Playa del Rey Triathlon

This past Sunday, I did the Playa del Rey Tri. I biked 30 miles to get there in the morning. My total mileage for the day was 76 miles. I tried not to tire myself out too much before the race. Then, I did the bike portion of the race in 32 minutes (20K or 12.4 miles). The course was pretty flat and fast. It was a relatively short course. It was more of a sprint tri than an Olympic distance tri. I got my fastest average ever for a race (almost 22 mph). That was pretty good for biking 30 miles before the race. My endurance is getting better. It felt great passing over a dozen racers on my bike one by one. I did get passed by couple of guys at the end. They were illegally drafting one another though. They should have been penalized if they got caught.

Then, I rushed to get to church for the teachers' meeting by 9:30 a.m. That was 20 miles away. I got there in about 55 minutes.

I think I'm getting faster with each race. Unfortunately, my wife wants me to stop doing triathlons so that I can be with her during the 8:00 a.m. service at church. So that's basically the end of my triathlon season for this year. I may be doing fewer races next year. She has to go to the first service so that she can go back to work at her pharmacy right after.

On Monday, I got my fastest time ever for my bike commute: 24 min 50 sec for 9.5 miles.

Last Friday, a car ran a red light trying to make a left turn and almost hit me. That scared the living daylights out of me. The car wasn't even at the line when he tried to turn. He was speeding up from way back and totally made a late left turn at the red light. I just barely made it out of his path. That was one of closest calls in a long time. Damn these stupid drivers!

It's always dangerous biking around all these idiotic drivers. I wish they would come to a complete stop before they make a right turn. They keep inching up coming close to me before I cross their path. Drivers should also be careful making left turns from the opposite side. They don't seem to just by speed accurately. I'm going over 30 mph on certain flat sections. Don't turn left until I cross! Geez! I hate jerks that intentionally try to scare me with their cars too.

I got hit a few times by drivers who made left and right turns without looking carefully. Every day I put my life in the hands of other people. It's scary but somehow it gives me a rush when I survive near-death experiences. It's like the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain.

Drivers shouldn't squeeze by me in the same lane. It's not hard to pass going into the next lane. Bikes can take the entire lane if it's not safe for cars and bikes to share one lane. And don't honk at me either. Don't speed by me closely. You wouldn't drive like that around your kids if they were on bikes. Give bikes plenty of space when you pass. Sometimes they have to avoid things on the road so they might have to make evasive maneuvers.

Okay, enough of my ranting about dangerous drivers. On a brighter note, usually drivers only have rude things to yell out at me. It's memorable when they compliment me. When I was biking home a couple of weeks ago, one driver yelled out, "Hey, how do I get legs like that?!" I told him to bike a lot and do pylometrics.