Attempted
08/11/2024
With the loss of Sandman this year, I wanted one more race to fill my small calendar. I had done Tri Santa Cruz years ago and remembered it was a congested but fun little race and knowing that the the road course was laps, decided to bet on doing the sprint. This year’s training has definitely waned compared to other years, but I knew I could throw down a reasonable race.
The swim was fast and straight forward. My new goggles I got from Snake&Pig were amazing! A little bit of fogging, but room for improvement. No leaks and very comfortable. After two quick turns around orange doritos, I exited for the flip-flop run to transition.
The bike was a road race as expected. There were already a ton of bikers out on the course which justified my choice for a road bike. An aero bike and I were trading positions back and forth until the last lap when I was able to use the raw power out of the turns to fend him off. The turns were brutally tight though and managing turns without falling did cause some annoyance to other bikers. Always room for improvement there…
After the quick bike, another gritting run was in store. It was a sprint so no need to hold anything back. Just pedal to the metal up to the end. I kept all other sprint triathletes off my back, but wasn’t able to reel anybody in. The bike and run legs were definitely shorter than advertised resulting in faster published speeds, which at least made me feel good. A solid reminder that the overall time is not the same race to race due to all of these variations. Still a solid race and I was super pleased with the result. Just need to keep working on that tight bike handling skills.
