Sheriff Baca to run in Nautica Malibu Triathlon

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Sheriff Lee Baca

A campaign for reelection isn’t the only running L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca will do this weekend as he joins athletes, celebrities and philanthropists in Zuma Beach to swim, bike and run their way through the 27th Annual Nautica Malibu Triathlon.

At 71 years old, Baca will join swimmer Heidi Nelson and cyclist Gary Hanson to form a relay team. He has participated in the event “probably since it began,” he told Los Angeles Magazine.

“It’s an annual tradition. It allows me to feel that I have the strength to overcome any challenge,” he told the magazine, “and it is a challenge to participate in a triathlon, even if you’re just the runner.”

Baca will round out the relay for his team with a four-mile run following Nelson’s half-mile swim and Hanson’s 18-mile bike ride.

“I’ve run that four miles in a time as low as about 25, 26 minutes and as high as 30, depending on what kind of condition I’m in,” he told LA Magazine.

He said he has been running since his mid-30s and now averages 35 to 40 miles a week.

Baca is campaigning for a fifth term as the Sheriff of Los Angeles County. He was elected for his first term in 1998. He told LA Magazine that running for another term is tougher than running in a marathon.

“It involves everything you have—your history, your hope for the people to be as safe as possible,” he told the magazine. “Public safety is such an enormous responsibility that you want [to do] everything you can to build the public’s trust…and just be a good public servant.”

Baca’s campaign for reelection is expected to be his most difficult to date since he ran unopposed in 2010, due to federal investigations of abuse and deputy misconduct in his jails and allegations of internal corruption. 

He is running against Paul Tanaka, a former L.A. County undersheriff, Bob Olmstead, a retired sheriff’s commander, Lou Vince, an LAPD detective, and Patrick Gomez, a retired sheriff’s lieutenant.  

The triathlon is expected to bring more than 5,500 participants and spectators. All proceeds from the race will benefit The Basic and Translational Cancer Research Program of the Children’s Center for Cancer and Blood Diseases at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.