By Michael Libutti -- first year triathlete.

Not that I have much experience with Triathlons, but as far as I am concerned on the morning of February 28^th Cabrillo beach displayed almost perfect conditions for the sport. The sun definitely made an appearance as you can ask any competitor that was mercilessly blinded by its radiant rays while trying to navigate around two small buoys during a 1000-meter swim. Unlike most mornings, the weather was delightfully warm. A sweatshirt would suffice, but was not necessary. As for those that stayed in the housing provided by the USC team the race site was only a 3-minute bike ride away. Upon arriving at the site it was quite clear that the race was well organized. There were more than a sufficient amount of police officers patrolling the area and later monitoring the run and bike courses, volunteers were active, chip timing was ready to go, which is a luxury in a collegiate race, and most importantly and my favorite part, the DJ was playing an array of music that ranged from NSYNC to Michael Jackson.

Despite Coach Burnham’s warning about the quality of the water, which personally I could have done without, the 1000-meter open water swim resembled lake like conditions. As mentioned before the sun was terrible, and not only were the buoys difficult to locate, there were only two and they were placed almost side by side about 500 meters from the start making the swim finish tough to find. All in all though the water at 59 degrees was easy to warm up to. The swim start was initiated by L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on a safe, soft-sand, downhill slope.

The bike portion consisted of two 8-mile loops near the water. For the most part the course was flat, however there were two note worthy hills. The first was reasonable, but the second seemed a bit more challenging especially with tired legs and I think everyone would agree that it was incorrectly described as a moderate incline by the USC Triathlon team.

The run was suppose to be 4 miles, however after receiving our times and reviewing the distance it proved to be more like 3.6 miles. For most, the toughest part of the run was the steep almost vertical 50-meter climb that presented immediately after the bike transition. Yet, rewardingly, after tackling the behemoth and still realizing that yes you were still on course, the rest of the run was a moderately easy out and back that ran parallel to the bike course and close to the beach. The most beautiful part of the run, although there is a good chance most were too tired to enjoy it came about a mile from the finish as participants did an out and back along a man made jetty.

Overall, in all three team categories, males, females, and combined, UCSD finished 3^rd behind UCLA and UCSB. The top three finishers for the Triton men were Marc Schommer in 4^th, Tim Ray in 5^th, and Robert Krohn in 7^th. On the women's side, Darlene Hunt won the overall and received a sweet transition bag, which I am definitely jealous about. Allison Johnston came in 5^th, and Bethany Sotak was 18^th. Considering to the number of competitors that raced, the team had a strong showing. Additionally, for many this was their first taste of the painful sport and a finish was more than satisfactory. In the end, whether you left your cycling shoes at home, overcame a delay from a police officer that wanted to give your tube away to a pretty young girl, or forgot how to tie your shoes in transition, we can learn from our races in order to improve individually and as a team in pursuit of a conference and national championship.

Men's Results

 Women's Results

Full Results