Tritonman Classic Race By Donovan Truel

It was four in the morning when I heard nobody's alarm go off. Eventually, everyone got up and we somehow made it to transition with all the bikes, people, and timing chips. The Tritonman classic was the second triathlon of the weekend for me and although my legs were almost too sore to walk and it took me twenty minutes to get my (wet and cold) wetsuit on, I knew this would be one of the best races of the year. After I set up transition, I had to walk barefoot on the (some descriptor for cold) icy grass, which according to unreputable sources was around -30°F. 

When it was finally time for the race to start, the other wave-2 swimmers and I swam out to the start line. The bottom of the bay was smooth and sticky, the water tasted like it shouldn’t, and my body didn’t want to swim. We were all having nice conversations about the brutality of the swim during the previous day’s triathlon when all of a sudden the officials blew the air horn. After a few seconds of confusion, people started kicking and punching their way to the first buoy. 

There are two ways to open water swim, you can either look where you're going, or you put your head down, bump into people, and let them guide you to the finish. In this race, everyone was doing the latter. Although it was only the second most aggressive open water swim I’ve done, someone still managed to rip off my watch which wasn’t appreciated. After ~700 yards, my hand hit the familiar sludge so I stood up and hobbled out of the water, then proceeded to have my fastest ever T1, before beginning the bike leg of the race.

Regarding triathlons, you only have to remember one thing, dfoyb4R: Don’t fall off your bike 4R. The first time I did a triathlon I misremembered it as foyb1R, which I personally do not recommend. The bike was a flat 3-lap course. It was a chill ride except for every minute or two when a run-biker would zip by in full aero at 30 mph on an over-engineered death machine of a bicycle and almost run you over. 

The other place on the course when the bike got intense was by a puddle where there was a narrow path about one bike width wide. The race director was very clear that going fast at this point was not going to win or lose you the race. However, I think people just heard: “All your competitors will be slowing down and this is your time to pass them.” Either way, the puddle zone was not a fun place to be. 

After the bike course, it was off to T2 (my best event) and the run. I was planning on taking the run a little easy because I didn’t want to hurt myself too much, but no plan survives contact with the enemy. I started at a comfortable pace, and about 1200 meters in, Matt passed me. I started to pick it up a little after that and by the third lap, I had almost caught up to my brother (who is on the UCSD Triathlon team).  I started my sprint with half a mile to go and while I did pass my brother he passed me back and won by one second. Overall, I was tenth for our team, and almost everyone had a good race. More importantly, they had free fruit snacks at the end which is the only motivation for doing triathlons. 

After the race and some futile searching for my watch, we loaded up the trailers and started to head back (with pockets full of fruit snacks of course). Not much happened on the ride back because everyone was so tired from the two triathlons, but I think Connor was the first to fall asleep so he lost the… game.