x2

That looks like fun!

Yes. I saw at least one pack...it was about 6 dudes, ~3 or so of them were on P5's and one was on a P5X. It felt like they were part of a very elite gang of Cervelo biker bullies mowing down everything in their path. I wanted to pull a Mario Kart and throw some banana peels in front of them but they were gone too fast.

I was also passed by a very strong rider on a red Andean. He wasn't drafting just fast AF.

Funny I thought the 4 loops would suck, but it was fine. Even broke the race up nicely.
On the run though, you knew exactly how much suck was still ahead.

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2017 Cervelo P2
2017 Cervelo S2
itraininla.com
#itraininla

I just looked up the number of finishes. I didn’t realize it was well under 1000 that helps a ton.

Congrats on getting through the swim and finishing the race. Likewise to everyone else who posted.

Especially good on you for learning some new skills and then putting them to the test on race day. I think a few with your situation wouldn't have done so. Who ever said we should never try anything new in a race!?

The trick to getting through the surf is to swim out with the rip tide. If there's that much water washing in, there's always a rip taking water back out.

Race organisers who are experienced with ocean swims will set up the start in the proximity of a rip, although it's not unusual to see many competitors not recognise the rip and unnecessarily make their swim more difficult.

With a little practice it's fairly simple to identify the rip. A section with slightly flatter water or a difference in water color are often giveaways. A rip often runs adjacent to a headland or groyne, although they will also be present mid-beach. Watching how the swimmers fare in the preceding starting waves can also be instructive.

I'm from Australia and we've also long seen triathlons with challenging ocean swims all but disappear off the calendar. Ironically, the ocean swimming scene is stronger than ever with an abundance of events over the summer in the eastern states.

Best support your Superfrog, lest the species becomes extinct.

I didn't see a fast pack drafting. I saw a few slower riders drafting, but it's always hard to tell if they are slowly working on a pass ( like the jerk on the freeway that moves over to go 56mph while passing a truck doing 55mph).

I also saw the red Andean guy. I snuck pictures of his bike because I've been thinking about getting one. On the bike course, he was about 1.5 to 2 miles ahead of me for laps 2-4, that I noticed. I was hoping to catch him so I could inform him we were racing for pink slips and take his bike. Lucky for him, he was pretty strong.

I did watch a few videos on how to spot rip tides (a co-worker suggested that). I also tried to spend some time on Saturday (day before the race) spotting where the rip tide would be. I couldn't see anywhere the wave was more flat or the water was slightly darker. You mentioned Australia and I think the video was made by an Aussie, which is quite ironic to me.

I also tried asking some fellow athletes in transition and on the beach if they happened to see where the rip tide was, but nobody offered me an answer.

Jerks.

There may have been a rip close to the pier, but if there was, I sure couldn't find it, and I looked hard. There was definitely a rip where a number of athletes were trying to come back in to the beach. I think I must have been just off to the side of it, because, while I did have to fight like crazy to get back onto the sand once I'd almost made my way back in, some people ended up in a washing machine, where they got pummeled by waves, came up for air, were unable to make forward progress toward the sand because they were in a rip, and got pummeled again. I spoke with one woman after the race who was in a group of about a half dozen people who found themselves in that position. At some point, one of them realized what was going on and swam parallel to the shore to get out of it, the others followed, and they finally made it in, but they got hammered several times before figuring out what was going on..

My "aha" moment occurred when I finally realized the waves were coming in very short two-wave sets. There'd be two waves very close together, one right after the other, then a lull, then another two waves close together. It took me a few times of diving under the first wave and coming up for air, only to immediately get slammed in the face by the second wave, to realize I had to stay down longer so both waves would pass over me. Even once I recognized that, though, I still spent a lot of time on my first loop making forward progress, only to be thrown backwards.

I know it's easy for some on the forum (monty) who live close to the beach and get a lot of opportunities to practice in lots of different surf conditions to make fun of us folk who spend 95% of our OW swim time in lakes and rivers, but if they're being honest and recalling their first few experiences as clueless ocean swimmers trying to fight their way through the surf, they will appreciate how hard that swim was for those of us without a lot of surf experience. This wasn't Santa Cruz, where you get past a single breaker and you're swimming free and clear. This was a line of four waves, each larger than the one preceding it, coming at us again and again and again. I signed up for the race wanting to see if I could do a Superfrog in "normal" conditions (not the pristine conditions we had last year), so no complaints. But, holy cow, that swim exhausted me. I think that was probably the biggest difference -- those who were comfortable in the surf came out fresh, while those of us who fought our way through the swim came out having burned a LOT of matches.

Yep, I got passed by two pacelines on my first loop out. Flat out pacelines by 3 or 4 guys going 24+. Called them on it, didn't matter. Should've jumped on apparently...

Your swim summary was spot on. My advice? Just keep going. People were taking waves to the chest and then getting exasperated when they got pushed backwards. And yeah, the swim exit was rough... best tactic was to just walk until you could get your feet out of the water rather than wasting energy trying to fight it. Good stuff, I had fun and had a pretty good swim to boot.