May 19, 2024. Morro Bay

High level Summary. 8:25:37. I finished and that was a good day. This was a doozy of a swim. Bike was good. Run held it together with a run/ walk / walk. Beautiful beach town and great venue for Ironman. Swim drama overshadowed a lot of the race. Sea otters are super cute floaters. Seals are funny loud barkers. Special shout out to Susie for the super pics!

Swim: 1:01

T1: 12:10

Bike: 3:42

T2: 4:51

Run: 3:24

Total: 8:25:37

Positives: Beautiful cute town. Nice VRBO rental house. Thanks, Marisa! Easy to get to everything. Good food around. Fun vibes with all our PTC friends and family. Not too long of a drive from Pasadena.

Negatives: Swim was tough. Icy cold and strong current pushing back on 2nd half. Upset GI led to low power on bike and massive potty stop.

Nitty Gritty details here:

Friday. Pre-Race. Drove up with Lynda, Carrie and Marisa. Stopped in Solvang for a yummy pancake lunch. Yum. There’s a pancake theme to this trip. Arrived at Morro Bay and went straight to the Ironman Village for shopping. I got a new EKOI helmet with 5 magnetic face shields. Fits awesome. Nice price $170. Got Event Hoodie and T-shirt, with my name on it, well, everyone’s name. Super soft and nice colors.

Pre-Race Swim: Carrie, Marisa and I jumped, nah, slide softly into the Morro Bay to test out the waters. OH MY GOD it was freezing cold. Stinging on the face, numbing on the hands. I swam to the first set of buoys, but they seemed to be moving. Lots of seaweed. I have a thermal ROKA wetsuit, a latex swim cap, and Blue 70 swim booties. Body was warm, feet were ok, but hands and face were hurting. I needed to get a thermal cap. I didn’t pack my ROKA thermal cap. Bought DeSoto Thermal cap at Ironman Village. Lady only at 2 more after I left. Swim was mentally unnerving.

Pre-Race Italian dinner: with the PTC Squad. Thanks, Alvin for finding a nice place. We all could sit together. Lynda, Joe, Marisa, Carrie, David, Fiona, Greg, Stacie, Alvin, San, Vicky, Song.

Pre-Race Saturday. 10:15a, Team checkin. We signed up at registration all together. This way, we get numbers assigned together and we rack next to each other. This is a great way to see whose bikes are still on the rack when you get out of the water.

Sat, 11am: Athlete Guide. No surprises. But they also didn’t warn us about current. Important for later.

Lunch on Pier: Lynda, Carrie, Marisa, Joe, John Stevens. John cracked us up for lunch time entertainment.

Dinner was chill. Quiet take out from Albertsons. Everything in the town is 3 blocks away.

Race Day, Sun, 4:40a: Walk down to transition. Met Lynda one block from our rental house. And walked down to Transition, which was at the base of the Morro Rock! Epic. Steve got pooped on by the seagulls. CLASSIC! One his back and two on his gear. Ew. Air temp was in the mid-50F. Not too bad. I laid out my stuff and had my wetsuit half way one. I lucked out on the pre-race potty. Since there were long lines and not enough port-a-pottys, I kept walking through transition and found a solo potty by the bike tech and reg table. Nobody was at the table at the time, so I waltzed in and did my thang. It was productive. Went back to racks and took pics with everybody. See below. Transition closed at 5:45a. Race starts at 6:00a.

Swim: My Garmin recorded water temp of 52F. Icy cold. About a quarter mile walk down the beach to the swim start. I stood in the 46-50 minute group. We could see the whole swim course from then boardwalk. This was nice. It took a while to get everyone in the water. 3x every 5 seconds. I was with Paul G. We watched the first swimmers finish the course before we even got in, so I started after 6:31a. I knew the water was cold, so I gorilla swam (head above water) for the first 100 yds. I warmed up. I farther and faster doing gorilla than expected. Then, I started swimming. Face was cold but stinging. Hands were cold, but manageable. Got the first Red Buoy to turn with no issues. Not crowded and 25 minutes. Super fast. I made a hard right turn and everybody was floating wide. I said, ‘that’s weird, bye suckers’. I felt the current push me to the left, I veered around the Pole instead of straight to the next Red Buoy. I finally to the Red Buoy and 50 swimmers were stopped in the water and screaming. I lifted the thermal cap flaps to try to hear what was going on. I couldn’t get through all the people. I swam hard. The orange buoys on the way back were taking forever. It was way more crowded and I had to swim wide, too many people in the way to get back to the usual buoy – buoy line. Thinned out again. Apparently I swam hard enough to get through the current, and a lot of people didn’t. There were two brown foamy sections. Gross. Lots of seaweed throughout the swim. Handfulls sometimes. When seaweed got my face, I’d be spitting and blow it off. There was one dark green foamy stinky section, super gross. I got to the Two Red Buoy Gate and turned to the finish. It was faster swimming at the end, less current effects. The docks were fine. I exited with a few other guys, but not crowded. I was surprised at my time, I was swimming hard, I thought 1:01 was a lot longer than I was expecting. But, I was happy to make the cutoff (1:10).

Transition 1: The dock was carpeted and all transition run was carpeted, but bumpy rocky underneath. I peeled my wetsuit down to my waist and ran through transition. I saw Lynda in the Relay area! I saw David with his hoodie on in the transition and knew things were not okay for everybody. I met Larry at the racks. Getting out of the wetsuit and booties was slow. I toweled off my torso and shoved my arms into a long sleeve jersey, this was tough and slow. Vest, Helmet, light tint sunglasses. Trotted out of transition. Long bumpy carpet. My stomach was upset. I hit the potty in transition, but no relief.

Bike: I had no power on the bike; I was afraid to push hard and push something out the other end. Lynda passed me on the first climb. I passed Larry. I needed a potty at Mile 10. I barely made it to Bike Aid Station #1 at mile 15. Big potty stop and much relief. More power in my legs. Ironically, after the potty stop, my Garmin disconnected from my power meter. So I was riding blind on power, which I typically use as a gauge. The ride was rollers and some climbs. It got super misty / drizzle, and stayed cold the whole time. Long sleeves and vest were the right choice. I didn’t get cold on the ride. Road conditions varied from new pavement to bumpy chip seal. Most of the race is out and back on Hwy 1 / Pacific Coast Highway. The race sometimes had the right lane coned off plus the shoulder, divided by a dramatic rumble strip. Sometimes, there was only a shoulder to ride on. This was narrow for passing. It was beautiful with the water and waves crashing on the rocks. If there was sun, it would be as spectacular as Santa Cruz was last Sept. The turn around at Mile 28. I felt there was some head winds and side winds the whole ride, more on the north bound and less on the south bound. Overall, in the cool weather I didn’t drink too much. I picked up bananas to go east on my stomach. Julian passed me in the first half. Ryan passed me very late in the second half. I didn’t see anybody else on the other side, due to the auto traffic and speed of the riders.

T2: Dropped off bike, grabbed by run gear.

Run: Mile 1 was flat from Morro Rock / transition to the town. I saw the PTC crew on the sidewalk in town, they were cheering us on. Alvin, Vicky, San, David, Lynda. Mile 2-4 were hilly through the neighbor hood and then hilly through the Golf course and Nature Park. I saw Steve, Carrie, Ryan, Marisa, Larry, Greg, on the run. It was two loops. The run back to town seemed a lot faster than the run out of town. Mile 2-8 I was run / walking. Mile 7 back in town, the PTC crew cheered me, that was great. Keeping a 12-15 min pace to finish before the cut off. Toes were starting to blister, which was weird and unexpected in my Altras. My ankles, knees, hips were all on edge. I kept the run / walk up as much as possible. Mile 10-13 was a fast walk. At Mile 11, Scott and Tyler drove by and cheered me. That was great. At Mile 12, Fiona, Vicky and Dave were cheering me on. I was a little grumpy at the time and everything from toes to belly were on edge, barely hanging together. I barked at Fiona, sorry :(, I apologized later. Then, I trotted into the finisher chute. It felt great to finish.

Post-Race: Walked / hobbled back to the rental house, about 0.5 miles uphill. Lynda was an angel and had brought back my gear from transition. Thank you, LYNDA! YOU ROCK. She did the bike portion of a relay with Marisa. Stared at the wall, then finally got up and showered. We met everyone at Alvin’s rental house, about a mile away. Richard BBQ Korean fusion tacos and drinks. THANKS, RICHARD. Chef’s kiss. It was great to see the PTC crew and hear the stories.

Overall: I was happy with my result. I was happy to finish. The run was as expected. I wasn’t in a lot of pain, so the plan worked. Swim was dramatic, but I was happy to finish it.

Monday ride home: CiCi’s for Pancakes!