Allen Focuses on Work to Win : Triathlon: This race course covers Cardiff athlete’s ‘office.’ He goes to work early and comes away with a strong performance in the Bud Light Series.

ENCINITAS — It was still early Sunday morning, the sun had yet to break through the on-shore drift along the beach, and Mark Allen, having already put in a full day’s work, was talking about his tough day at the office.

Allen’s office consists of a 1.5-kilometer stretch of the Pacific and two sections of U.S. 101, one of 40 meters for cycling, the other 10 meters for running.

It’s difficult, the Cardiff resident said, to get up at 5 a.m. and run a professional triathlon along the same course you use all week during workouts.

“I see all the same sights while I’m training,” Allen said. “So it’s just hard to get in a race mode.”

What he was trying to explain away was difficult to figure. Allen made a mockery out of one of the summer’s strongest fields for a Bud Light Series triathlon, finishing in 1 hour 47 minutes 41 seconds.

Second-place Greg Welch, now a North County neighbor of Allen’s but a native of Australia, turned in a quick time, too, but still was almost two minutes behind Allen at 1:49:28.

Nevertheless, Allen persisted with the excuses.

“If you arrive for a race in France, it’s a totally different atmosphere,” he said. “You wake up and you know you’re there for a race. But if you just wake up at home in your own bed, it’s hard to get into it.”

About the only one who had anything nice to say about the North County course was the Australian.

“This is where all the guys live,” Welch said of the likes of Allen, Scott Molina (who finished third in 1:51:24) and Scott Tinley (eighth, 1:53:03). “This is where they started triathlons, so this is a pretty sentimental race.”

Not only did Allen’s actions contradict his words, so, too, did the results in the women’s race. Carol Montgomery, another Cardiff resident, won easily in 2:02:12.

Because she, too, is a neighbor of Allen’s, it must have been pretty difficult to wake up, take a short, five-minute walk to the start line and feel ready to race, huh?

“Not really,” she said. “I don’t feel that way at all.”

In fact, she used the home course to her advantage.

Montgomery, Jan Ripple (second, 2:02:25), Paula Newby-Fraser (third, 2:02:43) and Sue Latshaw (fourth, 2:03:07) got off their bikes at the same time and began the triathlon’s final leg together.

“I didn’t know what was going to happen,” Montgomery said. “I almost thought it would come down to a sprint finish.”

But at the three-mile point, Newby-Fraser and Latshaw started to feel their legs burn away and dropped off. With one mile to go, Ripple began to fade, and Montgomery could sense victory.

“Right around Swami’s (a U.S. 101 landmark) all the hills on the course broke us up,” she said. “I run on them every day and now I’m a real good hill runner.”

Triathlon Notes

Nathan Llerandi (ninth, 1:53:32) was first out of the water and built a sizable lead during the early stages of the cycling leg. But as soon as the press truck let him pass by and thus stopped breaking the wind, Mark Allen quickly overtook him. Allen then enjoyed the presence of the truck. “It was definitely getting in the way,” he said. “I probably gained an additional 30 seconds I should not have had.” Such drafting is usually illegal, but the course was particularly narrow and left the cyclists no maneuvering room. . . . Allen said his margin of victory shocked him. “I totally surprised myself,” he said. “No one came here specifically for this race. The top three or four guys are all just training for Hawaii. That’s the main goal.” In four weeks the Iron Man competition will begin in Hawaii. . . . Chuck Veylupek, who carried more Coke Grand Prix Series points (623.7) into the race than any other competitor, finished seventh (1:52:57) and dropped from third in the Grand Prix standings to fifth with 709.5 points. The series’ top two leaders did not compete. With 117 second-place points, Scott Molina moved into third at 758.4. That puts him within striking distance of Wesley Hobson (848.9) and Jimmy Riccitello (804.8) with one race left in the series. . . . In the women’s standings, Carol Montgomery’s first-place points (175) lifted her to second behind only Joy Hanson (994.9), who did not compete. Jan Ripple’s second-place finish and the accompanying 148.8 points were enough to elevate her to third with 862.9 points.