The New Road

Malibu #3

Malibu was more of a pain in the ass than it was an interesting race. It's really tough to get into and out of, which I suppose is why people want to live there. But it meant that I needed to wake up early, and drive a lot into and out of it to get registered and finally to race.

I woke up and 2:40 and was packed and on the road by 2:55. I got to the gate right around 4AM and was fifth in line. They opened up the gate about 5 minutes after I arrived and I got a cherry parking spot. After that I talked to a few folks. One lady told me that she was there to rack her bike. "Why else would I get here so early?" I sheepishly nodded. I figure it was just what I had to do.

So I got on my bike, put on my helmet and headed off to the transition... Wait... Wait... I have to explain what it's like on Zuma beach in Malibu at 4AM. It's black. Pitch black. Without a hand light or headlights you can't see a damn thing. You can see all of the stars, it's beautiful. The milky way, the whole deal. Anyway, it's really, really, dark.

Back to the story. Boom! I crash. Laid out. In a bush. Thank goodness I hadn't clicked in. Because stupid me, biking in the pitch black I ran into a parking divider and was thrown into a bush. Nice. Good way to start the race. I got up. Dusted myself off. Re-chained the bike and...

Well, any sensible person would have WALKED the bike to transition at this point. But that's not what bikes are for my 4AM bleary brained self was thinking. And I knew the area well enough to know that it was just road from this point out to the transition. Clear road. So I get back on the bike, go about a half mile and...

Bam! I run straight into a sign. Once again, laid out. No damage this time though. Just pride. Lots and lots of pride. Laid out. But dammit, I can see the transition area at this point and it's lit up like a Christmas tree. So I get back on my bike and... make it. I rack the bike, put down my helmet on my towel. Then I start lazily walking back to the car, proud to be the first person to rack their bike at the Malibu Nautica Triathlon 2007.

But where are my car keys? I swear I had them here... Oh, shit. They must have come out in my wrecks. Run... Without my car keys. Oh man. I'd have to sleep on the beach... Run... Or call Hertz and what a pain... Run... (In biking cleats) Back to the sign. On my hands and knees feeling around in the pitch black. No keys. Heart pumping. They could be in the bush! Oh no. I'll never find them in the bush.

Run, run, run... Back the bush. Are they in the bush? Could be. Does anyone have a flashlight? No. Great. Rummage, rummage. Turn around. What's that white speck? Oh, thank god, my keys.

With my keys in hand I make it back to my fire red convertible Ford Mustang and try to cram myself into some sleepable position for the next two hours. Which I amazingly did. I came out of the car a 6:10 feeling surprisingly rested.

Confident in the fact that I had three bad somethings happened I strode to transition with my triathlon bag knowing nothing bad would happen for the rest of the event. And then there was the missing chip and that whole saga... But that's another story. I'll just finish this long post with my blaise event summary.

As courses go it really wasn't very challenging. The swim portion was the toughest. It looked fairly calm from the shore but there were big swells and it was very tough keeping a consistent course. Plus the hundreds of people in the water made the action near the turn bouys a real nightmare. I got kicked more times than I can count. For a half mile I finished in 18 minutes, which was pretty good for a first time out ocean swim.

The bike was a straight back and forth course. The hills were not very challenging but most of the people in my group didn't manage their gears properly so the hills took a lot out of them. One guy I came up on was really grinding his gears so I asked him what was wrong, he said his gears didn't work. So I slowed down to pace him and try and figure out what was wrong. He was pulling the shifters to the outside and they wouldn't change, I asked him what would happen if he pushed them in and... viola! Gear change. And off he went. Lovely, the guy didn't even know how to shift gears on his bike before he got into a triathlon. I finished the bike in an hour.

The run was uneventful, just two miles out along the parking lot then into the hill for just a little, then back. At this point I was being passed by some of the elite women and that was cool watching and hearing them strategize about how to beat the woman in front of them. One woman had a coach pacing her for a little bit and he was giving her some mental pointers about how to catch her opponent. I finished the run in about 35 minutes. Clearly not my best time, but by this time I was really hungry and they were only offering water, no Gu or anything that I could burn.

Marsha and Mel missed seeing me finish by just a few minutes. We met up at the individual registrants desk where Marsha was fully engaged in a conversation with one of the race officials. Apparently hundreds of people had entered but had not even bothered to show...

I'll definitely do Palm Springs again, but if I do a sea Triathlon near L.A. again it will be the L.A. Triathlon or the Hermosa Beach Triathlon, each of which are closer to my Aunt and far easier to get into and out of.

Oh, yeah, as for stars, I saw very few. David Duchovny, and the guy who played the cop in Heroes, I think, but nobody really cool. And Debbie Gibson sang the national anthem. Ho hum. Anyway, the stars were clearly not enough to come back for. The literal stars, up in the sky, that I could see clear as day, were far more impressive.