Saturday, March 5, 2011

As early as 8:30 in the morning, Triton triathletes started their engines and began their drive into the yellow cloud to the north known as Los Angeles. It would be a lie to say that traffic wasn’t bad for a Saturday, but compared to the seemingly backwards flow on any given weekday, the drive went by in a blink. The plan was to get some experience as a team on the bike and run courses, to minimize UCLA's home course advantage (course familiarity; there was nothing we could do about their acclimatization to the smog).

The bike course was short (3.3 miles) and would be completed 4.1 times during the race (more on this later). However, Coach Chris decided that 4.1 just wasn’t quite as appealing as 8, and so all of the early-arrivals started their day with 26.4 miles of hilly, curvy, technical riding at controlled pace. This was followed by a jaunt around the run course (conveniently already partially marked), and the rest of the day was spent doing the most important pre-race prep: EATING. Lunch, custom ice-cream sandwiches, packet pickup, and then dinner at a pizza place off campus. By this time the whole team had arrived, and we took over a good portion of the restaurant, injecting it with more spandex than anybody there was comfortable with. After the restaurant, everybody headed off to sleep.

The race included a 400m long course pool swim (with T1 adjacent to the pool), a 13.5 mile bike (4x3.3, vide supra), and a mostly-flat, 1-loop run course around UCLA campus. This lent itself very well to several of our racers (while swimmers and non-climbers cried). The weather was perfect, the water was calm (minimal waves in the pool), and excitement was high. The start order was “random” - the top 4 UCLA guys started first, and a couple of our top bike/runners were relegated to wave two. A warmup pool was provided - it was both small and visibly murky - and people were kicked out well before their start time (resulting in shivering which could only be cured by the uncomfortably warm locker rooms).

As the race began, pool slowly became a mass of splashing, flipping, confused triathletes, and the pool swim bore more resemblance to open water than anybody expected (45-60 people in the pool at once). Brooks Taylor took home the best Triton swim split, with 6:11. The run to transition was short and sweet, and T1 was a straight shot through to a large downhill at the beginning of the bike course. Sante crushed T1 in 22 seconds, but "The Francois Show" took over on the bike course, with a blistering 37:52, the 5th fastest COMPLETE bike split (while never breaking his almost painfully focused expression in every picture). With a four-lap bike course, several racers skipped the last lap “unintentionally”, and SB Timing spent the next few days trying to work out “well, could they really have gone that fast?”. Needless to say, you may be a rocket scientist, but when you’re racing, you’re just a rocket.

While Francois may have stolen the show on the bike, Will Pandori had the spotlight in the run, with a 5k time of 17:01 off of a brutal sprint bike course, taking the second fastest run split, and 5th place overall in the race (followed up by Francois and Sante in 6th and 7th). In stark contrast to Francois’ determined expression, Will’s “game face” during the race actually looks like he is trying to resist laughing while being tickled ferociously. Perhaps that was the inspiration for his speed. On the female side, Joanna continued to perform in her second-ever-triathlon, reeling in 4th female (while taking the pain-face award, in Frank's absence). Several other Tritons claimed their first-ever triathlon finish, and the sun stayed out as the last few crossed the finish line.

The post-race expo was very lavish, and Craig left with 25 lbs worth of energy drinks in two bags, and Francois was suave enough to acquire a free race belt. While UCLA held a number of the top spots, most Tritons left happy and our team had a very strong showing. Congrats to everybody who raced!!

Race Report: Ian Seiple
Photos: Chris Burnham