Oceanside 2011

I had a good day in Oceanside on Saturday. It wasn't a great day, but it was a good day. My swim was right on par for me at 31 and change (I wish I would have pushed it a little more). I beat Jay Preston out of the water, but not by as much as I would have liked. He caught me in the bike only 16 minutes in. He was FLYING! I didn't even try to stay with him because I knew that I would blow at the speed he was going. Instead, I just focused on staying aero and conserving my energy. My bike was 12 minutes slower than last year, but I knew coming in that my bike was not up to previous levels. I came off the bike feeling great! In my first loop of the fast course I stayed conservative trying to maintain 6:45 miles. At the turn around, I picked up the pace. At a little over mile 9, I really kicked it into gear. My 1:26 and some change run made me very happy. I have notoriously fizzled out on my runs after over-pushing my bike. This time I felt as if I didn't quite push enough on the bike and then had a great run. I ended up 10th in a very, very competitive field. There were 2 previous pro's (Chris Hauth and Gordo Byrn) in the mix as well as previous foes that I beat pretty handily in Kona. The truth is that it became very evident what my change of focus has done to my triathlon. After Kona, I re-focused on family and work and, for the first time ever, I actually missed some workouts due to other commitments. I'm really struggling an internal battle of wanting to be a competitive triathlete with being a great father, husband, and periodontist. Up until Kona last year, I truly felt as if I was good at juggling all of my responsibilities, but the truth is that something HAS to give if you want to be super competitive in this sport. Unfortunately, the wrong things probably gave. It's funny because the decisions should be super easy as to what is the highest priority, but what I do and I know other triathletes do is justify their abuse of the most important things by saying things like, "staying fit and competing makes me a better dad, husband, person." The truth is that being fit probably does help in being a better person, but competing at the levels that I have been over the last few years is too excessive. My family deserves better than that.