Great race today at Ventura, CA. 7th annual Dina La Vigna Breath of Life Ventura Triathlon. 850 Triathletes - Full Field. Lake flat conditions on the Ocean swim with beach start, made for an enjoyable swim with lots of room and little jostling. Plus they seemed to put enough room between waves that I was not getting swum over by the leaders from latter waves. 31 min swim felt good.
Beast of a long run through deep wet sand to the T1 made for a bit of a challenge. Borrowed my neighbor Eric’s foot bath as he offered prior to the race and this is one of the first times I felt I really needed this. Luckily I was out of the water before Eric, so I had a clean bath. Never saw him later to thank him so I will do it here. Thanks Eric.
Bike was a two loop square with about a 2 mile lead in leg. Seemed like each arm of the square had a cross or head wind. There was never a tailwind. Avg 20.7 on the bike.
Quick T2 to a run which was on a crowded boardwalk shared with homeless, Sunday walkers, bikers, surfers etc. But it did not slow the effort. Good two loops allowed me to see friends out doing both the sprint and the Olympic distance races.
Finished in 2:30 flat which is a PR for an Oly. Took 4th/34 in my age group (35-39). Hope you can all relate that when I say 3rd place was a full 3 minutes ahead, I felt relieved that I could not have done a bit more and moved up a place. You know what I mean. When you miss by 35 sec, you sort of kick yourself, but 3 min. is a big nut.
Yeah, I did the race today. Had a lot of fun. This was actually my first triathlon so I wasn’t really setting any time goals but like you I was out of the water in 31. The run up the beach was rough. T1 was a disaster 5+ minutes. The bike took me 1:15. I didn’t want to push it. T2 was sub 2 min and I finished the run in about 44. My total was 2:37:45. I think I can improve in a lot of areas, but I had a great time today. The run course wasn’t really very well thought out. They should have closed the boardwalk to cyclists etc.
Seemed like each arm of the square had a cross or head wind. There was never a tailwind.
It certaily felt like that was the case. There may have been a bit of a tail wind after turning north on Harbor from 5th. Either that or it was a slight downhill. I was able to pick up my speed at that point each time.
I did the race yesterday too. I agree, it never felt like we had a tail wind on the bike. The exit out of the water to the transition was brutal. This is my second year doing this race. Overall, a very nice race.
I did the sprint race, and it wasn’t exactly lake flat in the ocean. You might have had a lull, but later on, the first heat of the sprint had about a 4 foot face waves to contend with. The water was cold, about 60 degrees, and both swims were long. Figure the olympic was about 200 to 300 yards long, and the sprint was about 500 yards long. No big deal, if you are a swimmer. So you all can adjust your times accordingly.
The bike was flat, but slow because of all the turns, and the narrow no passing zones. The wind was a bit in the face going out, and a bit side/behind on the way back. Probaly why on the loop it felt like a head wind. I saw quite a bit of drafting in the olympic race, but noticed a page full of penalties on the results board afterwards. I was able to squeeze out the fastest bike split of the day, probably because of my cornering, rather than my blazing speed.
The run was a nice flat out speed burner on the bike path. There would be no way they would close the bike path for runners, and frankly there is no need to. Plenty of room to run where you needed to, and the ocean breeze was a blessing.The sprint run was probably about 1 to 2 tenths of a mile long, and the olympic about 1 tenth.
Great after race bar-b-q and the beer garden was awesome. Nice micro brews, and all comp. Awards ceremony was really weak, I think everyone just wanted it to be over and done with. Have to say though, that it was a bit dicey having both races on the same course at the same time. They appeared to pull it off with just a few casualties though.
Fisrt time there, would rate an average local race, probably get better each year. I got 1st in the age group, and second overall. Got beat by a few seconds by a pimply faced, young 20 something kid. I bet that I’m older than his father though…
I thought the swim course seemed long. I had one of those wtf moments when I looked at my watch while running up the beach after the swim. While my ocean swim times are usually slower than my lake swims, I couldn’t see it justifying that much of a difference.
I agree that the bike course was slowed by the narrow lanes. Even after exiting the park and the no passing zone, there was still a four to five foot wide lane where I had to more careful when passing. The one advantage about the no passing zone was that I could slip into and out of my shoes while on the bike and not have to worry about losing any time, as I was stuck behind another rider anyway.
I did the Olympic and didn’t notice much, if any, drafting until I was on the second loop. Near the end, two riders passed me up at a pretty good clip. I dropped back out of the zone and maintained the distance, watching one blatantly draft off the other for a good mile or so. After the second look, the road got a bit more congested, probably because by that time it was full of both sprint and olympic racers. At that point, there were some larger groups, but I was never in really much of a position to see (or care) how much drafting was going on
I didn’t think the run was that crowded or that the public presented a problem. There were a couple times where I had to weave or consciously pick my line, but that only made it a bit more fun. I had no legs immediately out of T2, and it took me about 2 miles before I began to feel comfortable and could pick up my pace. I guess I need to fit in a few more bricks in my training.
Haven’t seen my official time yet. According to my watch, I crossed in 2:27:??. My watch was at 27:?? somewhere on the beach back to T1. I have no idea how long I was in T1 – I thought I was in and out pretty quickly, but I’ve been surprised in the past with slower transition times. My powertap measured 1:10:?? for the bike, but I don’t know how accurate that is, as I started it at the rack, not the bike exit, and I don’t know when it turned off. I suspect it’s pretty close. T2 seemed pretty quick. Don’t know where my final time ranks for the 40-44 age group. Any idea when the results will be posted on the internet?
I agree about the swim. It seemed long, but hey everyone does the same course. On a side note, I went in the water during the pre-race talk since I was leaving in the first wave and wanted to warm up. After going out there, I was approached by a seal. I am not a big fan of aquatic life interacting with me and this kind of freaked me out. Today, I looked at the pictures of the race on the LA Tri club website and saw one guy was actually attacked (relatively mild) by this seal. I guess we need to be careful out there.
Monty, I am curious as to how do you know the swim and run were long. To me the swim at any race always feels long so when I saw my usual slow time I didn’t even pay attention to it. My only beef with the swim was that we had to swim 600 m straight out into the Pacific with only 1 single buoy to sight off and this one buoy was, you guessed it, 600m out. I was zig-zaging all the way. Water was freaking cold! I hated the long sand run with numb feet. I did this race back in 2002 and there were about 150 competitors so when I saw the field yesterday I was blown away how much it has grown. Last year I did the sprint and the drafting was blatant but that is because it is a very large field for such a short course. This year I didn’t see any drafting in the Olympic race, it still is a very fast course due to being so flat. Overall, I really like this race but i am afraid that it is getting to big for it’s own good. But then again we are in California. I cannot believe that the LA tri club has their own club cars…WTF!
It’s actually quite simple to know the distance of a swim course, and non technical. Just look at the times after the race. A lead fast swimmer, in a wetsuit, should do about 16 to 17:30 for a true 1500 meter swim. I believe the winner in the olympic, and I watched him, he was top notch swimmer, went about 20 flat, or just under. The next guy was minutes back, and the lead pack a couple more minutes back of him. In the sprint race, I should do about 5 minutes for a wetsuit 400 meter swim, faster if I get a wave. This swim took me about 10+ minutes, and I did get a little wave. I believe I had the fastest swim, and I swim pretty straight out in the open water. You’ll find that about 90% of races measure the swim too long, they just don’t know how to measure one, or most likely, leave it to the lifeguards to set the buoys wherever they think they should go the morning of the race. It just never seems to be a priority having accurate courses, especially in the swim portion.
As for the run, once again I look at the times of the fastest guys and gals, and they were all slow, for a completely flat and fast course. The sprint race did the big loop of the 10k run, so I know it was longer even still. We all did the extra .2 mile at the end, when it should only have been .1 for the 5k…
ANd for the record, I don’t really care too much about the odd distance races, as another said, we all do the same course. It’s just nice to know the actual distances, so that we can fairly judge our splits and overall performance. I just like to call a spade, a spade…
That guy who was attacked by the seal was racked next to me. He said it just came up and bit him on the back. He still raced so I guess it wasn’t that bad.
Swim times are a significantly slower this year than last year. Only one guy went sub-20 minutes. Another went in 20:54 and everyone else seemed back around 24 or 25.
That guy who was attacked by the seal was racked next to me. He said it just came up and bit him on the back. He still raced so I guess it wasn’t that bad.
Seal attack? I didn’t even know that was possible. Please explain.
Maybe the seal was just swimming his race trying to get in his groove and the dude was flailing and kept whacking the seal or swimming up the seals back. Seal gets pissed and says, (in sealese) ‘I got somethin for your ass’, and bites him.
I was actually the other guy out there with the guy who was bitten. It was really weird. We went in during the “mandatory” pre-race talk. I went in because I was in the first wave and wanted to get a couple hundred meters in. After getting out past the breaks this seal came up to us. Literally it was about 10 feet away. The other guy kind of laughed and then swam away. I was lik, “I am getting the @$#* out of here,” and headed back to shore. Before i could get back in the seal got about 4 feet away from me. I backed away as did the seal and then he left. When I got back in, I saw the seal had approached the other guy who was now about 50m out. At that point I guess he was bitten on the back. I can’t speak for that event.
This was truly one of the weirdest experiences I could have imagined prior to a race. Needless to say I tried to stay in the middle of a pack during the swim.
Not just the swim times, but the bike and run times are quite a bit slower than last year. Anyone do the race both years and remember the courses?? The olympic bike course is about 5 minutes slower than last year, maybe even a bit more. It cannot be from that pinchy wind that was out there, so they must have made a course change. The run looks to be about a minute or two slower than last year in the olympic. The results have a LOT of DNF’s, it just doesn’t seem possible that that many people dropped out of such a short race. There is also a mystery woman who they now have in first with a 2:11. Most definately a mistake, no splits, or age group. Probably a first timer in the sprint that they put into the olympic. One of the problems of putting both races on the same course, at the same time… I figure that the overall olympic race is 10 minutes or more slower than last year due to a longer course…
I was the guy who got bitten by the seal while warming up. I posted a full account of the incident in another thread (so as not to dilute the actual value of the Breath of LIfe race reports!!!) here on Slowtwitch. Even included a picture of my back with the bite marks. Might wanna check it out :^)
Did the race this past Sunday. My time this year was a few minutes longer than last year, so either the course was longer, or I’m not in as good a shape - I’d bet on the latter :<)
I swallowed some water on the swim (as usual) and I’ve had an upset stomach ever sense - wondering if it’s the red tide (I’ve also had an overwhelming urge to bite someone the last few days - I guess I know how that Seal feels).