This story could be long or could be short. I could start with when my alarm went off at 3:30am scaring the crap out of me and end with my shower at 4:00pm trying to scrub my race number off my arm and my age that was tattooed onto my right calf. Alternatively I could give you the whistle stop tour of the key highlights and stick to the more amusing events of the day.  I guess you will just have to read on and decide for yourself which it is.
 
Well the fun all began with the early morning drive to downtown Los Angeles and the Staples Centre where the race was due to finish.  We were to park there and then catch a shuttle bus to Venice Beach  for the start of the race. On the 30-40 minute drive I could sense a little trouble brewing down in my stomach. That’s all I need, a runny tummy.  By the time we enter downtown I am getting desperate.  Of course the roads are all closed off for the race and we have to drive in an enormous circle to get to the parking, adding another 15 minutes of agony to my every increasing battle taking place down below.  As we park the two of us bolt for the parking garage toilets, 3 floors up, only to find they are locked.  Are you kidding me?? Now what? The hotel across the street. We take off running, but the entrance is around the corner. Finally get there and find the toilets and they are cleaning the men’s room. The cleaner takes one look at my face and tells me to go ahead.  There were no skid marks on the toilet seat, but there were skid marks across that nice clean floor after I skidding into the stall.
 
Down at the beach we are all suited up in our wetsuits, the beach looked like it was covered in a moving oil slick with all our black bodies.  I turn around to head towards the start of the 1.5km swim and I see a guy down on one knee on the beach proposing to his girlfriend (well I am presuming that, but it seems to be a fair assumption).  She jumps in joy in her tight wetsuit and he starts showing off the ring.  All the girls around me start ooing and ahhing.  I’m guessing she didn’t wear the ring during the race.  The swim leg of the race is rather amusing.  All these black bodies in the water that makes it difficult to see except for the occasional white foot.  And it isn’t that easy to swim in a straight line, and for some people this seems harder than others so you are constantly getting slapped, hit and doing the same to others. I got a solid elbow to the ankle at one point.  Next thing I am swimming into a guy so I look up and he is swimming right across everyone.  A few strokes later I turn my head to breath and see him heading out into the deep. That brought a big smile to my face.  The swell was fairly large drifting between 3-6 feet. On the way in to the beach I was looking forward to catching a nice wave and in the wetsuit you should be able to float nicely on top of a wave.  I hear a lifeguard shout “wave coming” and I look over my shoulder and catch it. Off I go whizzing towards the beach, well so I thought. That probably only lasted a few seconds before I got dumped over the front of the wave and went tumbling over and over. I felt something in my left leg go and thought that was the end of my race, but luckily it didn’t last. Finally I came back up and exited the water. 
 
Next was to get out my suit and into my cycling shoes, my new shoes I had ridden with once for about an hour. Once they are on you have to walk/run with your bike until you are out of the transition area before you are allowed to mount your bike.  Well it seems the combination of a hard plastic cleat and a wet transition area do not mix well. I was slipping and sliding all over the place. After I nearly went flying I had to shorten my stride.  I also got to learn that a wet cleat doesn’t want to hook into a pedal very easily either. On my first attempt I nearly went flying off the front of the bike as my left foot slid right off the peddle. The right foot wasn’t much more successful. I must have looked like I was trying to kick start a motorbike and it just didn’t want to ignite. Part of the 40 km bike ride was on a loop course.  First time around I see two dachshund looking dogs cross the road and I thought to myself why do their owners not have them leashed with all these bikes going past. Well second time around I got my answers. They were out there alone and this time they were crossing the road right in front of the guy ahead of me. He tried to go around the second dog, but in the same direction the dog was going. The dog panicked liked a scared squirrel and bolted in the other direction in front of me. Luckily I had already slowed down.  Fat lot of good the two cops were, they just sat there on their motorbikes watching the two dogs cause chaos.  About a mile or two from the bike turnaround point I passed two guys who were dressed the same, in the race sponsors outfits. When I came back around I found they had crossed the road and were buying hotdogs at a hotdog shack.  I guess the race concept of the day had been lost on them.
 
At the end of the bike leg it was the turn of my running shoes to take over and run around downtown LA.  Shortly after the start I turned left onto Grand Ave and about a mile up ahead I could see the large hill looming and crowds of people making their way up to the top.  That hill was mean and steep, but luckily no more than about 300 yards and at the top I was greeted by my old Deloitte office and shortly thereafter the famous architecture of the Disney Concert Hall where we turned around to head back down the hill, a real knee killer.  On the way down I heard a guy behind me shout to a guy going up the hill and to my dismay he confirmed I would be going up that hill one more time.  I decided it was time to push to the finish and know all that hill training I had done was going to pay off.  There were all shapes and sizes on the course.  One girl was just walking on the run route, but her makeup wasn’t out of place. I wanted to shout at her “Excuse me, but I think your eyeliner is running”, but she had headphones on. Another girl had what appeared to be oversized artificially enhanced breasts which were cocooned in a tight triathlon top that was pushing them so high up they looked like they were sitting right under her chin. I cannot confirm or deny whether or not she had any black eyes.
 
As I came down  the final stretch and towards the finish line they called out my name on the loudspeakers and I was sure they would pronounce my name wrong, but to my surprise he got it right.  Just past the finish line they had a tent with energy restoring food, but anybody could access it. As I arrive I see orange slices and am dying for food, but my path was blocked. This idiot had wondered in there with his bike and two girlfriends and they decided they were going to stand at the entrance and have a chat.  I was in not state of mind for pleasantries and told them in no uncertain terms to get out of my way. They moved out of my way faster than anyone out on the course.
 
I finished in the time I had set myself when I started training of 2h49, swim 36 mins (if there was a most improved swimmer prize I am sure I would have won it), bike 1h14 and run 51 mins, with about 7 mins in transition.  There is definitely room for improvement, but that will have to wait until next year and I still have to decide if I want to do another one. Although not as tough as  a marathon, it certainly was no walk in the park, despite the fact that some “athletes” looked like they were just going for a walk in the park. Maybe I’ll test my fragile knees on a half-marathon next, the ocean is getting too cold to be doing triathlons anyway.
 
Here is a link to the official photos and video of me from race day.
http://www.asiorders.com/view_user_event_video.asp?EVENTID=60080&BIB=560