UCSB Triathlon 2009

  The UCSB presented an exciting olympic distance triathlon to start the season.  This was their first olympic because they were hosting the West Coast Collegiate Triathlon Conference with Cal, Long Beach, Cal-Poly, San Diego, UCLA, USC, Stanford et al competing.  The fastest collegiate time was 1:57 with two others close behind drawing sub 2 hour times.  The event this time was divided into two separate races, Collegiate and Open.

The race started on time beneath cloud cover and cool conditions, the sun came out during the bike and back in again during the run.  I was thinking the temperature would provide a small delta with the ocean temp of about 56 degrees, but I heard varying reports about the swim leg.  Kyle Visin said the water was fine but when he came off the swim climbing the stairs a collegiate coed jammed him into the rails and broke blood.  That brought fire to his engine to smoke the surprisingly hilly bike run and finish off with a blazing 37min 10k.  Kyle was the first one of our club members to cross the finish line at 2:11:08, first in his age group 25-29!  Matt Trost was the second club member to come in at a 2:25:01 and second in his age group 40-44.  He said the water was warmer and calmer than expected, but the run was tough.  More bricks in Matt's future.  Andrew Riley was third to come in with a very fast 2:31:00 with a third in his age group 40-44.  Andrea Stouffer came in with a blazing 2:41:21and another tri club first for her age group 40-45.  Andrea said the course was tough but showed love for Irwin's timely gift of a thick wetsuit and booties.  I saw her beautiful etched glass trophy given to all first place winners.  Next up was Crissy Faulding with a 2:41:41and placed 32nd in the collegiate.  I noticed her SB Tri top and Cal-Poly shorts so I decided to claim her as one of ours, she approved.  Jerrett McFarland came in with his personal record of 2:49:59 with a 5th in his age group 45-49.  Greg Russellsaid the water was soo cold that he never warmed up. He was shivering at the tri club table but came in with a nice 3:03:25and 15th in age group 30-34.  I mentioned to him the people who had no problem with the ocean temp wore full wetsuits, booties and neoprene caps. Our third tri club first place winner was Fred the thin man Kass.  I didn't recognize him coming off the bike, he is lean, mean and ready for podiums all year with a 3:10:48.  No one was even close to him in his age group.  Andrew Duncan flatted his tire but not his heart and still came in at 3:19:09.  Special kudos to Andrew for keeping on!

Special thanks to our SB Tri Club volunteers Craig Adams, Josh Shultz and Karen Egerman.  They reported a few cases of carnage on the sharp left turn at the Goleta beach bridge.  It was slippery and hard to hold grip with some ended up by the poles, however, only one ended up with a short paramedic visit.  Ricky Hobrought the SB Tri Club table and banner.  The sponsor that was to bring the water for the race didn't show up so Ricky volunteered our ice chest full of fluids.  He was popular.

I was talking to John the UCSB coordinator for the UCSB tri and he said they will be starting a "nite moves" type event the second week of May for the whole summer.  It will take place at Campus Point (the tri swim start) with a swim to the stairs and then a 5K run around the lagoon every Friday evening.  It will be called Surf and Turf.  With Reef and Run, Nite Moves and Surf and Turf we have our Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays covered.

Can we include that in?

I did get an E-mail race results from Taj:

Thanks Sandy, should I also include in the stats how much we had to drink the day before?

International Triathlon - 3/4 mile swim, 24 mile bike, 6 mile run - weird distance, not quite Olympic.

That is all from me for now.  This is my first attempt to do these results and I apologize now for any and all mistakes; in some cases I relied on the kindness of strangers.  Dave Groom volunteered me because I like to surf the Internet just short of getting fired at work.  But I'm not good at cut, paste, excel, blogs and databases plus I'm a bit dyslexic from the 60's and have a bad case of CRS.  I guess I can't blame the age card because Vic Birtalan did a superb job during his watch.  As in racing I will always be a good distance behind Vic.

Sandy