Are you serious??

Today was a day I was excited about...it was the first race event held by the local Tri Club San Diego (TCSD) and it was a time I wanted to watch and observe the fitness level of others and get some race practice for what it feels like during the different stages.

Well I certainly learnt a lot, but about different things than I expected....
We arrived at 7:45am already thinking we were behind schedule for an 8am start. But I was mentally preparing myself in the car for a quick set up and go.
As we drove into the parking lot we saw all these runners.....were they staging the start? Starting early? It didn't make sense...
Turns out the race time had changed and became 7:30am! There were emails sent out (checked I didn't get them) and it was on the Yahoo Updates (I scanned the past 2 days but didn't see a mention). Did see a reference from our training group that had 7:30am so shame on me. Lesson Learned! Don't trust a website AND get there early for these type of mishaps.

We joined the race in the middle for the bike-run only and not the full run-bike-run duathlon....I let it go in my mind and laughed it off, and was thankful that this lesson was learnt in essentially a training race.

Off on the bike I went, I was the first of the 5 of us to pass the stage here. I knew I'd have a few pass me up, but all of the guys did which made me feel a little depressed....much room for improvement here. Nigel was only just ahead of which made me feel ok until he said he had to stop and fix his chain that had fallen off. Oh man....more room for improvement for me!

Transition was fine and quick (likely under 1 minute) and off on the run. Set my watch to run to. Was tired from too much stress at work in past 2 weeks which just meant I was not emotionally able to get into gear. Plus have to add SOME factor from not starting the race with the club.

Set my watch to run to and aimed to get a negative split from mile 1 to mile 2. I thought I did until I just saw the details from my watch that meant I didn't. But my running has improved to be under a 10 minute mile...some hope here for me yet. I was still last to the group by far, but I'll just choose to be happy about the run split today.

Our group finished off the post-race with another bike ride of 18 miles to get our "long ride" in for the day making the total 30 miles of bike and 2 miles of running. The second bike ride was not a tempo ride, just pedalling. My lethargy (as already mentioned) carried through meaning I dragged the group today. Another day to look forward to where I can lead the pack....

More photos coming...but this is the race map for Otay Lakes. The highlighted route is the bike ride of 12 miles. The run was 2 miles on a direct path from the start along the lake.