In the past I have chose not to do Ironman Oceanside 70.3 because of the cold weather (usually) and cold water (always). After a bad experience at Ironman Utah many years ago I am especially sensitive to cold conditions and I try to avoid those races. This year Oceanside was the perfect time to get in a half before I do Ironman Des Moines in June. Against my better judgement I signed up and decided to do it. Leading up to the race I was busier than ever at work so my training was not exceptional. I've had some issues with swimmers elbow so I have not been swimming a lot and when I do swim it is easy. Swimming hard seems to aggravate it more. I knew my performance was not going to be great and I just wanted to get to the finish feeling good. The dogs came with us for the trip and boy did they enjoy all the great smells that the ocean had to offer! We arrived on Thursday and the race was on Saturday.
Friday we rode our bikes down to the beach and went for a short swim. I feel really comfortable in the ocean and rough water. I don't feel comfortable in the cold but I try and suck it up as much as I can. My friend and I swam out about 500 meters and then decided to head back in. We were swimming towards the beach when we got pummeled by a huge wave. It took our breathe away as it crashed on top of us. We came to the surface dazed and started laughing. Thankfully race day we only had to swim out against the waves and swam into a bay where they have boats docked. Race day my swim was horrible because the cold water caused my legs to cramp up (same thing that happened at Ironman St. George in the cold water). When this happens I really can't kick at all and that slows me down quite a bit. I also had to line up with slower people because we spent too much time watching the pro's go off. I couldn't get up to the spot I needed to be which was with the 30-35 minute people. I was back with the 45 minute group. So this meant I had to swim around a lot more people. According to my Garmin I swam 200 more yards than I should have swam. As I mentioned before this race is a training race for a full we are doing in June. I wasn't especially excited about this race so forcing myself to keep going after the swim was a huge mental challenge. I considered going back to the airbnb and hanging out for the day with my dogs.
It was walking distance from our start so it was completely an option that would have been easy to do. I didn't do that and after the swim it took me what seemed like forever to get onto the bike. My transition was 8 minutes long and that is an eternity in the triathlon world. I was shivering from the cold and also had to put on a dry shirt and jacket because the air temperature was so chilly. The bike was mostly flat with a few huge long hills. One of the hills was so big and long a lot of people were walking their bikes up the hill. I always feel a sense of relief when I finish the bike portion of the race. This run was mostly flat except for short steep hills going from running along the ocean up to the road and we did that several times. It was nice running along the ocean and there were lots of people cheering us on. I finished with one of my slower times of 6 hours and 19 minutes but I expected that. I can't say that I would ever do Ironman Oceanside again and thats mostly because of the cold. Otherwise it was a good race and if the cold doesn't bother you I would say to do it. Oceanside is a nice place to hang out for a few days and have a little vacation after your race.
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