Santa Cruz Olympic Triathlon

I was itching to do one last race before the season ended. Santa Cruz Olympic Tri is a fun local race that I have done two times before, so thought it'd be a good benchmark to see how much I have improved. Here are the past results at the same race:

Year  1.5K Swim  T1        40K Bike  T2        10K Run   Total

2010  00:25:03   00:02:52  01:12:15  00:01:01  00:44:08  02:25:19

2012  00:24:52   00:04:40  01:16:14  00:01:56  00:42:15  02:29:57

2013  00:24:00   00:04:30  01:07:19  00:01:30  00:38:34  02:15:36

I woke up at 4:30 AM, had tea and biscuits, and a banana. Drove to Santa Cruz and reached transition at 6:45. It wasn't too cold and weather was perfect for racing with clear skies and absolutely no fog over the ocean. After setting up transition, I walked a quarter mile to the swim start on the beach. Water was cold, but not as bad as last year.

Swim

I lined up in the middle of the wave after a quick warmup. I am really bad at doing the running start, so I waded through the waves until the water was deep enough. Swim went smoothly. I started steady and picked up after turning around the wharf. Luckily didn't end up riding a wave and eating sand like last time.

T1

It was a long run from swim exit to transition with frozen feet. That hurt! Could have cut down a minute here easily.

Bike

Course is mostly flat with small hills. Pushed tempo all the way, with threshold on hills. The course was half a mile short, but I was pleasantly surprised to see my time. This was my fastest bike split for an Oly.

T2

Nothing out of the ordinary here. In and out quickly, but still not as quickly as I'd like.

Run

Felt pretty good all the way. Tried to stay between 6 and 6:20 pace most of the time and pushed 5:30 pace at the end. Came pretty close to a 10K PR, but missed by 30 seconds or so. Regardless, definitely a huge run PR for Oly.

02:15:36 is a huge Olympic distance PR for me. I shaved 13 minutes off of my previous best at Santa Cruz Oly, and 7 minutes off of my Oly PR. Ended up 3rd in my AG. What!!!!!!!!!

Overall a great end of season race for me, and my first ever podium. Granted I lucked out a bit because the competition for M30-34 was not as fierce as other age groups, but hey, podium finish is what it is... a podium finish! I will take it!