This was my 2nd year doing Oceanside. Having just come off a successful Ironman Los Cabos 2 weeks prior, I had no idea what shape I would be in. My plan was to swim hard (and see if my poor swim in Cabo was an anomaly or that my swimming has regressed), bike hard and then run whatever I could manage.

Swim: 30 mins (4 mins faster than 2012 but shorter course, actual pace slightly slower)
Bike: 2:26 (9 mins faster than 2012, 15W more, and 3.4 w/kg vs 3 w/kg)
Run: 1:35 (4 mins slower than 2012)

The day before the race was a slight disaster. I flew into San Diego at midday, with ample time to get to Oceanside and register. Tribike Transport had shipped my bike directly from  Cabo to San Diego, so I picked up my bike and then started my journey up to Oceanside.  However the Friday traffic was insane and it took me over 1.5 hours just to get to Carlsbad. I first checked into the Sheraton so I could drop my bike off, and thought I’d just inflate my tires and take it for a quick spin. This is where things started to go wrong. My tire wouldn’t inflate, so I took off the valve extender, to deflate the tire first. It slipped as I pushed it, and fell through into my wheel. I tried everything I could to deflate the tire but nothing worked. I took it with me to registration, to see if the mechanics could deflate  it, but they couldn’t either. Ok so it was time to trash a new $20 latex tube. A quick poke and it was deflated. We took the tire off and saw that the valve extender has actually fallen into the hollow area of the Zipp 808 wheel. It was just clanking around in there with no obvious way to get it out. The mechanics  just laughed when they saw what had happened. nice… I spoke to the Zipp people and they said I should just ride with it – after all Zipps are designed to be pretty much indestructible they said!
I continued the checking process, walking around with my clanking carbon wheel. I got my numbers and stuff and headed back to the hotel. It was way after 6 now, and I still had to test my bike out. I quickly replaced the tube, inflated both tires and headed out for a quick spin. 5 mins into the ride and whooooosh! puncture on the rear! $20 Latex tube #2 gone… time for lucky #3! This time it held up, but it was getting late so I kept my ride to a very short 5 mins and went to get the rest of my stuff ready. I quickly put all my numbers on my bike, helmet, race belt, and then got to the gear bag stickers. Ummmmm ok where are my gear bags? It seems that they didn’t give me any! A quick email out to my Triforce teammates confirmed that you actually had to go somewhere else to pick up the gear bags, which nobody told me. This was just bad on the organizers part – I’ve done a lot of races and I just take it for granted that my stuff is all going to be there. Anyway, it was after 8pm so nothing I could do about it now, so I settled in for my dinner of chicken, salad and rice, got my final things packed and turned in for an early night.

I slept like a log, woke up at 3:30, an hour before my alarm but I was awake, so figured I’d just eat, get ready and go. It’s a very quick drive from the Sheraton to the race parking (about 10 mins) so I was there with plenty of time to spare. I picked up some extra gear bags, set up my run stuff in T2 and then rode my bike down to the swim start and T1 (about 10 mins ride). I quickly racked, got ready and then headed down to the start.

The conditions were a lot better than 2012. The water was warmer and calmer, the weather in general was mild / warm, and I think the wind on the bike course was the same, or possibly a little windier.

My swim went ok. 30 mins which was 4 mins faster than 2012, but the course was long last year (or at least I possibly swam it long). As you can see from my training peaks file, in 2012 I swam over 2300 yards at an average pace of just under 1:30/100y and in 2013 I swam 2100 yards in just over 1:30/100y. Maybe I get points for consistency, but I did put a lot of work into my swimming in 2012, and I had improved a lot by November, yet I seem to be back where I started now (poor swim in Cabo and in Oceanside).  As an example, here is my file from Big Kahuna last September where I averaged 1:23/100y with less effort than yesterday at Oceanside. I need to figure this out, but at least I know what I really have to work on before Kona!

Bike: The bike was good. I just rode hard the entire way. The sensible way to ride Oceanside is take it easier on the first half and keep some energy for the way back (hills and wind). However, I was in Ironman shape so figured 56 miles would be ok to go hard the whole way. I felt great for the whole bike.

2:26, 23mph avg speed, 254 watts NP,  3.4 w/kg (based on avg power not normalized) – here is my file

Run: The run started really well. I was feeling very comfortable and hitting out the miles at 6:30/mile which was on plan. I actually thought I would manage a bit faster than that, but was expecting the possibility of going slower. I held this pace for the first 5 miles, and then suddenly the wheels came off completely. I had fueled well, but my body was just very fatigued (lower back, hamstrings) and I could barely hold 08:30/mile. I just held it together (barely) to the end and came home in 1:35 for the run, 4 mins slower than 2012 but I’m in much better run form. I was hoping this wouldn’t happen, but for me 2 weeks is just too soon after an Ironman to give it a hard effort again.

OverallI was happy with my day, obviously disappointed that I couldn’t man up enough on the run to bring it home, but happy to be done and now HAVE A BREAK for at least a few weeks!

Team Triforce wins the small clubs division at Oceanside 70.3

I was really happy to be there with a top bunch of guys from the Triforce team. We really had a blast, winning the division 5 club category (small tri clubs) by over 11000 points! We naturally celebrated post-race in Triforce style with a speedo party in the hotel hot tub!

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