I completed my first triathlon, the Solana Beach Triathlon, 4 months ago. With that under my belt, the raving reviews about the Mission Bay Triathlon, the proximity of the race date, the motivation to keep working out, and a coupon code, I signed up for the race. Solana Beach was in July and Mission Bay was the first week in October. That gave me about 2 months to train for this next race. Everyone was talking about how great the swim was for Mission Bay, it was point-to-point, and with the current. It was supposed to be easy! But then…they ended up changing the swim course! No more point-to-point. So with the slight high of finishing the last triathlon and hopes of improving in the next, I went for it.

Training

I trained less for Mission Bay than for Solana Beach. This was due to lack of motivation, partly because I knew that I could actually complete one unlike the first time, partly due to a few weeks of hiatus due to health stuff and travel for work and for pleasure.

Swimming

I had continued swimming weekly after Solana Beach. It felt weird not to and open water swimming had turned out to be not so bad. Haha. I joined the tri club a few times and ended up swimming more than I thought I could was physically able to at each session. I mostly swam open water and think I only hit the pool a couple times. That made me realize how much I was relying on the wetsuit to float me. It was much tiring swimming in the pool because I had to kick! It’s also hard to swim for longer because you keep hitting walls in the pool. I was also fortunate enough to have someone to swim open water with each week otherwise I probably wouldn’t have gone!

Cycling

I biked about once a week. Most of these rides were more leisurely but I was able to push myself harder in several other cycling sessions. I really worked on riding in a harder gear to build up strength and speed. Those sessions really made me sore for several days haha. For Solana Beach, I only rode with the small front gear and I didn’t experiment with the larger one until training for this one which helped quite a bit.

Running

Running was one of the areas I should have really worked on. Unfortunately though, running has lost its appeal to me. I went from hating running to liking running to loving running to not running and now to not liking running and struggling to run. And this made it hard. I wasn’t motivated. It was hard to run because I couldn’t run like before and running felt very difficult plus I used to run with Crystal or other people before which was more enjoyable even if I was slow. Running by yourself while struggling makes it even less motivating. Not to mention the onset of more shin splints, occasional knee pain, and my hip flexor really bothering me for several weeks didn’t help.

For Solana Beach, I tried to run at least twice a week. For Mission Bay, I only made it out about once a week. Often times I didn’t even make it 3 miles. In fact, I couldn’t even run 3 miles without stopping prior to the race. My last run before the race, I went 3 miles but still walked a tiny bit. It was rough. I can’t even really fathom how I used to run 3-5 miles all the time, how I got addicted to it and really needed to run or else I would feel this itch to run or that I even ran a half marathon at a pace faster than I can run 1 mile now. My current running pace is a bit over 11 minutes a mile. Running at 10:30 is hardly sustainable for more than ¼ mile. I used to run in the low 9s. My how times have changed.

Overall

I traveled about 100 miles in 19 and a half hours through my training. You can also throw in a few extra workouts via weight training, circuit training, basketball, and football.

Pre-Race Thoughts

My goal was to beat my time at Solana Beach which 1:27:26.5. However, I had forgotten that Mission Bay was actually slightly longer until I talked to Tam the day before. So I adjusted my goal to beat 1:30 and would be extra excited if I beat my Solana Beach time. I figured based on my training that I would really improve on the bike but that the swim and run would be a wash because the swim was longer and I am just terrible at running now.

Race Day

I tried to get to bed at around 8:45pm the night before with my 3:45am alarm but I didn’t really fall asleep until 10pm. I also woke up before my alarm and was up around 3:15am. One of the first things I did was eat a banana and a granola bar so I could have some energy for the race and also enough time to make sure it was agreeable with my stomach or rather enough time in case it wasn’t agreeable with my stomach. Haha. I packed up everything and headed over to Lin’s where we were going to carpool with 4 others. It was nice that his friend James had a truck that would fit all 5 of us and 4 bikes! James wasn’t racing but his 13 year old son was!

We got there and parked on the Ventura Cove side to walk across in order to make sure we wouldn’t get stuck trying to exit after the race. We arrived around 5:15am. I thought transition wasn’t going to open until 5:45am but it was open already! So we went in to find our spots. I was a bit confused as to which racks were for wave 10. Some were clearly marked but others weren’t. I wanted to be on this one rack I saw and asked the lady if it was wave 10 and she said yes. I set up everything and realized that they marked the floor in chalk at the end of the racks and it wasn’t wave 10! So I had to move but that ended up being even better because I ended up with an end spot! The transition area was large and the swim in, bike out/in, and run out were all on different ends. My rack spot actually worked out pretty well because it was right in the middle.

Got an end spot at T1

I got everything set up and met up with the rest of the crew to get body marked. Bumped into Tam and Joel but never saw Kim and Cathy. Used the restroom and then tried to scope out the swim buoys but it was still too dark to see them. Went back in and just hung around and saw some ACTIVE folks and chatted with them. Saw Annette, Paul, and Jasen and chatted with them briefly. Made another restroom stop lol ( I get nervous) and finally was able to check out the swim. It looked almost moon shaped instead of like a box and the distance to the first buoy looked really far away. Yikes! Went back in for a final check-up and to put on our wetsuits. Transition was closing at 6:45am so we had to get out. Thai almost didn’t even make it! He got in at like 6:30am. Lucky.

We started making our way over to the water. The grass was freaking freezing!! It was warmer to be in the water. I went in and warmed up a little bit as the race kicked off. The water was nice and warm. Not long after, we saw Tam go off which meant that Lin, Thai, and Dean were two waves after, and I was another two after.

pc: tash

As our wave came up, I lingered towards the back and inside of the pack. I saw Heather which was nice because she’s always so cheery and encouraging! I contemplated getting a swim buddy but I figured I would be ok as long as the next wave didn’t catch me. Next thing you know, off we go! It was actually kind of nice that the tide was high so we could just swim right away instead of having to run in waist deep water or do that dolphin diving which I didn’t practice. I just swam and swam and stopped a few times to sight. It was easier to sight this time than last time for some reason. Maybe cause this wasn’t in the ocean. I also got to the first buoy pretty quickly in the sense that it didn’t feel like it took FOREVER like it did at Solana Beach. I made the turn and kept swimming. This girl was backstroking next to me and was going faster than me and I contemplated on whether I should be backstroking haha. But no, I didn’t want to resort to backstroking. Soon enough, I made it to the buoy where everyone was turning. However, I was a bit confused because it seemed like it came too soon and I thought we had another buoy to swim to before the turn. But I just followed suit and swam back to shore! The swim wasn’t bad at all! 😛

out of the swim! [pc: paul]

Running into T1. I have no recollection of running on grass to get there. [pc: anet]

The bike was where I was going to push harder for time. At Solana Beach I wasn’t as comfortable pushing on the bike and I didn’t really. There was really only one “hill” over the bridge in the beginning and at the end. There was one tight turn where we had to slow down a lot. A lot of cyclists still don’t really know to ride to the right unless you’re passing. This resulted in a lot of people yelling LEFT LEFT very frantically and annoyingly. The ride to get to Fiesta Island felt longer than I thought it was going to be. I guess maybe I thought it was going to be closer. I tried to pass people on the bike and I got passed quite a bit as well. I also didn’t know we weren’t riding around ALL of fiesta island. We basically didn’t ride in the bottom half of it. Right was I was cutting through the middle portion of fiesta island, I heard an ON YOUR LEFT and then a Go Sylvia! Haha. It was Christy blazing by on the bike. She was on a relay team! Fiesta Island was pretty quick after that and I headed back to T2. The ride over the hill this time coming around was more difficult since I think my legs were a bit tired. I got into T2 and threw up the bike, took off my helmet, took a sip of water, grabbed my race belt and started running out of T2. Then I remembered I didn’t want to run with my sunglasses so I ran back to my spot and took them off. Lol. I didn’t want to run with a hat or sunglasses this time because sweat always drips into my eyes and I can’t wipe it when I have a hat on or sunglasses! I’d have to take off the sunglasses which is annoying and then move the hat over a bit. It’d be better without.

End of Bike. Entering T2. [pc: anet]

finish line! [pc: paul]

We hung around a bit and snapped some photos and then went home. I was pretty happy that I beat my old time in a longer race. I’m thankful for the friends who woke up so early to come cheer for us and take pictures. I’m thankful that I can run again even though it’s been slow and difficult. This is a long way from doing no physical activity and being in pain all the time. I’m thankful that my ankle hasn’t popped out!!! I’m also thankful for all the friends I know that do triathlons and for all their tips and encouragement. Doing a triathlon isn’t easy but it feels very rewarding to accomplish one!

just finished face. [pc: tash]