Orange County Triathlon 2008

This past Sunday we went to the Orange County Triathlon. This event happens to be a fairly short drive from our house. We left our house at about 5am, we were met with a very dense fog on the drive over. It was actually frighteningly dense, we couldn’t see 2 feet in front of our car. When we got to the course, which partially took place on beautiful Lake Mission Viejo, the fog was settled on the lake. It was amazing that the athletes were able to find their way through the fog while they did their swim. You could hardly see the buoys. Luckily, the fog started to burn off by the time the first few swimmers entered the transition.

Long Beach Triathlon 2008 and What I’ve Learned

This past weekend was the Long Beach Triathlon. The event took place where most events take place in Long Beach, off of Shoreline Drive near the convention center, aquarium and the Queen Mary. This particular event is our fifth triathlon that we have covered and their are a few things that I have learned since we started.

In covering a triathlon you must first be prepared to wake up early. We arrived at 5am to this triathlon, before most of the athletes even arrived. The picture to the left was taken of the Queen Mary somewhere around the time of 5:30am. Why wake up so early? Well if you want to cover an event, particularly if the event has a course of some kind, it is a good idea to stake it out first. Whether this be the day before the event or in the hours before, this is a good way to find where the best place for good shots are. Bryan and I walked down to where the run course would be and found a great spot for him to take shots of the runners with the Queen Mary in the background.

The second thing I learned; be prepared to risk your life. Now obviously if you have to choose between getting the shot or possible death, please choose life. However, don’t let a little danger get in the way of a good photograph. For example, I staked out a position on a road just ahead of the transition. It was a 2 lane road that was coned off for the event, it was also on a steep incline. People transitioning would ride up the hill to the bike course on Shoreline Drive and when they finished their second loop they would come to a sharp turn which led right back down the same incline. I positioned myself between the cones near the the top of the incline. This was not a problem when bikes were coming out of the transition, as they would have to had taken a wide line to come anywhere near me, however, the bikes coming back from their second loop into the transition for the run almost always took the line of the cones. I want to make something perfectly clear, I was NEVER in the path of an oncoming cyclist, I don’t recommend that. That is not only dangerous for you but very dangerous for the athlete, and the last thing you want to do is put the athlete’s life at risk. There was a chance though that if one of the cyclist didn’t take the turn right and crashed I would have been crashed into. I always tried to have an area that I could move into if that happened. Fortunately that didn’t happen and I came away with some great shots even if the other spectators thought I was crazy.

Usually events such as triathlons are covered by photographers hired specifically by the event coordinators. These photographers are usually given access to the best spots along the course. Don’t think that because you are not the official event photographer that you can’t take the same shots in the same places. At this particular triathlon I got to take almost the same shots as the “official” photographers because I strategically placed myself in these areas. As long as you are not blocking these photographers shots than you can usually get away with being in the same spots. At the finish line there were two “official” photographers sitting at either side of the gates. I simply placed myself behind them, I stood in the middle so they didn’t block my view of the incoming runners and I snapped away. As long as I moved out of the way when the runners came closer to me no one had a problem with me standing there. Don’t assume that everything is off limits, unless the race director tells you otherwise, don’t be afraid to get the shots you want.

Overall, this event went very well. We got a lot of good shots out of the event that we have posted in our gallery. Check out Bryan’s race report at Amateur Endurance.

New Stuff!

If you haven’t already noticed we have put up a few new things on the site. As you can see we have completely changed the look of our home page. It is still a work in progress, we hope to be adding more features to our page. We have also added a video that we made in one of our classes, enjoy a few of our photographs and listen to the sweet sounds of our friends Last American Buffalo.

I have also added a few new-old pictures in the gallery. You can find them in the Black & White and Horse galleries. We will be quite busy the next few weeks. We have several triathlons we will be covering locally and in San Diego, so keep checking back for updates. Also Bryan has been writing a few articles for our friends at Amateur Endurance, check out his article Weekend Warrior and his series on Mountain Bikes.

That’s all for now, see you next week for the Long Beach Triathlon!

Imperial Beach Triathlon/Duathlon 2008

Hey everybody! We just finished covering another endurance event, this time we did the Imperial Beach Triathlon/Duathlon. Imperial Beach is located very far south in San Diego County, very close to Mexico in fact. We saw alot of familiar faces at this event, we are starting to get to know some of the San Diego triathletes, it’s amazing how often these people compete. Once again we covered this race with our friends at Amateur Endurance, in fact Bryan even did the race report for them. Check it out here.

Other exciting news of the day…Team Amateur Endurance came in 1st place in the mixed relay! Check out all the pics from this weekends event in the gallery.

Snow Valley Xterra Triathlon 2008

First you start at 7000 feet

So I’ve heard of Xterra triathlons before this past weekend but this was the first one I observed. I knew where the Snow Valley park was as it is local to me but I never envisioned people traversing it in this manner. In case you don’t know where it is, Snow Valley is located in the San Bernardino National Forest off Highway 18 at 7000 feet… and that’s the parking lot! From there it’s up the mountain at least 400 feet to the lake where the swim took place. Most triathlons I have covered place Transition 1 and Transition 2 at the same place. Not so with this one. T1 is at the lake so the athletes had to bike up to the lake before the race even started.

Hiking up to the lake

In order to cover the event I decided I would need to hike up to the lake as well. It was not too bad and myself and my amateurendurance.com friends got a ride in the back of a truck when we were about half way up.  From there I observed the swim and then moved to get in position for the mountain biking.

Biking through the loose stuff

All I can say about the bike is “loose rocks and sand”. Mountain biking is my personal favorite sport and seeing these athletes perform was awesome. I saw a plethora of bikes with a huge selection of hard tails and some really nice dual suspension bikes. Some people were totally comfortable on their bikes, you could tell, and others just wanted to finish alive. I think about a third of the pack had taken a spill of some kind or another by the second time around. They had to do one and a half laps on the bike.

Then you have to run up that

What what what?! Yes, you have to run up that! Seriously the run course looked like it would be impossible to just ascend let alone run up. By this point more then a few people just want to finish. The crazy thing is the winner finished the run before some people even began their second lap of the bike.  This event was a total adventure. I’d recommend it to the most adventurous among you and for everyone else you should spectate one because it is totally fun. Photographing was challenging with the perfect clear skies casting harsh shadows. I used my flash in the broad daylight and experimented a lot. You can see race coverage over at amateurendurance.com and check out more of our photos in the Gallery.

Solana Beach Triathlon/Duathlon

This past weekend we went with the fine people at Amateur Endurance to the Solana Beach Triathlon/Duathlon in beautiful San Diego. We took lots of photos, we posted some in our gallery. For full race coverage check out Amateur Endurance.

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