The race was ok.  The new course had some pretty cool sceneries – the full ran through Petco Park, where the Padres play baseball.  We also ran by the Bay in downtown.  We also ran inside Balboa Park, and through the Pan-America Plaza with all the museums.  Then we ran in Fiesta Island, through the Boy Scouts Camp grounds.  Then finished at the parking lot of Sea World.

The day started out cloudy, hot and humid.  When I started running, after 10 minutes, I was sweating profusely.  There were a LOT of people!  When the half marathoners finally separated from us at mile 4, the crowd of runners got smaller, more mangeable.  It was a nice 5 or so miles, running with fewer people around me.  Then suddenly, as we merged onto the 163 fwy, thes slow-poke walker half-marathoners merged with us, and occupied almost the full freeway, and the sides.  I wanted to run on the outer sides since that is more flat and the freeway is a slanted road.  But couldnt do it, the half marathoners were so ANNOYING!  At this point, at the top of the hill, the sun started to take a peak out of the clouds.  It didnt matter, I was already sweating profusely.  After mile 13, I felt a really discomforting rubbing near my left armpit – I was chafing, my arm against my shirt.  I tried to lift my left arm whike running.  I started walking, then I saw Myrna (Czaplicki, from St. Bernard), she was running the half.  We talked and walked for a little bit, then I found an aid station with Vaseline so I headed their way to get some Vaseline for my chafing.  I lost Myrna after that…

The chafin was getting annoying, and so is the sun and some of the half marathoners.  I took my shirt off finally, so to not chafe anymore.  Ahh, a relief.  I ran with my sports bra.  Now I’m sporting a totally Lululemon outfit – sports bra and running skirt!

When I finally got to Mission Bay, at this point, I really needed to use the bathroom, so I went and lined up in one of the real bathrooms in Mission Bay – that was about 5 minutes wasted in line.  After pee-ing, I finally was moving forward, but was not looking forward to the run around Fiest Island.  Getting to Fiesta Island was brutal.  Running around Fiesta Island seemed like eternity.  When I finally got off the Island, I was lookoing forward to the finish line.  That pathway seemed like the narrowest pathway ever, and the people / crowd cheering us one were making the running pathway more narrow.  I’m sure they had all good intentions to cheer us on, but manm give us some space! 

Finally when I saw the finish line, I thought, my suffering is over.

Distance  MAR

 Clock Time 5:48:27

 Chip Time 5:35:39 

 5 Km 30:08

 10 Km 1:00:45

 7.4 Mi 1:13:24

 Half 2:21:46

 14.5 Mi 2:40:45

 20.5 M 4:09:05

Read more: http://results.active.com/pages/oneResult.jsp?pID=86475094&rsID=94092#ixzz0qJydhRXX

I flew down to L.A. last night from SFO, and I am here right now at my sister’s place.  We are getting ready to drive down to San Diego, then we run the RNR SD Marathon on Sunday.  I think I’ve trained with the minimum training required, but I’m hoping for a miracle on Sunday.  I did the distance, I’ve cross-trained with swimming and 2 bike rides, and ran 4-6 miles occasionally both at lunch at work, after work, or in the weekends.  So we shall see how it goes on Sunday.  One thing for sure I will change for this race is use the Gu Chomps (like gummy squares) instead of the Clif Shot, and will take in lots/sufficient water.

I haven’t logged in a race report in a while, since Vineman Showdown sprint tri last April.  Since then, I’ve done La Jolla half marathon (April 25th) and Redwood Park 30k Trail Run (May 9th).   Since then, I’ve also done my training which includes – running 13-15 miles, swimming (both lap swimming, and open water swims a Coyote Pointe and Santa Cruz beach), and a couple of bike rides on Canada Road (15 miles each time).

Looking forward to RNR SD on Sunday!

This is my first tri for this season!  And I am still such a weak person, maybe some training would have helped…  The Vineman Showdown is 400m swim, 9 mile bike, and 3 mile run and starts at 4pm – yes, an afternoon start time.   This fine Saturday afternoon was nice and sunny in San Rafael.  It took me about 1 ½ hour to get from Redwood City to this place, simply due to traffic going through San Francisco.  I left early so I got to the race site approx 2 hrs before start time.  Looking back, I should have taken this time to drive through the bike course so I knew what to expect.  Oh well, lessons learned.

The time came for the course briefing, and I am getting nervous for the bike portion.  The water is 68 degrees F, and will be high tide by race time – which is about 8 feet in this area.  Then they talked about the bike course, and said that the bike course has rolling hills and is windy (as in wine-dee).  The run is out and back fairly flat.

IT’S SWIM TIME!

So then 4:10 pm came soon enough, my swim start time.  The swim was not too bad, I stayed with the back of the pack.  Except since I was at the back of the pack, it ws the not so good swimmers, the backstrokers, so I got hit so much also, since the other ladies get in my way.  It wasn’t too bad, they were easily avoidable.  Transition now to bike, here we go.

ON YOUR LEFT!

Getting in and out of the transition was fine, got my running shoes on (I don’t clip in), helmet, gloves, then off I go.  Climbing this 100 meters or so hill before you mount your bike was not so fun though, especially because I was still trying to catch my breath from after the swim.  Then finally the start of the bike; it was first a short downhill then we turn right – to go uphill!  Man, I was not expecting that, I still had my gear on the difficult gear, so I couldn’t change soon enough and had to stop and get off the bike.  Then of course try to get back on the bike on the uphill – good luck!  I just walked it up to the flat area – not too far – then rode again.  The course is out and back, windy, and downhill in the beginning.  Since I am not confident on the downhill, I rode my brakes – three seconds on, three seconds off was supposed to be the strategy.  Instead I did 4 seconds on, 1 second off.  That’s why I heard ON YOUR LEFT several times.  I tried to stay to the right and out of the way.  Finally we get to the turnaround point, and it is uphill this time, well rolling hills really.  I passed this one girl that passed me on the downhill, she was going extremely slow uphill, like she was about to stop!  At least I know I have the skills to go uphill – except in the beginning of this course, which I really didn’t expect to go up right away.  Coming back to the transition seemed shorter than going out but of course that’s not true, it’s the same distance.  Finally dismounted and walked down that same hill this time going down to the transition.

A RELAXING RUN

I got in and out of transition again, this time pretty quickly since I don’t need to change shoes.  I could now feel the hills from the bike – my quads were feeling really sore but no time to stretch, I figure it will stretch out when I run.  The run is out and back along the bay.  I was just taking my time since the race is almost over.  It was really uneventful except for a nice view of the water.  Finally to the finish line… they called out “Minel Diaz from Redwood City!”

At the finish, I saw some SVTC people said hello and shared stories.  I was not the only one that got off the bike in the beginning because of the unexpected first quick hill – I guess it would have helped if we saw the first part of the course ahead of time.  Anyway, I still had a fun time during this sprint tri, it’s pretty short, it’s a Vineman brand so I got a Vineman hat J  Is that cheating wearing that hat even if I haven’t done the Vineman 70.3 or the Vineman full distance?  But they gave us the hat.