Kendra’s Race took place in Santa Barbara, CA. I had not raced this race before so the night before I was feeling very excited and ready to go. This was not my first triathlon and I was very happy to hear that the swim portion of the race was going to take place in the ocean with a beach start. I love open water swims and I think I am pretty good at sighting and following the front pack in the ocean so things looked like they were in my advantage. The morning of the race I woke up to a very cold air temperature. I made some vanilla chai tea for myself and tried to warm up and not think about the temperature. As usual, I ate oatmeal with some almond butter and a banana as my pre-race breakfast, used the bathroom and put on my race kit with multiple layers of sweatpants and jackets. Once we arrived at the transition area, it turned out to be a beautiful morning and air temperature started getting warmer so I was very comfortable and decided to race without socks or gloves. About 15 minutes before the race start, I put on my wetsuit and headed down to the beach ready to put on a good performance.

When the race started I was feeling very calm. Swimming is my best sport in all three so I was confident that either I will be the front person or catch up with the front person without much effort. The beach start was a little chaotic but I didn’t get involved in the bunch that started together. I sighted pretty accurately and arrived the first buoy with another person who broke out from the bunch. We used each other to sight and swim smoothly to the final buoy and sprinted to the stairs to get to the transition as soon as possible. I felt like I didn’t go as hard as I could have gone since I was a little tired from another race I did the day before. I started the bike course in 2 nd place after my swimming partner. She was on a road bike just Iike I was so we were in a small disadvantage over the other people who were using their aero TT bikes. Nevertheless, we held a good pace to keep the time difference we put in the swim. My legs were sore from the bike race the day before but I tried to keep pushing the pace and keep close to my competition. I had a very fast transition 2 which put me into the 1 st place starting the run course. I wanted to have a fast 5K time so I started off with a very good pace but I didn’t expect the course to be hilly with sandy trails so I had to adjust my pace throughout the course. When I finished I was proud of my performance! After the race, the team went to a brunch place nearby to fuel up before the drive back to San Diego. It was fun to hear everyone’s race experience over some hot coffee and food. Overall, Kendra’s Race was a great experience and I look forward to doing it again next year!