Playa del Rey 2016

Sorry this is late (3.5 weeks isn't that late is it?), but here is a quick recap and some pictures from PDR! About 20 of us traveled down to LA for PDR. We stayed at Jeremy's house in Santa Monica (a huge thank you to them for hosting us!). Once we got to LA, we picked up our packets and then went to Jeremy's house to do our pre-race shakeout before dinner. After a scrumptious dinner at Panera Bread, it was bedtime to make sure we were all well rested for our races the next morning. 

The race went extremely well! Gordon won the men's collegiate and men's overall divisions in the sprint distance race, Logan took the woman's collegiate division and 3rd woman overall in the sprint with Sarah in 3rd for woman's collegiate as well. Despite flatting with a mile to go of the bike, Bree pushed on to finish her first Olympic distance race and won her age group! Our relays were also well represented on the podium with 1st and 2nd in the mixed division for the sprint and 1st in the mixed division for the Olympic. Other highlights include several people completing their first triathlon, including Nick who did the whole thing in a speedo, Matt who narrowly missed the men's collegiate podium with a 4th place in the division and 6th place overall, and Coach Matt's first race with the team! All in all, it was a very successful race and we can't wait for our next race in January! 

Results can be found at this link: http://playadelreytri.com/results.htm

Our super awesome PDR squad

Harji looking super aero

Jeremy killing it on his commuter

Logan with only one shoe on

Ricardo flying on the bike

Ryan flying on his handcycle

Max rocking the tank top

Gordon heading out on the run

Garrett heading out on the run

Brendan heading out on the run

Gordon about to finish

Matt coming into the finish

Nick finishing up the run in his speedo

Bree finishing her first Olympic!

Gordon with his winner's plaque

Logan and Sarah on the woman's collegiate podium

Bree won her age group

UCSB Tri well represented on the sprint relay podium

Team Seymore Butts taking out the win in the Olympic relay

Jenn, Ryan, and Kendra's relay team

PDR recap!

This weekend was a huge success! It was our first race of the season and many of our rookies' first triathlon ever. We had two olympic relay teams, three sprint relay teams, one person do the full olympic, and four people do the full sprint. And of course everyone killed it!

We had several cars that drove down leaving through out the day. The first two left early enough to reach packet pickup at Triathlon Lab in Redondo Beach. From there we went straight to our favorite pre-race restaurant: Chipotle. 

We spent the night at team alumni Monse's house, who was a fantastic host. A few team members went for a super easy shakeout run as the sun went down while Tim and Gordon went for a quick spin down to the beach and got a chance to check out some of the bike course. The later cars still needed dinner, so they went and grabbed dinner at, you guessed it, Chipotle! It was time for bed soon after they got back as we had a very early morning the next day.

We woke up early to a symphony of 5 AM alarms. People quickly got ready and we were packed up and out the door on the way to the race site within 45 minutes. We arrived to the race site and started to unload the trailer in a slight drizzle. It continued as everyone got their transitions set up and did their warmups, but stopped just before the first wave was scheduled to go off. Unfortunately, there was a slight delay in starting the race, but soon we were underway.

Our first racers were in the second wave, the womens olympic and olympic relay wave. Travis and Josh were both doing the swim in just speedos for their relay teams, while Logan did the whole olympic race on her own! In wave three, the mens sprint wave, we had Chris and Gordon. In wave four were Celine and Kaylyn doing the womens sprint, and in wave five, we had Nick, Julia, Kenton, and James for the sprint relays. Travis was one of the first out of the water in his wave and the first relay out of the water. Logan and Josh came out of the water together and both went on to do the bike. Julia and Kenton killed the swim and were the first two out of the water from wave five. Gordon was also first out of the water in the sprint wave by 30 seconds. Travis passed his timing chip to Matt who then took off to take on a fast, flat, and surprisingly wet bike course. Matt held Travis's lead for the whole bike and finished the bike in just over an hour. Tim, just like Matt, was the first sprint relay biker to get on to the bike course and the first back into transition. Gordon came off the bike still in first place as well. Jack, the biker for the 1st place mixed sprint relay team, "DLG made me do it", finished the bike in board shorts, a Hawaiian shirt, and on a flat tire! Matt passed off the timing chip to Rod who ran a 36 minute 10k. He had the fastest 10k split of the day by 4 minutes! Gordon had the 5th fastest run split in the individual sprint with a time of 18:41. Elijah also ran a blazing 17:31 5k, good for 3rd fastest 5k of the day. 

When the results were posted, we could see just how well the Gauchos did. All in all, we ended up with nine people/teams on the podium and plenty of PRs. Travis, Matt, and Rod's olympic relay team was the fastest olympic team and Josh and Sam were the third fastest. On the sprint side of the relays, we ended up with the three fastest relay teams. Kenton, Tim, and Adam had the fastest mens and overall sprint relay with James, Eric, and Elijah coming in second place in both the mens and overall categories. Julia, Jack, and Andre were third overall and the first place mixed sprint relay. For individuals, Gordon placed second in the collegiate division and second overall in the sprint! Kaylyn and Celine both finished 3rd in their age groups to earn spots on the podium, while Chris ended up in the top 5 for the collegiate division. Logan won her age group and was 4th overall female in the olympic distance race.

All in all, it was a hugely successful first race of the year which was capped off with a stop at our favorite post-race buffet: Souplantation. Now its time to train hard and start to get ready for the winter race season. 

Full results can be found here: http://www.playadelreytri.com/results.htm