Jeff,

I raced it. Here are some notes...

• organization was top notch, lots of volunteers and USAT officials on course, everybody was competent and hitting on all cylinders.
• Swim was rather tough. There were holes in the shallows, an inside break (small, soft), and then ~60m later an outside break that had some more power to it. The big issue was the side-shore current was ripping like a river. This raced used the streaming start approach and excellent RD Bill Burke was sending 6 athletes off every 5 seconds (at least at the beginning) and they put 3 cones ~100m up the beach and pretty much demanded that everyone run up there before entering so they didn't get swept past the first buoy. There was a little bump on the ocean but once outside the surf line it wasn't too bad. Water was chilly but not terrible. Because of the side shore current the exit was tough too.
• Transition was.....up scale: wheel slot racks with metal sign posts behind. At reg they gave you a foam core board to slide in there with your name and number on it. My first reaction was "this has an elite feel to it", my second reaction was "I'd rather have a cheaper entry fee and no name plate" and in retrospect I like the sense of community it created around each athlete during set up as you could see the names of fellow racers. The T1 run was rather long - and that's okay.
• Bike was super flat, on smooth pavement all along the beach front of PCH. Very safe too, the only dangers were timing mats in the apex of the u-turns (2 for sprint, 4 for oly) and the throngs of surfers running across the road with their boards but they were all pretty attentive.
• Run was flat, Oly had 1/2 mile of soft sand after the turnaround
• Overall it's a great race. IMG puts on a good show. It was small. There was space for 3 times as many athletes to occupy transition. This was year one so perhaps it'll grow. There's always a little extra essence when qualification entry is dangled and here, if you won your age group, not only did you get a slot to Alcatraz but you got it for free - and Alcatraz is what? $700 now, so yeah that was nice! I didn't have to worry myself about that. I just aged up to 50 and with Robert Skaggs going 2 hours flat for the win and the always fast Michael Collins in my AG was very pleased with 4th.

Ian

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Ian Murray
http://www.TriathlonTrainingSeries.com
I like the pursuit of mastery
Twitter - @TriCoachIan

Agree with everything Ian posted. A few notes to add -

- Loved having the two lane closed bike course - made for a great course - easy for refs to monitor, easy to lap slower/novice athletes, and no worries about cars or intersections
- Surf swim was a big learning curve for a rookie ocean swimmer
- Disappointed they configured transition non-neutral - bike out, bike in, and run out were all at the same end meaning anyone not in the first row was at a disadvantage comparatively. I thought non-neutral transitions were a local race director mistake and I was surprised to see it here given how well absolutely everything else was organized. Super easy fix to send the run "around" transition.

Hope to see this race and series grow. I'll be racing Alcatraz in June. Couldn't pass up the slot from Philadelphia last spring. I raced it in 2013 (held in March) and I'm looking forward to another go at it.

50-54 sucks. LOL we have a little sprint in Redondo Beach that Collins always smokes everyone by far. Couple years ago my first race there in that AG I was 5th or 6th and would have won or been on the podium of every other AG

Damn, you are OLD.


Hahahahahahaha

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Jim Vance
http://TodaysPlan.com.au (Disclosure: I am contracted with Today's Plan)
http://www.CoachVance.com/
Twitter @jimvance

Ian,

I appreciate your taking the time to put together great description. That's exactly what I was looking for. I live about 20 minutes from the race site, and ride that section of PCH nearly every week. I was looking forward to doing the race, but had other commitments over the weekend and just wasn't able to. Maybe next year.....