Race details:
Hermosa Beach, California
Swim: 0.25 mi - open water, ocean
Bike: 10 mi - road, 3 loops on Valley/Ardmore between Artesia and 2nd, fairly flat
Run: 3.0 mi - run, out and back along The Strand
Course Recorded Finish: 1:02:02
Garmin Splits:
AG Finish: 6/32 (top 18%, currently my best finish at a larger event)
OV Finish: 73/559 (top 13%, currently my best finish at a larger event)
AG Race Factor: 1.28
OV Race Factor: 1.08
Race Analysis:
Transitions:
Nothing much to say here. It was a sprint so I chose no wetsuit. That kept my transition time down a relative amount. I could've opted for no socks or no Giro Shield, but I didn't want to deviate too much from my Ironman transition plan for a few seconds. In the end, minutes were the difference between me and the podium so no harm in this category.
Swim:
The swim was relatively good. But let's start with the bad. Waves were somewhat big on this morning so getting out was tough. I had to duck dive early and then on my second dive, a 2-wave-set came in. So I dove the first one and then when I was coming up after the second one, I ended up on some other guy's shoulders who apparently duck dived behind me and around the same time. So as I was getting ready to swim ahead he was standing up and kinda flipped me forward a little bit. I lost my goggles and had to take a second to recover. After that, battling the current was tough. And then coming in I was riding a lot of waves towards the beach when suddenly a big one came and threw me straight down. I was kinda swirling around at the bottom and again lost my goggles. I ended up walking probably a second or two sooner than I wanted to, but it wasn't a terrible loss.
So I didn't know this at the time, but I had a relatively strong swim. Hermosa results show up as a basic text file and I was too lazy to copy and format into Excel to then sort it. But of the top 10 guys in my AG, I came out of the water 7th :D
Bike:
Looking at the race after the fact, the bike is basically where I lost it. For those that have never done Hermosa, it is 3 loops that are flat along a two lane car road. The turns are REALLY tight, it gets VERY congested and there's not much passing room. I rode well and during the race I felt like I was pushing but I had a sinking feeling that I was probably losing it here because I didn't pass a ton of guys.
Sadly, post race this proved to be true. Again, looking at the top 10 guys, I tied Michael Vick (HAHA HEARING THIS NAME CROSS AFTER I WAS DONE WAS HILARIOUS!!!) for 9th. As in I basically bombed the bike despite doing well for my own personal time. My 29:30 time was 3 minutes behind the winner's time of 26:47. In hindsight, this is exactly where I lost the race.
NOTE TO SELF: Offseason training plan should include MASSIVE amounts of bike training. You're a terrible cyclist. Fix this ASAP!!!
Run:
The run was good. Immediately after crossing the finish line, my legs locked up with cramps and I was at the food table, leaning on it and scarfing down bananas, oranges and water. It was a rough run because of the challenge of trying to push for the podium and also not really being geared up and ready for sprinting due to IM training. So while it was a good run, it was rough.
Looking at the results, my 23:43 run time was 4th of the top 10 guys. 4th!!! But the spread here wasn't very wide. So again, the bike is very clearly where I lost the race.
All in all, I can't really complain. I had a good time. I beat last year's Hermosa time by over 11 minutes. For this random set of distances (most sprints don't follow the same standard), I did really well and PRed. But it's hard to feel good when you finish 6th and 1 minute outside the podium.
Pics:
Pre and Post Race:
Creeping the Results Page (no podium... sad...):
Post Race Brunch @ Good Stuff:
Post Race Dinner:
My amazing roommate made a delicious pulled pork and brussel sprouts dinner while I lay on the couch all day. And we had it with this awesome Presidio Syrah Rose I got from Solvang!
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