James, me, and George in the transition area before the event:
Race morning was crisp, yet beautiful. Since the swim started by heading east, the overcast skies eliminated the possibility of having the sun in my eyes when trying to site buoys. The first wave of swimmers was the red caps and went off at 7:00 AM. The second wave was green and went off at 7:03AM. I was wearing a white cap and was in wave three that started at 7:06AM. The announced water temp was a very comfortable 65 degrees. While this may be a bit chilly for splashing and playing around, it’s perfect for long distance swims. I still wore my wetsuit, but only because it was a wetsuit legal swim and it would be to my disadvantage NOT to wear it. Essentially, it makes swimming “easier” by keeping you buoyant in the water. When the starter yelled, “GO!” (He didn’t have a gun, horn, or bull horn) I took off at a full sprint. The idea is to get distance between me and everybody else in my wave so I’m not bumping into anybody or dealing with the group. Once free, I started into my rhythm and 1.2 mile “pace.” After settling in, I sensed something to my right, so I took a breath on that side to see what was up. To my surprise, there was another white cap matching me stroke for stroke! I immediately thought to myself, “Oh, it’s on now, chump!” and gave it some more effort. A hundred yards later, and he was STILL with me. At this point, I knew he was a solid swimmer and made the tactical decision to let up, get behind him, and draft. Let him do the work of sighting the buoys and moving the still water. I was able to keep this up for several more hundred yards and it was great. That is, until we came up on the green caps! Since he was in front of me, he could see them approaching and got out of the way. I, on the other hand, didn’t react in time and swam up on top of some poor guy. After moving over, I swam up on another before getting clear. When I looked for my swimming “buddy”, he had stretched a lead too big for me to gap without spending precious energy. I settled into my rhythm again and headed for the big yellow triangle buoys that signaled the turnaround point. As I was approaching, I saw something during one of my breaths that looked like a white cap, so I decided to go “Tarzan style” (head up) for a few strokes to see if it was my lead out….it was, I caught him!!!! I entered the turnaround from a wider angle, so I was able to cut him off and start the voyage home in the lead. After this, I lost sight of him for good and concentrated on brining it home solo. The trip back home was a bit more intense than the swim out, but nothing that put me over the edge. I was taking good, full pulls, but started to become sloppy. I wasn’t stretching out my stroke and started to get out of rhythm. I quickly stepped off the gas, refocused, and settled back in. In hindsight, this move might have cost me the overall fastest time in our wave…more on that later. I rounded the last buoy and headed in to the stairs. I was pulled out of the water by a ONE volunteer, and started running up. I was a bit light headed, but kept it together without slipping or falling….a bonus! I ran through a sea of more ONE volunteers stripping wetsuits while giving the signal (a flat hand waving back and forth at my neck) that I will not be needing their services on this day. After I found my teammates, George took the timing chip off my left ankle and quickly put it on James. James headed back to the bike rack and then ran to “Bike Out” to start his 56 mile ride. At this point, I knew that we had approximately 2 ½ hours of waiting (barring any type of mechanical problem or flats) before we would see James again. To keep busy, I wandered through the transition area and tried to find everybody I knew and give them some encouragement (the sprint and Olympic distances had yet to start). Once they were off, I came back to hang with George to make sure he was calm, comfortable, and “in the zone” for his run. Based on this photo, I’d say he was:
Right around the 2 hour mark, I told George that we needed to start thinking about preparing for James. I said that there is a possibility that he absolutely crushed the ride and would be back sooner than what we were anticipating. With that in mind, he started some stretching, light jogging, and began to fill his fuel belt. Around 9:50AM, we headed over to the chip exchange area and waited. No more than 5 minutes later, George yells out, “I see him! Here he comes!” What? Really? Some quick math indicated that he killed the anticipated time by about 10 minutes….good thing we were ready! I grabbed the chip off his left ankle, put it on George, and helped roll his bike back to the rack. Once back to our spot, I grabbed his Garmin and brought it over to him to see what the results were. We weren’t quite prepared for what we saw…..56 miles in 2:20:08! That was good enough for a 24 mph average and the fastest bike of the entire event!!!!
James after his ride:
James channeling his inner Darth Vader. The Force was strong on this day:
After refueling with some grub at the ONE tent, we started speculating as to what my swim time was. James said that he started his Garmin 30 minutes after my wave went off at 7:06. That meant that I had to do the 1.2 mile swim, climb the stairs, run over the timing mat, find my teammates, and make the chip exchange. James then had to run to his bike and run with the bike to the exit area. We figured that the process (after I hit the timing mat upon exiting the swim) was approximately 2 minutes. Doing some quick math and we thought that my swim time was in the area of 27 or 28 minutes. Foolishly, I was walking around with my chest out telling anybody that asked that my time was about 27 minutes. Well, it wasn’t until we saw the preliminary results that we realized that my swim was 29.28. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very happy with this time, but after thinking I did it in 27 for a few hours, it was a bit of a letdown. On the positive side of my final time, it was the fastest of the 16 other relay teams and the 7th fastest overall. Now we were waiting for George to come in. James and I slowly made our way down the run course to see if we could see him. I ended up walking about a half a mile before he appeared on the horizon. I could see that he was putting in a serious effort and was in the hurt locker. In an effort to help bring him home strong, I ran that last half mile with him while encouraging him the whole way. Ultimately, George pushed through the pain and stopped the clock with a 1:41:44 (7:46 min/mile average). Our time of 4:33:02 was good enough to grab 1st place by over 32 minutes! As we were hanging around the finishing area, James recognized a 6+’, lanky, man that was battling him on the bike course and went over to congratulate him on an excellent final time. It was then that he realized that it was the man in the white cap from my start wave (half iron distance men 45-54 and relays) that I was eyeballing. As it turns out, he was a swimmer/water polo player from UC Santa Barbara many years ago. His final swim time? How about 27.34.
Team "ONE Multisport" on the podium accepting the medals for 1st place:
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