Run for the border

Imperial Beach Triathlon

So you basically drive down the 5 south till, oh, the border. Take a right and go to the beach. Ta da! Imperial Beach! Now Tijuana is renowned for their pristine water - or sewage spills, so I'm glad that fence along the border keeps all the bad bugs out. I checked in for the race on Sat and immediately hear rumors that the swim could be cancelled due to bacteria counts being too high. Sweet! The race directors run a good race and wouldn't put us in harms way, so I would just have to take their word on the water quality. Personally I suck at beach entries/exits so I'm not sure that I would be too upset if the swim were to be cancelled. But alas.. it the water was fine and the swim would go on.

But it sucked in any case. I haven't seen the splits yet, but I'm sure it wasn't pretty. Just as my little toes hit semi-dry sand and stopped ('cause I was just about walking at that point), stripped out of my wetsuit and then ran into T1. One of my goals was to quicken up my transitions, so I'm glad I ran right past my bike in T1. I've always known that swimming provides me serious oxygen debt in the pool, but now I get an open water-demo of oxygen-debt-brain-loss. Goody!

Once on the bike things start to look good and blood once again returns to the gray-matter. The bike felt pretty good, even while viewing the Mexican houses on the other side of the hill.

Then comes the run. It always hurts, no matter how good you think you feel. I guess that's part of the "fun"... one day it won't hurt! Only a 5K run, but with an average heart rate of 188 on the run, at least I can say I gave her a good old fashion try! It wasn't quite as fast as I would have liked, not bad, but I was hoping for a little better, and not quite fast enough the close the gap to first on such a short distance.

I have to say, I'll take 2nd! If I counted correctly, I was 5th overall. I can't wait for a lake swim again!

After the race I was standing by the score board and I hear "damn, he beat me again!" from somewhere next to me. It just got me thinking - that's what brings us coming back... for yet another pain fest. That feeling that you can do better next time, it's like crack...

Next crack... Nationals..... wish me luck, I'll need it!

Happy riding!
Raja