On the morning of September 21, 2014 I participated in my third Sandman Triathlon at the waterfront in Virginia Beach. The water conditions were the most severe I have ever experienced in a triathlon and the transition area was moved away from Rudee Inlet to the 24th Street park.
Once I arrived, soon after the transition area opened at 0530, the announcer began prepping the participants for the eventuality that the swim portion may be cancelled due to either rough conditions or rain squalls reducing the visibility for the lifeguards. I quickly set my transition area up and walked down to the beach to get a view of the water conditions. While still dark, the rain and waves crashing upon the shore created a dramatic picture of the ocean. I was hoping that the rain went away and seas improved enough so I could swim in these epic conditions.
After an hour of rechecking my transition area, getting marked, and warming up quickly on the run the race organizers made the decision to keep the swim in the triathlon. Success! I put on my wetsuit and made my way to the beach to warm up in the water.
While trying to swim out past the breakers I quickly realized that these conditions were no joke! Everyone was getting pushed around by the water and there were waves way over my head breaking on me or just in front of me. I've seen far less significant water conditions force people to abandon the swim, I quietly thought that they still might cancel the swim or lots of people are going not going to finish the swim. I hope no one drowns!
I was in the last of seven heats, so I got to watch the madness that ensued. I watched wave after wave of eager triathletes get pounded by the waves and tire themselves out attempting to reach the first orange buoy placed 75 yards off the shore. Between five and ten athletes were raising their hands to request the assistance of the lifeguards on surfboards or jet-skis. I saw one extremely fit guy walk out of the water with a giant wound underneath his right eye. He looked like he caught someone's heel or elbow in a wave. Looking towards the buoy I saw several tired looking swimmers beginning the 750 meter journey towards the end of the swim portion of this triathlon. All of them looked exhausted.
About five minutes before my heat was set to go I saw an older gentleman participant on the shore looking out into the water. It appeared as if he had tried working his way through the waves but lacked the confidence or physical strength to withstand the force of the waves. Standing there on the shore, he looked like he was trying to convince himself that he could get back in there and make it out to the turn buoy. Eventually, against the back drop of an overcast day with ten foot waves, he made the decision to abandon the race. Generally, when one does not finish the swim, the rest of the race is over for that athlete. I hope this man got the opportunity to finish the bike and run portions of the race.
Once it was my turn, I consciously spaced myself out from the rest of the heat in order to avoid flying skulls and elbows. I made it out to the buoy without exhausting myself, turned right, and began swimming along the shore towards the next buoy. This buoy would mark where I would need to turn right again and head back to shore. I couldn't see this buoy. But seeing as how the distance I had to swim was only about 750 meters, I planned on keeping my distance from the shore by judging distance off of the hotels on the beach. I found a spot where the waves weren't breaking on top of me and began the quick haul. Several times I felt as if I fell out of a wave and into the water during the swim, fun if your at the beach on a boogie board trying to ride the waves in, not fun if you're competitively swimming and trying to avoid drinking salt water. By the time I was about 100 yards from the turn buoy, I realized I was 75 yards further into the ocean than I thought I was and had to swim an extra 75 yards to get back to the beach.
The new transition area was closer to the beach than the previous two years and no gravel to run on. I like it. I experienced no problems transitioning to the bike. The conditions on the road were wet from the morning's rain, and starting in the last heat I had a lot of traffic in front of me. There was a headwind going out for the first 7 miles and the expected tail wind on the return. I averaged 19.5 miles and hour, which I'm generally pleased with considering I hadn't trained specifically for this race.
The transition to the run also went smoothly. I started off at a pace of 7 miles an hour, but gradually slowed down as the 5K overpowered me.
The best part of the triathlon was approaching the finish line and hearing Cary cheer for me. As I turned to my left I saw her and Luke near the finish line smiling and waving. Well, Cary was smiling and waving, I think Luke was looking at all the people making noise. It was still cool, they empowered me to drain my last internal resources and sprint ahead of a couple of slowpokes before the finish line.
Overall I was 91 out of 300 finishers in the General Classification. I placed 15 out of 28 Males in the 35-39 Age Group. Within each discipline, I managed 61 out of 300 in the swim, 95 out of 300 in the bike, and 202 our of 300 in the run. Not bad for a Sunday morning!
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