The water wasn't too cold with the wetsuit, although it took a few minutes before I could get a decent breath due to temperature adjustment. As most of you know, I don't like swimming for the lack of scenic enjoyment, so I was doing the breast stroke. It is not the most efficient use of my energy, but I was still able to be faster than 30 people out of 845 participants........ (I suck at swimming). When I finally got out of the water, I had to run a quarter mile to the transition area, where I had to get out of my wetsuit and in my bike gear.
This took me quite a while, as I am pretty clumsy..... But I finally got going on my favorite part, the 56 mile (90 km) bike ride along the beautiful California coast on Highway 1.
It was overcast during the whole ride, and I averaged 20 miles per hour (32 km/h), which I was very excited about.
During the second transition from bike to run I couldn't locate my gear, which was very frustrating. I finally headed out on the half marathon run, 13.1 miles (21 km) along the Santa Cruz coastline.
The sun had come out, and it got fairly warm, so I was happy with all the water stops provided. After 5 hours and 52 minutes, I finally made it to the beach for a grueling finish in the sand.
I was very happy with my time, I finished 458th out of 845 participants, not bad for my first time.
