Redondo Beach Triathlon

Hooray! I finished my first triathlon! Overall, the race was harder than I thought
it was going to be, but I finished with a time that I am happy with. I was shooting for one hour because that was about the median time from last year. I finished 1 hour and 5 minutes.

They have not posted the split times for each event, but I'm pretty sure the swim and transition is what slowed me down. I made some errors in the water that cost me. First of all, I decided to swim on the outside of the pack since there really isn't a whole lot of time that can be made up in the water unless you are a ridiculously good swimmer. Staying on the outside would let me focus on a good long stroke and my pacing. Unfortunately it also allowed me to veer way off course. And back in gain. And off course again. So I think I added quite a bit to the distance. Then the other error I made was to really kick it into a fast sprint swim to the beach when I rounded the last buoy. Again, I maybe gained 30 seconds by sprinting the last 100 yards but I left myself completely worked over when I got out of the water. And tried to run up the sand beach. Then up the stairs. Then uphill up the path. Then uphill up the parking lot to get to my bike. I thought I was going to pass out and I'm sure that cost me more than the little time I gained finishing the swim so hard.

The biking went great and Josh's bike let me pass up all kinds of people.

Thanks Josh!

The run was a little harder than I was expecting and I never seemed to get into a good running/breathing rhythm. By the time I got around the first mile I thought I would be able to pick the pace up, but it just didn't happen. And I wasn't physically prepared for the hills. I should have trained more hills and longer distance running.

But I still managed to get in close to the median time. And I don't think I slacked off anywhere in the race so I'm personally satisfied.


The best part of the race was seeing Orla and Cliona after I ran up the steps from the beach. I thought I was going to die but seeing them made me smile. It was the low point of my race but it turned out to be the happiest memory.

Update:
They posted the split times, and like I thought the transition from swim to bike was a time killer. Also, there is definetly room for improvement with the run time. Here is the link to the times: Redondo Split Times.