Day One – Nautica Olympic

Day One – Olympic
Perfect morning. Overcast – no wind, about 70 degrees at 5 am or at least it felt like that.

Barry and Bob arrived about 5 minutes after we did so we were all able to walk in together – ah the magic of finding each other in the dark!

Transition was easy and we saw a bunch of other PTCers (Pasadena Tri Club) which was way cool. Transition closed at 6:30AM sharp and they are pretty definite about the area being closed. The national anthem was sung by our own fellow PTCer Kristin - what a voice ! That was a treat to start off the race.

The waves last year were a non-issue. This year they were not that at all! In fact the waves going out were big and the swim was rough once you out there.

As an aside---I had an ocean swim in Manhattan Beach the week before that was so bad I had to have a surfer help me in – it was not a good day for me – followed by an equally disastrous 2 hour run.. The swim did raise my level of confront and ability to deal with the ocean to new heights however – so when I saw the waves in Malibu – it really did not even phase me – that was nice!

Got done with the swim – into transition - got on the bike and I felt like I was on fire. I have never been in a race where I felt that strong and ready to roll. The bike was a lot of passing people and moving on down the line!

Off the bike and onto the run. My legs did not hurt or need any time to adjust to getting on the run. The 6 miles just moved along.

I will have to say that I have been training with Steve Mackel once a week for about 4 months – what a difference that has made for me. I have never got off my bike and just rolled through a 6 mi run and ended up with a 9:14 pace – just does not happen! THANKS Steve!!!!!!

Time – 3:00:57 Swim - 38:38 Bike - 1:18:14 Run - 57:05
Second in Age Group!

Piper and I meet up – went back to the hotel – trying to have a total rest day for the remainder of the day............went to dinner – at 3:45 at a great Italian Restaurant across the street – we drove the car across the street – hey – we were trying to rest!! Got up from dinner after 2 hours and could barely walk out of the restaurant. The waiters knew we were racing the next day and had some concerns about our fitness...........silly men!!!

They had also had people in the restaurant from all over, including Australia for the race – they asked where we were from..............they were not too impressed when we said – Glendale California!!!