Sprint National Championship

July 26, 2009

I really didn’t have much time to prepare for this race.  I only found out about the Sprint National Championship 3 or 4 weeks before the race would take place.  I found out that this year there would be a Sprint World Championship and the sole qualifier for it would be at the Sprint National Championship in Newport Beach, CA.  The main thing that drove to to want to even give it a try was that it would qualify for the World Championship in Australia!!

I have wanted to go to Australia since I was a kid.  When I was about 8 years old a friend of ours was planning a trip to Australia.  I made a plan to save up for the next year and go with him.  I don’t think it took very long before reality set in and my extreme plans to save up money were not happening.

Well, now was my chance.  There were just a few things in the way.  (1) Actually qualifying.  (2) My wife being pregnant and being due about a week after the event.  Do I just leave her here?  I can’t take her because car rids caused her sooo much pain.  What if the baby comes while I’m gone?!  (3) My little sister was having a farewell that weekend in Colorado for her LDS mission.  She would be leaving to Honduras for a year and a half.  We were not actually planning on going to it because of how close it would be to my wife’s due date, but how could I then say that I could travel to California for a triathlon?  (4)  How would I actually get into the race – it was already closed for registration?  (5) How would we pay for the trip to Australia?  We didn’t have money!  I had just graduated from BYU four months prior and we had plenty of student loans we were (still are) paying off.  Unfortunately the pay at my job would not allow us to save up in time.  (6) Would all that be worth it if I didn’t qualify?  (I think this was a little lack of confidence).

Solutions: (1) Still had to qualify.  (2) My wife and I talked about it a lot and never really got a conclusion about what to do with the timing of the baby, but she kept telling me to go.  She is sooo supportive (and she really wanted to go to Australia).  (3) I called my sister and talked to her about the situation.  I wanted to make sure she knew that I cared about her and she on the other side expressed her support in me competing at Nationals. (4) I called the race director, hoping that he would be so generous as to let me still sign up.  Well, he kind of did that.  He said there was a loop-hole.  If I signed up for another race as well I could get in.  (5) We decided that we would figure out how we were going to pay for Australia when it came.  (6) As for the confidence boost, I did the Echo Triathlon and felt great afterwards.

So, I decided to sign up.  One of our concerns took care of itself – We had the baby three days before I would leave for Nationals.  I told my wife I was not going to compete, but once again she told me I had to go.

Race Day:

If you want to see a recap of the race through a video that a reporter did, you can view it here (mind you that there is about a minute of advertisement before the recap starts).

I’ll try to summarize things quickly.  I got down there the afternoon before the race and found out there was a swell.  I guess this means there are really big waves.  California had not had this big of waves in about 10 years – they were 10-15 feet high.  I was told that a body surfer died two days prior about a mile north of where the race was to be held.  I decided it would be wise to practice in the extreme conditions (and because I had never swam competitively in ocean water).  I was told to swim underneath the waves on the way out and “ride” the waves in.  I was mostly worried about getting under the waves on the way out.  I figured it would be easy to ride the waves in.  I found out that it was actually fairly easy to swim under the waves and a lot harder to “ride” the waves (that is why I put them in quotations).  I just about died trying to come in.  The waves would crash down on me and I would get churning around like a washing machine and wonder when I was going to be able to come up for air.  I finally got out, barely alive.

Race morning it was decided that there would be no swim – it was not safe.  There were many who were very unhappy.  I was very relieved, but this also changed my whole plan.  I am a strong swimmer and have an advantage in that portion.  I am a weak runner and now I would have to run the length of the swim on the beach before continuing onto the rest of the triathlon (bike, then run).

There were just over 100 competitors in my wave (elites and age 25-29).  We were the first wave.  When we started out there were many who took off in a mad dash.  I guess this is what a lot of 5Ks are like.  Some of those “dashers” looked like amazing athletes (this worried me) and others looked like they were going to kill themselves in first 1/4 mile and I would just pass them up.  I just took a steady pace and found myself passing a few of them on the ramp up to the transition.  I arrived at the transition in about 50th place or so.

Because of a quick transition I got out onto the bike in good position and with a very strong bike portion, I ended up leaving onto the run in 3rd place!!!  I just needed to hang on during the run.  There were a few that passed me right at the beginning of the run and I thought that at that pace I would quickly drop out of the top 12 positions that were needed to qualify for Worlds.

However, I had a strong second half of the run and finished 6th in my age group and 21st overall!  Here we come AUSTRALIA!! (if we can raise some funds)

My goal at Worlds is to place in the Top 10 Americans.  I think this is possible because I know that the next 10 positions in front of me at Nationals were only within a minute of me and we will have a swim portion at Worlds.

Results:
Swim (run on beach): 3:27
Bike: 30:47
Run: 18:09
Total: 53:51
Placing: 5th in Age Group, 20th Overall
(this is after someone was penalized and I moved up a spot)