend I am excited to once again be traveling to Tucson, AZ for TriFest hosted by trisports.com. I'll be sure to post some picture from the Mt. Lemmon ride.

Superseal Race Preview

This weekend I will be racing at Superseal in Coronado, CA.  This will be my first Olympic distance race of the season and I have been looking forward to it because I will be racing in the Pro/Elite division. Because this race is not USAT sanctioned, I was able to enter in the Pro division despite the fact that I do not have my USAT professional license.  There will be some former teammates and other fast competitors in my wave that I'm excited to be racing side-by-side with.

The only slight disappointment going into the race is the weather forecast for this weekend.  There is a large storm that is supposed to come through the area tomorrow and the race directors have said that if there is more than 0.1 inches of rain, the swim portion will be canceled.  I believe the reason is that the rain run-off from the city makes the water too dirty to swim in.  If this happens, the swim would be replaced by a 1 mile beach run and the race would essentially turn into a duathlon (run-bike-run).  As someone who for the most part excels in the swim, the likelihood that the swim will be canceled is disappointing.  Regardless, if it happens, it happens. I'll just have to deal with it.  I've never raced a duathlon, so it might be an interesting experience. We'll see...