It Begins...Oceanside 70.3

It has taken me a little longer to write this report than I had initially planned. The week after Oceanside was a tough week because I had to say goodbye to this guy...

Jaromir. August 2003-April 2, 2014.

In the midst of dealing with losing Jaro I got a call that my 102 year old grandma (I call her Ama) was in the hospital with pneumonia and was not responding to antibiotics. My mom rushed out to Portland and I anticipated flying up within a couple of days.

Ama.

Amazingly, by the time my mom had got to Portland her fever had begun to go down and she perked up. The doctors called her a miracle and she was released from the hospital yesterday. It will still take some time to recover due to her age but my mother said "she is being bossy" so that definitely means she is feeling much better.

So, back to Oceanside---which seems like a long time ago!

Before Oceanside...Di2 was put on my bike thanks to Davis Wheelworks. A huge upgrade. It was a challenge and their tireless work and help was unbelievable. Truly an amazing shop. Thank you! 

In 2010 I swore this race off forever during the first 10 or so miles of the bike. The race starts early (6:43am), the beginning of the bike is fast (flats and downhills) and the sun is barely up. For me, this equals miserable and extremely challenging. I get cold snorkeling in the caribbean. After freezing in Branson last fall I made a decision to go back to Oceanside to figure out racing in the cold. My plan included putting on arm warmers and wool gloves in transition, having toe warmers and heated insoles for my shoes and taping a Ziploc gallon bag to my chest underneath my race top.

I swam relatively well but frustratingly got popped off Meredith's and Julie's feet around 1000m into the swim. This irritated me a bit but I stayed there longer than usual so I guess that is progress. I was able to see the stand up paddle boarder throughout the swim and made my way to swim finish without any problems. I really tried to run hard to my bike because I knew I was going to lose a bit of time fumbling around putting arm warmers on my wrists and slipping my gloves on. This took even longer because I heard the announcer saying who was getting out of the water and I was thinking "I gotta get the f*&^ out of here!!!" Note to self...focus on what you are doing and NOT the announcer.

Photo Credit: Nils Nilsen

 I jumped on my bike and promptly got passed by Heather (x2) and Rachel McBride. They were riding pretty fast. I tried to keep them in sight as long as I could but made sure to ease back on the throttle since the tough part of the ride comes once we get into Camp Pendleton.

Photo Credit: Tim Carlson for Slowtwitch

However, I still overdid the first part of the bike a bit. By the time I got to the climbs on the back half of the course I was starting to get a little annoyed at my power meter. The numbers were trending down slightly. I just kept making it hurt and paid attention to my hydration and nutrition. The one thing that annoyed me were the bottles from the aide stations...why did they not have sport tops? Did anyone else notice this? I was riding with an open bottle in my cage. I stayed warm throughout the ride and only peeled off my gloves at mile 50. I also ripped the plastic bag out at the last aide station.

Photo Credit: Dave Easa

The run was okay. I felt pretty crappy for about 5 miles and then rallied and felt a little better.

On twitter...@ENCkb. Thank you!

I finished in 4:35...a 19 minute improvement from 2010. It was definitely a solid start to the year. Next up is Wildflower. A bit different with the swim-run-bike-run format but it should be a good time like always.