Sentinel Olympic

... or the race that almost wasn't. I signed up for the Sentinel tri in Santa Cruz a couple of months ago based on a suggestion from a friend. There were 6 of us planning to do this race and 5 dropped out. Oh well, a fun training day anyways.

Got up at 4 am so I could get some coffee in me and see my way to "clear". Loaded the Pilot then took off for over the hill at about 5. The transition didn't open until 6 am so I was there with plenty of time and even got a great parking spot.

For this race the bike racks are first come first serve. I got a nice one next to a tree so I had some extra space. Sentinel isn't big on the TNT radar for some reason. Saw a few folks from Kain I knew and also from Sheeper. Saw only 2 other TNT folks.

My wave went off at 8:20 for the swim. Made it down to the beach for a quick dip to get used to the cold. The water wasn't too bad. I wanted to be under 30 minutes for the swim and was surprised when I saw my watch when I reached the beach again - 28:30. T1 is up the hill across from the hotel so after a nice swim we had to make our way up the hill to get on the bike.

I thought it might be cold on the bike so I was prepared with arm warmers and a vest. Didn't need either. Even left off my gloves and skull cap. A really nice day for a tri.

I wanted to push myself a bit on the bike and was suprised again to see my overall speed was 20 mph. I did the bike in 1:12. The ride to Davenport and back is really fun - lots of up and down rollers that aren't too taxing.

Made it back into transition and thought I could hold an 8:30 pace for the 10k. Didn't quite work out that way - I think I was closer to a 9 minute pace. Might have made the 8:30 pace if it wasn't for that little trip into the woods at the turnaround. But the legs felt good once I got into a nice pace and best of all - no knee problems. And I was grateful Morty decided to sleep in today.

I think I did the run in around 57 minutes.

Overall, according to my watch - I did a 2:46. I was hoping to be around 2:45 but more on the under side of it. Maybe I'll get lucky when I see the official results.

Update - I wasn't lucky - official race results have me at 2:48 - rats.