Triathlete in training...

Dave decided during the winter that he was going to do the Camp Pendleton Sprint Triathlon in August. Charlene's husband, Chris, had participated a couple years ago and the boys decided that they would compete together. (Unfortunately, several months later, Chris had hurt his knee and was unable to compete)

So, in February, Dave started training by biking, swimming at our local LA Fitness, and jogging. He rapidly built up his pace (and sloughed off some of the excess gained during med school and residency!).... He also found a few "trainers" at work, Mike Devereaux and Becky Gonzales. Becky was once a hard-core triathlete (now she's "retired" but still wins competitions, like the Camp Pendleton Mud Run - in fatigues, in her age division), mountain-biker (she was ranked 4th in California the one year she competed), and all around uber-athlete. Mike is an extremely athletic physician who regularly runs and bikes long distances. Mike and Becky would drag Dave to go mountain biking or biking at Mission Trails. Mike even invited Dave to ride a century one weekend with 2 days notice. Crazy Dave said yes...

They also swam La Jolla Cove (sometimes throwing in a run afterwards)

Becky, Mike, and Dave

On the 4th of July, they ran a 15K (I ran the 5K for 2 - 4 months in utero)
Dave finishing
Mike, Becky, me, Dave, John

They continued these activities throughout the summer, mixing up and combining different activities... It was a great way to make training fun for Dave!

.

On the big day, August 9th, Dave was super nervous. We arrived at Camp Pendleton extremely early and was one of the first people there.

Waiting in line to check-in


Getting his swim cap

Check out Dave's awesome position in the transition area! The benefits of showing up early.
Later on, when it got full. Unfortunately, the spectator area was high up on the cliffs. We were not allowed access to the transition area or beach, which was annoying.
Dave's somewhere down there

Our other cheerleaders, Mike and Becky. Too bad I didn't get a good pic of them wearing their bright orange leis and pompoms. Mike was our official photographer of the day. He had an awesome new super-zoom camera that he was playing with. Whenever we get the pics, I'll be sure to post them up!

So overall, I think Dave did great! He was a bit disappointed in his time though (TYPICAL. First triathlon, and he had crazy expectations!). The swim ended up being much harder than anticipated. The waves were huge! Apparently, when Dave's wave went out, they spent a good many minutes waiting for a lull in the waves to get in the water. We noticed some people would try to swim out, and then a huge wave would crash into them and pull them back to shore. In Dave's case, some guy in front of him got knocked by a wave and Dave ended up getting smacked in the face with the guy's foot. So that put a bit of a damper on his swimming time which we had hoped to be very good. For the biking, Dave's little computer died in the middle! He is a very strong biker, and realized at the end of his bike ride that he had a lot of energy left. He was upset since he could've used that energy to easily cut a good amount of minutes from the biking portion. Dave's run was very strong. He even sprinted at the end! Usually, he's too exhausted to do that... but it was a nice impressive finish!

Good job, Dave! I'm so proud of you..

(Crazy boy thinks that the best way for me to lose the pregnancy weight next year is to do the Sprint Tri next year. Eek!)