This past weekend was the Carpinteria Olympic Triathlon, which marked my 4th triathlon completion! It’s “off-season” and considered to be the IronTEAM’s “Reunion Race.” I loosely trained for this race because leading up to it I already had a pretty good base from Vineman. I did a few bike rides & swim sessions here and there, but what was consistent was my running because I’m still training for the Portland Marathon in a few weeks.
I traveled the day before to my teammate Amy’s place in Camarillo. Still about 30 minutes away, but it helped break what could’ve been a much longer drive. Did packet pickup the day before, and immediately I could tell that it was a small town race. Signs were written in colored markers on cardboard, and there were no lines to get where we needed to go. No biggie, we were in and out. The real fun was at Amy’s house where she cooked up a delicious dinner, then we played Catch Phrase pretty much the whole night, up until 1am, when we were originally planning to sleep around 10pm. Good times indeed!
The morning of the race was overcast with slight drizzle, translating to wet road conditions. It was an ocean swim, which I was initially scared to do, but whew, there were no waves! The buoys were a bit tough to sight with, and crowds at the shore confused me a little bit when to turn in. The bike was more challenging than I thought it would be. Goes to show how much research I did on this beforehand! There were a couple inclines that gave me a struggle – even saw a few people walk their bikes up! The wet conditions also made the descents a little scary. A teammate, Adam, crashed on the first descent and ended up going to the Emergency Room! Don’t worry, he’s A-OK, everything in working order, but had to get stitched up. For the run, I put on the infamous banana suit! Started off pretty strong, but for some reason, barely 3 miles into it, I started to struggle. Yup, my nutrition was off. We didn’t even drink last night, so maybe that was the problem. Nothing new on raceday! Crazy that it was only a month and half a go, I was able to do 140.6, but I was struggling at this Olympic distance!
I eventually finished, and just in IronTEAM fashion, everyone was waiting for everyone else at the finish line which was such a pleasant surprise. I gave each and every one of my lovely teammates a high or side five with roaring cheers for the banana suit. I was kinda bummed though that they did not give out any medals. Wasn’t too happy about my time either. Actually, I don’t even remember it. Oh well, what counts is that I finished, injure-free, with the company of my teammates. Overall, it was a really fun weekend, and cheers to my 4th triathlon completed in a year!
So, what do you think ?