TriRock Series Triathlon

I am no competitive swimmer, but when our friends wanted to do the Triathlon, after seeing the Relay Option, I opted to participate, aiming to take the bike leg, or the run leg. The race itself was very well coordinated in terms of space/​time/​facilities. Its not easy to pull of an event like that in the business downtown area, next to gaslamp! But they did a tremendous job. They had plenty of water/​electrolyte drink stations throughout the course, about 5 to 6 of them for a 3 mile run which was super amazing!!!
these are the following positive friendly feedback I would like to leave for them to help make our experience better for next year.
1. The Website said, we have to pick up the packets the day before, and there wouldnt be any event day pickup. We drove from OC, so we had to fight the traffic to make it before 5pm on saturday to get our packets, and we saw they had the stations opened the next day for people to pickup packets still. It would have saved us some stress, and time had we known that. May be better planning next time for them. I think the expo should be open little late than 5pm in my opinion. lot of us drove from OC.
3. Being new to this event, we coudlnt figure/​find a place to rent a wet suit on that weekend. I wish trirock worked out with some vendor to rent wetsuites for people on site, it would have saved so much time. we all thought the weather woudl be warm, but it got all gloomy the night before and almost rained.
4. We rented a bike from someone, but I would like so much preferred to get a rental bike through one of their approved sponsor at the event. I know about 90% of people that come to these events are seasoned triathletes, but I think they may get more new people to come in if the event was friendlier and accommodating to new people and out of towners that dont have their own gear or ability to transport their stuff to SD.
5. They didnt do a good job with the signs in the transition area. It was so confusing, to see people that finished bike part trying to run in the transition area trying to find where the run leg started. It would have really helped if there were some signs.
6. My bf got himself bruised and came from his swim leg with bloody feet, and it took a while to find a first aid kit person to get bandaids. there were tons of volunteers, but they didnt know where the first aid kit person was. I will pack my own medical stuff next time.
with all this, I still liked my experience at the event. IT was such a nice day. and I realize its an extremely hard event to organize, and they managed it well! I have a better idea of the event, so i will be better prepared next year! Congrats to all those finished the event, and to the event coordinators!

Omg this was my first tri and it was so hard core. Totally proud of myself and my team for killing this. So much support from other athletes which helped my mental state so much. We all did so well and we couldn’t have had a better time afterwards celebrating with all of these other finishers.
Totally doing this next year and going to start training. Much earlier and go for time next year. Would recommend this for anyone who wants to be an all around athlete.

Just completed my 1^st Triathlon today. What a great experience! I think I’m hooked. The course and all the vendors were well organized. To my knowledge everything went well. I can’t complain. Definitely looking forward to next years event.
To those 1^st timers. Don’t slack on your swim training. Get plenty of time in the ocean. I did all my swimming at 24hr fitness… big mistake! My time suffered due to the current and not being able to see the buoys. I got off course a few times.
The bike and run was cake! Both courses were flat and fast.
Good luck!

Tackled a handful of sprints under my belt, so I figured I should step it up a notch and go for an Olympic distance. TriRock SD was my first Olympic tri. I was impressed with the well organized pre-​race festivities. Lot’s of nice sponsors and good swag.
Come race day, start time was about 15 minutes behind schedule to wait for the tide to move in. No biggie. But then as I was waiting, I looked out into the distance and they were doing some last minuet changes to the swim course, moving bouys around. Eeeek. Nonetheless… air horn goes off… let the race begin!
Race was great! Swim was a bit rough tho. Tide picked up half way out in the bay and made it twice as hard to get moving. About 30−50m from the half way point (U turn area) the life guards started telling people to cut the corner and turn back as the tide was way too strong. I don’t blame them… I remember going by a bouy on the way out and every time I spotted it to my right… I swear I didn’t go anywhere :(But hey that’s mother nature… part of the race is being able to deal with the elements.
Bike course was fun! We had the privilege of being able to ride in the Naval base. Riding through a nice backdrop of some huge destroyers was pretty cool. Bike course was pretty technical with a lot of turns. Know how to keep your speed and hit the apex on this course and you will have a big leg up on your competition. Some parts of the road had pretty substantial cracks and bumps. Saw a handful of people fall victim to flats and even pieces (seat, bottle cage) of their bike falling off. Make sure everything is nice and tight!
Run course was nice rolling through the shoreline up through Seaport Village. It was decent, but it got very crowded and mixed up at some points with other oblivious runners that were just out for a morning jog. Some tourists were so clueless they were literally just strolling through the course. Wish there were some additional race officials to help keep the non-​racers off.
Here is the dooozzey… after completing the race… checked out my times… my swim split was unusually long. I was very puzzled, but just accepted it as I just figured it was the current. I later read online that some people were wearing Garmins (GPS) and the course ended up mistakenly to be 1.4 miles (2253m) rather than the expected 1500m. Yiiiikes. Quite a big error in course planning if you you ask me, but heck… that’s a PR for me in swim distance, so I could smile about that :)
Overall great race, great ambiance, and as always awesome comradery! Definitely would sign up again next year… just make sure the swim course is measured out correctly this time, and have more race officials keep bystandards out of the way for the run. Happy training till text year! :)

Tri-​Rock 2012 Intermediate (Olympic) distance was a debacle for the second year in a row. Again they advertised a bike course that they could not produce. We ended up going back and forth on Harbor Dr. 6 times to complete the distance. There were pedestrians crossing the road and two way bike traffic turns that were terrible. There are ten thousand ways to create a 25 mile loop through SD but they cannot produce it and clear their HUGE profit at the same time. The run was decent. Again, an out and back course that only covered a couple miles. The race staff was unorganized and left cyclists stranded on the road course with mechanical problems, told to take a taxi. All in all this event is impressive to newbies but falls WAY short of it’s potential in SD. After a few races it is all about the course, and this one will be my last Tri-​rock event, of course.

My first sprint distance triathlon I signed up for 24 hour fitness a month in advance to get some swim time in, as after all my Jr. Lifeguard skills drowned over 15 years ago. Didn’t use it once. So I’m swimming off the couch with no training. I probably run 5 miles a week, but havne’t run in a month, I just love cycling too much. Almost drown after getting kicked in the head and losing the goggles and cap before the 1^st buoy (my goggles were under my cap too). Being disoriented and starting to freak out I could not hold a straight line as each breath swayed my equilibrium, so I switched to backstroke for about ²⁄₃ of the whole course. Having cycled for 6 months I felt strongest on this, but the event I was going to make up ground on, was cut short and seeing as I was already behind on the swim I went out a bit hard. It normally takes me 8 – 10 miles just to get my legs warm. I get held up at a few corners, but make up a lot of ground passing a ton of people and only getting passed by tri bikes. Even with my stem dropped to the ground to get aero I could not keep up. Now onto the run, wasn’t as bad as I thought, until my legs couldn’t get blood out of the calves and I started to cramp, not from dehydration though. I’m walking and jogging and once the adrenaline from the bike wears off I realize I have a blister on my right foot and 2 cuts on my toes. Now it’s just pain tolerance that’s being tested. No end in sight it keeps getting farther away. I finish in a lousy 1:33:55 knowing full well I should have cut 10 minutes off that with swim and run time and maybe 2 minutes with a tribike. I plan to do it again just to do better, not because I enjoy it yet. I was a little jealous of the «team challenge» due to the support and encouragement. Next time I’ll do it right
The race is a real spectacle. I had no idea about the size of this. Road closures and traffic control, cops, miles of fence line, hundreds if not thousands of feet of fencing, thousands of cones and to all the hundreds of volunteers that made this great event possible. I didn’t stay for the beer or free food, but getting out wasn’t as easy as I thought due to the other waves and other distances. A great event. I wish they had participant parking and spectator parking. They were playing «No Duh» a cover band before the race and the 2^nd band was a DJ playing dubstep which really hyped me up, I can’t remember the 3^rd band because at the end all I could hear was my heartbeat in my ears because I mistimed the sprint to the finish twice. My friend Devon part of Team Challenge greeted me with my heft finisher medal. There are pros and cons to each event, but I’ll be back to claim a bigger prize and a better time because next time I’ll actually train on ALL the events rather than think my cardio is good enough to just complete them all.

Just completed TriRock San Diego, the Olympic distance. The experience overall was fun, but many faults leading up to the event.
— Olympic was promoted and advertised as a 24-​mike (or 26K) bike course, what a true Olympic distance is. A week before the race, they reduced the mileage to 20, without an explanation. Then a few days after that, due to the military base no longer permitting the race to travel on their base, the bike mileage was reduced to 14.5 miles! The latter is beyond the race director’s control, I get that. But make up for it by having Olympians do multiple laps around the newly-​designated course. Instead, race directors thought 14.5 miles– or 3 laps– was enough. Therefore, Olympic distance wasn’t truly Olympic. Why not just have us do 5 laps to make up for the difference, as we PAID for an Olympic race? As a way to «accommodate,» organizers gave 50% discount to next year’s race entry. But the fact they refused to make up the mileage on the bike, or issue partial refunds, sucked a** big time.
Secondly, they had the Olympic racers go LAST, after the sprint racers. Why would they do this when the Olympians obviously take longer to complete the course? Our start time was closer to 9am. Ridiculous. Further, the last Olympic wave only had 45-​minutes to do the .9-​mile swim. Now that may seem like plenty of time, but for a race that is promoted as «beginner-​friendly» 45 minutes is NOT enough time. This wasn’t an issue for me as I came under 40 minutes, but I can just imagine the anxiety novices may have felt.
Roads on bike course were HORRID. Race directors should’ve worked with the City to patch in potholes, smooth streets, etc. Get rid of a band (or 2) if you need the money to pay the City or something, because seeing numerous triathletes walking back to transition with a flat tire was not a happy site, and I’m sure worse for them.
Not enough water stations on the run course. Only 2 areas. And this is not just my opinion; while on the run course I overhead two other gals mention this very thing to one another.
Positives:
Reserved spot on the bike racks; no need to get to transition early to find a premium spot.
Good breakfast buffet after the Finish; consisted of pancakes, eggs, sausage and fruit.
Bands all along the course, including a DJ.
Despite the course being mostly on roadways open to the public simultaneously, organizers did a good job with cones and signs to direct racers where to go.
Tech shirt given. Good quality medal.
Beautiful location. Harbor, marina, Navy and historical ships, Seaport village… you see all of what makes San Diego great on this course.

TRIROCK SD
If you’re looking for a «Finishers Medal» to commemorate your accomplishment… This is the Race!
If you are a first timer DO IT… If you can’t swim but can Bike put together a relay team. The best part of the relay is you can do whatever event you’re good at and do it with your friends. And you all get medals for completing.
The triathlon was a very well put together for its inaugural event. Registration was easy and affordable compared to other races without a finisher medal. The Expo was Ok, I expected more venders to be there selling gear. I hoped they would have sold more discounted gear, but at least there was gear.
The swim was great! The time of year was great for a nice swim in the bay. I would recommend wetsuits for those who don’t swim fast and goggles are a must.
The bike was Okay… Nice job to the Navy who repaved a good deal of the bike course. The trip down harbor drive in front of the various ship building facilities was rough. I though I was going to blow a tire a few times. The TRIROCK Staff did an excellent job ensuring everyone riding was safe as possible. However there were many HAZARDS.
The Run was great layout through the Seaport Village. Well laid out and executed route.
Over all the TRIROCK was an Awesome event and I have already registered for this year. See you out there.
Website for TRIROCK below.
I’m Mr B… you Stay classy SD!

STARDATE 09-​12-​2010
Swim 500M — Bike 20K — Run 5K… all for $ 110
On this day I lost my Triathlon Virginity. I don’t know what compelled me to signup for this… but it felt pretty fucking awesome afterwards… now I have an addiction.
This was an extremely well organized event. All the staff was friendly and very well informed. The beautiful scenic course along the San Diego Bay and Convention Center was very well organized. The Naked Café provided a nice breakfast at the end with eggs, sausage, whole wheat pancakes, fruit. Other freebies included Popchips, Zico Coconut Water, and Michelob Light Beer… sure beats the usual crap bagels at half-​marathons!
For you single guys, there are A LOT of hot girls everywhere here, and they are ripped! No skinny-​fat anorexic Downtwon girls…100% pure USDA lean muscle girls. All ages… I had never seen so many Hot Moms in one area. For you ladies, same thing. Its a Man Buffet out there for you… just pick the race, age, height, and size, there is something for everyone.
CHUN P VS 78 Men in the 30 – 34 age group:
SWIM: 31^st out of 78 …and I didn’t drown! :)
BIKE: 42^nd out of 78
RUN: 46^nd out of 78
OVERALL: 46^th out of 78… but 432^nd out of 1200+…yeah, not impressive.
To the 45 Guys who beat me: Watchout! I’ll be back next year with a big can of CHUN P Whip-​A$$! ;-)