Race at the Base — the Run

You already know our times but by now I’m sure you are eagerly awaiting our commentary and play-by-play of the Race at the Base.

The 2011 Race at the Base was my very first triathalon and while I was excited about it I was a little nervious. I didn’t want to be embarassed by my performance, since the Rose Bowl Half Marathon I missed a lot of training. But running brothers stick together so I was doing it with my brother.

At the start line we are excited and do our normal joking arround and pick the people we are gonna beat (in my case it was try to beat). Before we know it the race blow horn sounds and people are moving. Only a few step past the finish line we run into our first hurdle, who gets to the front of the pack at the start line and starts WALKING. Literally 5 steps after the start line people were already walking. Don’t get me wrong they were walking good but they were really clogging up the running path.

The road block kept zeb by my close for a little while be we managed to squeeze by the walkers and were on our way. Zeb took off. I tried to keep up and I did for about 10 seconds. The course lead us on the Los Alimitos Base runway. Which sounds exciting but let me tell you aircraft runways are very boring. It was long and straight (thats what she said) it was also windy.

After what seemed like 5 miles I finally came by the mile 1 marker, this was going to be a long run. Then we ran by the supporters area and we got cheered on by our supports it was nice. I knew they would have cameras so I wanted to make sure I looked strong and had good running form. I puffed out my chest, opened up my stride and really swung my arms.

However, there was one problem. I looked around at the people who would be in the picture with me. I was running next to a stomper not wearing running shoes, a 9 year old boy and a lady with one leg. I am a perfectly health 26 year old man and these people are looking much better than me. I am not trying to be mean about these people but on paper I should be farther up in the pack. I tried to pick up the pace.

We made it to the end of the runway an made the turn back to the transition area, which meant we were running right in to the wind. Thise was an US track and field qualifiy event apparently so the rule is that there is no drafting. I thought drafting was only NASCAR. I was running pretty fast but i think I was about 180 MPH slower than needed for drafting.

None the less that did not stop a lady from finding the biggest person possible (me) to run directly behind. She was very polite about it though, she said “I hope you don’t mind”. I told her “Don’t worry about it” after I caught my breath I told her to “Enjoy the view.” Which didn’t get the response I was expecting, oh well.

Having someone follow me made me pick up my pace even more, I have no idea why but I really picked it up. We were passing people like crazy. I am sure my shadow was super impressed. Before I knew it, we were making the final turn for the transistion zone and I started to metally prepare for the bike.