Kicking Off Tri Season #3

Yesterday I began my third triathlon season with the Los Angeles Triathlon Championship #1 event. As it's name implies, this is the first of a series of events at Frank Bonelli Park in Pomona, CA. The first is a classic sprint event, followed by an international distance event in May and an olympic distance event in June. I really enjoy this venue and participated in the entire series last year. The course is challenging, but picturesque.

This year, I'm using this event as a "tune-up" for Wildflower, held next weekend at Lake San Antonio in the hills west of Paso Robles. The day dawned way too warm for this time of year, and we all braced ourselves for "a hot one". With an 8:30 start, it was quite warm by the time I started the run, even though the event is comparatively short. The water was relatively warm (low 60s?) and the 400m swim rather quick. Two laps around the reservoir and park on the bike racked up about 12 miles on my odometer, followed by a somewhat hilly 5K run to the finish line.

This is a small, casual event - no body or bike markings, no assign sections in the transition area - but chip timing is included and the group is competitive. Unfortunately, I didn't pre-register and somehow my last-minute registration didn't get properly associated with my chip, so I got none of the usual split times. But all the training for Wildflower had paid off. I ran a fast race, ending up probably sixth or seventh in my age group with a time of approximately 1:21:30. All in all, an excellent training event that's gotten me in the mood for the much longer olympic event next week.