I had planned to do a 2 mile swim this weekend, but the scheduled event was in Ukiah and I didn't feel like driving 2+ hours to get to the event.  I looked on the internet and found that th Golden Gate Triathlon was being held Sunday morning.  The event promoter TriFreak puts on great races in some beautiful venues, so I thought about it for part of the day and decided at 2 pm on Saturday to go into the city and register for the event.

Registration was at Sports Basement in the Presidio.  Paula and I drove in with the dogs so that we could go to the beach after registration.  It was in the 80's in San Francsico and the Crissy Field beach is open for dogs and people.  Lots of both on this warm sunny afternoon, with the Golden Gate Bridge as a backdrop.  I love living in this metropolitan area.  We have the best of everything.

Upon arriving at the registration I also saw that RockTape was there taping up people.  Chris, the RockTape guy fixed me up since my Kinesio Tape from last week had finally come off.  RockTape helps with fatigue, circulation and promotes fast recovery.  Amazing stuff.

I got all registered and the dogs got to frollick in the surf for a while and then back home to rest before my event.

http://www.trifreak.com/

Tough day out on the course.  windy, rainy, cold.  Didn't bring or wear the correct clothing.  My sixth Ironman and I was due for a really challenging day.  My Garmin indicated that we had to climb 8000 ft.,  that is not published anywhere in the race literature.  2 loop swim, 2 loop bike and 2 loop run.  Good and bad.  The good - You know what to expect the 2nd time around, The Bad - you know what is coming.

This is one of the iconic races I had picked to do when I first cooked up the 50 in 50 list.  It is a very difficult race to get into becuae of its popularity.  you either have to race in one of TriCalifornia races the previous year and win your age group and get a slot or enter the lottery.

Last September I competed in the Pacific Grove Olympic Distance Triathlon and won my age group!  So that got me an entry in, but I had to sign up that day after the awards ceremony.  I had driven down to the event with John and Dillion Hollinger and we all had to get home for various reasons.  I figured that i could convince the race promotors to let me in based on the Pac Grove win and also my quest of 50 in 50.  It didn't happen.  But thanks to Reid and Eileen Swanson they were able to secure me a spot in the race.

2 mile swim - race started at approximatley 9:45 - water temp. was 69 and murky.  My wave was 3rd with men over 40 years old.  We had approximatley 100 in our wave.  I did not swim to the front of group like I would for a traithlon.  These swimmers are fast.  When we started I followed a small group of 3 towards the course outline.  The course is marketed by yellow buoys every 200 yards.  When we hit the 2nd marker, my group had already splintered and i latched onto another swimmer and we were off.  the first turn buoy out past an island in the middle of the lake I could see several swimmers making the turn 200-300 yards ahead. That equates to at least 2-3 minutes.  I kept swimmer and hit the rest of the turn buoys really well.  I think I stayed on course.  I could see in some areas where swimmers were 100 yards father out then me, but i ended up ahead of them at the turn buoys because my course was straighter.  At the last turn and the stretch for home I thought it was about 500 yards.  it was more like 1000.  I could feel a swimmer drafting off me as we were coming towards the finish.  With about 200 yards to go, he came around me to my left.  The side i breath too and i could see that he was an old guy like me.  I wasn't going to let him pass me so with about 100 yards to go, I took off.  I dug deep and put some distance on him.  I know when I am really pulling hard becazuse i tend to grunt with each effort.  I got to the finishing shoot and crossed the line only 10 seconds ahead of this guy.  He caught up to me and said that he had followed my the last half of the race because my sighting on the buoys was good.  he also turned out to be 62!  That was impressive.  What a great race!  I ended 3rd place in my age group and 43 overall for men.  Felt really comfortable which is good since I have Ironman in 2 weeks. 

SWIM - 8.18 MILES       BIKE - 426 MILES     RUN - 171 MILES