Finally - a race report/follow up to my goals for the 2007 Nautica Malibu Triathlon. Note to self for next year - sleep at home the night before instead of not-sleeping at the hotel 2 meters from the Pacific Coast Highway.

My primary goal for the swim is *not* to swallow any significant amount of water.

Goal achieved. I swallowed a small amount of water once, but never felt the effects. Overall I felt strong on the swim but ended up with a slower time than expected. During the long middle leg of the swim, up the shoreline, I tended to drift out-to-sea. I wonder if I tend to drift left... correcting that in a pool with lane lines is easy.

T1 - Two goals for the swim-bike transition. First, I need to find my bike quickly — I’m directionally-challenged and lost time at Newport this spring when I had a hard time finding my row. Depending on the layout, I may mark the ground near my row with chalk like Larry does, or count rows from a landmark. My second goal is to get my wet suit off my lower legs quickly.

It was easy to locate my bike because I was only six rows in from the entrance to T1 -- easy as pie. My wetsuit came of super-easy too. Quick tip - spray both the inside and outside of your wetsuit legs with PAM for easy removal.

Bike... my goal is to average 21 miles per hour on the bike.

All in all I was very happy with how the bike leg went. I averaged exactly 21.0 MPH on this fairly hilly course. About two miles in, I dropped my chain down shifting from large to small front chain rings and had to stop to put it back on. This probably cost me close to a minute. Unfortunately, my Nike Triax heart rate monitor shorted out during the swim so I was 'riding blind'. If I'd had my HRM I may have backed off a little so my legs would be stronger on the run.

Run - My goal is to break 8 minutes per mile for the four mile course.

Didn't even come close to achieving this one - I averaged 8:41. I think three things negatively influenced the run: being on my feet for something like seven hours on the Saturday before the race with kid-related soccer activities, pushing too hard on the bike, and getting very little sleep the night before the race. I probably should have done more tempo runs leading up to the race as well.