Encinitas - The Race That Wasn't

May 20, 2007

A day that will go down in infamy....for me at least.

The Encinitas Triathlon is fairly new in town, only 2 years running (however I think it was re-incarnated from a race held years ago). I didn't have a chance to do it last year as I was competing in a half ironman down in Baja that weekend, so I was chompin' at the bit to do it this year. The race was a 750 m swim, a 20k bike, and a 5 k run. Pretty easy distances. Another exciting thing about this race is that my boyfriend Pat's wave was to start 4 minutes after mine, which makes for an "almost" equalizer. He would've probably passed me and kicked my butt early in the run.

Anyway, back to the race....

Swim

This is where it starts and ends. The swim was a square course from the beach: head out from the beach to the first buoy, turn right and head north, turn right and head back to the beach. My wave was the third to go, after the Pros and the 24 and under men. The pros started 10 minutes or so before my wave. We could tell right away, even from the race's top swimmers, that the swim was not going to be easy. Big waves, big current. Before the 2nd wave went off, Greg Welch and Paula Newby-Fraser were telling us to aim north as the current was pulling south.

Well, my wave and I headed north. I guess just not far enough north. After 7 minutes, I was only half-way to the first buoy and in the thick of the waves and the current. A large wave came and took about 10 of us 50 m towards shore, and the current carried us about 100 m south of the buoy. Oh, this was going to be fun. Some people were calling it quits at this point. I found another woman in my wave and said, "Let's Do This!" That lasted about 30 seconds before I realized that I was never going to be able to swim against the current. I headed back to shore, and then ran north along the beach with a couple others from my wave to re-enter the swim course again. At this point, more than 10 minutes had passed. I decided to go for it again. Unfortunately, when I got out there, it was more of the same, and my body was already exhausted from fighting the waves before. I did what I never thought I would do. I called it quits, my first DNF. :( I decided to hop on my bike because I still wanted to get a workout in. I did the 12 mile race course and then headed back to the race finish to watch Pat finish (he had a great race and a stellar run by the way, even after the tough swim).

So, lessons learned.

1. I need to take some open water swim lessons and learn how to handle large surf.
2. A DNF is not the end of the world. Yes, I was sad not to finish, but I knew I gave it my all. An experience like this just makes me more determined to kick that race's ass next year.

Here are some pictures that a friend took on race day...