Yesterday, Eileen and I did the Hard Core Sprint Triathlon held on the base at Camp Pendleton. To sum up the event I’ll quote another participant who swam a little better than me or was faster in the transition than me or both. He said, “the swim was frighting, the bike ride from hell never seemed to end, and the run was just painful.” I remember passing him on the bike portion of the tri. The reason I remember is, well, he was 65. You might ask how I know he was 65 and not, say, 55. They write your age on the back of your right leg. Assuming you have a right leg. There was one guy there with a really cool prosthetic and they had to put all his info on his left leg (he was a civilian racer and he was 71). So as you’re racing along you can go, “Ah don’t worry about that guy, he’s not in my age group,” or “Shit, I’ve got to hurry up and pick that guy off!”  Anyhow, back to the story. By the end of the race I felt pretty much like the description the 65 year old guy gave above. But not till this morning did I realize how true it was.  About 1,300 people started the race and only around 1,000 finished. So I’m feeling much better about my performance.

At one time in my youth I was a pretty good swimmer and I’m still not bad, especially when I get out on a regular basis and train, which I’ve been doing. This tri the swim was ONLY 500 yards, 200 out, 100 across, and 200 back. Now, in a pool I can swim fairly easy and cover 500 yards in about 10 minutes. (My young friend Tyler told me yesterday that it takes him just over 5 minutes, damed kids!)

Before the race I’m standing down at the beach with Eileen looking at the waves. When we got there at 6:30 AM they were about 3½ feet high and growing. The lifeguard said they would peek about about 9:00 AM. My group went off at 8:45 and Eileen’s at 9:00. By then the waves were more like 4½ to 5 feet. The sets were coming in fairly fast. We had practiced getting through the waves just before the start of the race for the first time. Thank goodness we did at least that. I took off at 8:45 and headed into the water going away from the first turn buoy. That was because there was a current in the ocean going from south to north. So you had to swim starting way south of where you wanted to go just to get to the first buoy. It took me 9 minutes to go 200 yards. The waves were pounding me and I was getting really tired and hadn’t gone all that far. The next 100 yards (going with the current) were a piece of cake.  Three minutes and I was there. Turned to head to shore thinking this too would be easy as I was going in with the waves, but was I wrong! As I got into the waves I was really hoping to more or less body surf in. Instead they just pounded me some more. In fact about a 100 yards from shore a really big wave rolled over me and stripped my goggles off my head. They were gone, nowhere to be seen. After 21 minutes I staggered to the beach and realized I still had 18 miles to bike and 3.1 miles to run and I was already exhausted.

It took me quite awhile to make the transition from the swim to bike. When I left the transition area and mounted my bike, my first thought was, “Why can’t I go more that 6 to 8 mph?”  Then I remembered we had to go up a long ramp to get to the road. By the time I got to the 9 mile turn around I was feeling somewhat revived and actually picked my pace up some. That is about when I picked off the 65 year old philosopher.

Coming back down the ramp to the transition area again after surviving the hills on the base, (I swear they were at least a 65% grade) I remembered I still had 3.1 miles to run. I got in and out of the transition much faster than the first time and was heading back up the ramp on foot when Eileen caught up with me. We power walked up the hill and started running. I didn’t get far and pooped out and had to walk again. Eileen was still hanging tough and kept going. I, on the other hand, walked and ran the rest of the race. About a ¼ mile from the finish the 65 year old caught and passed me which inspired me to get moving again. With 200 yards to go I picked my pace up and caught the guy. When I came up beside him I asked him to pick it up and we would run in together. He said he didn’t have anything left and for me to go ahead.

At the finish I went over to congratulate him of finishing and that’s when he gave me his account of how he thought the swim, bike, and run went and I had to agree.

I suspect there won’t be any more open water ocean triathlons in my future.