Trigirl, are you saying they walked in through the waves? I don't know what "beached" means.

They swam directly to the beach, got out of the water, and ran 600 meters through the swim exit balloon. There were a mass number of triathletes that did this.

Hate to break it to you, but that is 2 to 3ft shore break. If you want a consensus on that, just wait for all the surfers here to chime in. I know it seems like 10ft to some people out there with their heads bobbing inside, but that was a really easy out as far as surf goes. Most the good guys didnt even have to go under one wave, one if you got unlucky with your timing. Then it is clear sailing from that first 20 yards or so. Those swells outside never even broke, they just rolled into the shore break..

Here is what 5 to 8ft surf looks like, just so you know;

https://youtu.be/m07ikhTtKmc

I watched the whole video, did you watch mine??

Now I'm not a psychologist but I'm pretty sure experiencing something in person means your memory of it is likely exaggerated from the truth. In no way am I, or Monty, saying that the conditions were not difficult or that the waves weren't significant. He is simply saying that that video shows the waves were not actually 5-7 foot waves. And he provides some evidence to back it up. The whole getting sucked under is a completely different point that wasn't brought up before and Monty wasn't addressing. He wasn't being disparaging he was just being realistic about the size of the waves.

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Benjamin Deal - Professional - Instagram - TriRig - Lodi Cyclery
Deals on Wheels - Results, schedule, videos, sponsors

The word Triathlon is Greek. Tri as in tria meaning 3 and athlon as in athleticos which is athletics. Tri-athlon.

There you go!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cV4X9fE23B8


I'm not trying to diminish your race, or your experience. My comments are solely on the surf that I see in this entire video. That's all...

Who do I need to quote to make you believe? //

Kelly Slater... (-;

In what world is a non-expert (meteorologist/oceanographer) memory of something that happened almost 5 months ago a better source of information than a video of the event? YOU provided us with empirical evidence of what the water looked like throughout the course of the day.

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Benjamin Deal - Professional - Instagram - TriRig - Lodi Cyclery
Deals on Wheels - Results, schedule, videos, sponsors

Chiming in here just to say, you did provide the proof and those waves are not 10 feet. Sorry. I'm not a hater, don't really care, and trust me I know things look bigger from the water line, but they were three feet at most (typically measured from the back, which is where some confusion may be coming in). So asking people to believe your words, or even what the RD said, over video we can see with our eyes, well.... And I understand, I've seen video of conditions I've been in that I thought were a bit rough, and the video just doesn't typically portray it well.

I can see how, the way they are breaking, that they would suck you back into the surf zone, but the surf zone is really small in the video. Having to get past one cresting wave is not much of an issue for a typical surf entry.

I will say that looks like the wind chop made that swim way more difficult than any surf and that would have made it a very tiring swim. At least with most morning California races, you get through the surf there's typically glass outside.

But, at the end of the day, what do you really care? You had your experience, you reported it, people disagree, so what? Doesn't take away from your finish.

Everyone just needs to move on with their lives here..... Life's way too short to argue on the internet with strangers about stupid shit (said as much, or more, for my own benefit than any of y'all)

So I'm not getting in to the rest of it, but you have mentioned this 3 times and I still do not understand. Do you mean that 500-600 meters from shore the water was shallow enough to stand and run in, and some people did that but you chose to swim?

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

Totally understand when there are people being this aggressive towards others who responded with no animosity of their own. I'll sign off this thread.

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Benjamin Deal - Professional - Instagram - TriRig - Lodi Cyclery
Deals on Wheels - Results, schedule, videos, sponsors

Well I have to say I’ve read that a couple times and have no clue what it has to do with wave heights.

What I can say is that Monty is one of rev note accomplished ocean swimmers on this entire forum

I don't know if I understand it correctly, but it is my impression, by the way trigirl tells it, that some of the swimmers chose to swim directly to shore (i.e instead of continuing straight in the water, they turned something like 45-90 degrees to the side) and ran the last part along the coastline.

Hard to follow the thread when half of the posts are removed.

So there are tons of cameras and drones filming and this is the best footage of 10 foot waves? I can see how this might look intimidating to some people, but still looks like fun to me!

Ed, all of those swimmers who headed for the beach chose to swim a good 100-200 meters straight to the shoreline instead of rounding the last turn buoy and swimming at a diagonal back to the finish. It was a deliberate act of leaving the course to get out of the water and run in the rest on the beach. They were out of the water completely. I saw a lot of this while swimming but I didn't realize a large percentage of athletes did this until later. I attached a picture and I marked what they did on the course. As you can see I may have underestimated the distance they did not swim - it may be closer to 700-800m.

To answer your other question - there actually wasn't much sand/land under shallow water - it dropped off quickly into rocks and deep water. This is why a lot of people got sucked under once the wave hit at the end of the shoreline. There wasn't much land to stand on after a few feet within the water. <edited>

Based on what you experienced, I’m guessing they won’t make that mistake twice if water conditions are similar in 2020.

I've seen people nearly drown in knee-deep water. Gulf of Biskaje in France. People getting knocked down and tumbled around by waves, only being able to get up when the water was low enough after waves retreating, only being knocked down by the next wave again. When you get tumbled over by a wave, and panick, you have no good recollection of what is actually happening to you and your surroundings. Can be very frightening!

But again, I would be super annoyed if the swim was cancelled under such circumstances, looks like fun to me. I would be annoyed with people walking a whole stretch of the course though.

I live 40' away from the venue and was on the beach on race morning (spectating). Granted water seems alot calmer from outside but I swim just up the coast on a bi-weekly basis and whilst the water was rough for someone who swims in a pool it wasn't dangerous.

Are those pretty standard conditions for the water in April? Just trying to make sure I train appropriately.