For the fourth year in a row I was covering the 70.3 Half Ironman California in Oceanside. Last year I was “assigned” to capture a location that was filled with road hazard cones but this year I was able to get back onto the old Pacific Highway adjacent to Camp Pendleton. The old road is getting a little more beat up as it is no longer maintained for civilian traffic – and unfortunately a lot of the age group competitors were a little less savvy about picking the smooth “trail” portion of the road and instead opted for the old pavement. The result was quite a few flat tires and in 3 cases it resulted in me doing the tire changes. Unfortunately on my last tire change of the day, the fellow’s CO2 canister blew up on me so I was not able to get any air in his tires, but I was happy to provide assistance to the other athletes who were having technical trouble.
