Ironman 70.3 California Oceanside, March 31, 2007

Ironman 70.3 California at Oceanside was my first race of the 2007 season. This turned out to be a guys' weekend as Mike, Erhan, Timo, and I drove down to Oceanside (just north of San Diego) from the Bay Area in Mike's van. It took us roughly 9 hours to drive down.

I ran into Michellie Jones (2006 Ironman World Champion) at the expo. Afterwards, we headed over to get registered by the marines.

Timo and I found out that we would both start in the same wave group - the last wave start of the race. This would be our first time where we would really race each other, and also the last time for a couple of years since Timo is moving up to the 30-34 age group in a month.

Paula Newby-Fraser (in the NA shirt), one of the greatest, helping out at the registration.

SWIM

Our swim wave went off at 7:48am. By this time, almost 1800 racers had already started. The gun went off and it took me a few minutes to clear the frenzy of swimmers to find my own space. I settled into a good rhythm and swam comfortably. On the swim back to the transition, we all had a really bad glare from the rising sun, and I was a little disoriented.

(excuse me!)


Official Swim Time: 0:36:20 (h:m:s)

T1

The first transition went well. As I reached my rack I saw Timo still taking off his wetsuit. I quickly took mine off and rushed out of there.

Official T1 Time: 4:05 (m:s)

BIKE


(leaving the Oceanside harbor at the beginning of the bike leg)

At about 1 mile into the bike course, I ate a Powergel. When I tried to put the wrapper in my back pocket, I lost my balance and ran right off the road into a big dirt run-off. Luckily, I didn't crash. I decided to relax a little bit since I could have almost ended my race right then and there.

Timo and I stayed within 20 meters of each other for the majority of the bike leg. We hit all 3 major climbs of the course together and passed hundreds of other bikers. I was leading Timo up the last climb and expected to see him in the opposite direction as I went through a 180-degree turn - but I didn't.... something had happened to him. I was hoping that he hadn't gotten a flat tire and that he was okay. It turns out that he had pulled over to vomit - Half-Ironman baby!

I felt pretty strong throughout the bike leg.



Official Bike Time: 2:46:45 (h:m:s) = 20.1 mph


T2

Official T2 Time: 1:55 (m:s)


RUN

The run... ah yes, a half-marathon after all of this. The first mile was brutal - I was feeling cramps developing in all of my leg muscles, but just like at Vineman, they went away after a mile.

I looked down at my watch and saw that I ran the first mile in 8 minutes even with the cramps. Since my pace at Vineman had been a 9:10, I figured that holding 8 would be a huge improvement, so this became my goal.

I was holding steady and felt great. I caught up to Erhan (who had started 48 minutes earlier) around mile 4, and at about the same time I saw Timo coming in the other direction. This was a 2-loop run course and was great for figuring out how you were doing compared to your competition.



I was hoping to have a negative split on the run, but the cramps started coming back around mile 11 and they slowed me down.

Official Run Time: 1:46:32 (h:m:s) = 8:08 minutes/mile pace



OFFICIAL TOTAL TIME: 5:15:36 (h:m:s)

I finished 66 out of 188 in the Men 25-29 age group, and 497th overall out of 1950 racers. This was a really well organized race, and the weather was great. Congrats also to Mike and Timo for their great performances, and also to Erhan for completing his first half-ironman.

Post-race


Post-race having margaritas!