St. Andrew’s Sprint Triathlon
2008 Race #6: June 15th, 2008
Pre-Race
The 6th race of the 2008 season is probably my favorite race. This is the 21st version of Delaware’s oldest triathlon and the sixth straight year that I’ve competed on the “Dead Poets Society” campus.
I’m competing one week after the sufferfest at Eagleman and I’ve really had a difficult time bouncing back—the heat really took a lot out of me. Also, the night before this race we hosted 150 people for Kara’s graduation party and I stayed up on patrol and was only able to grab about 45 minutes sleep. I was pretty tired and noticed a lack of “snap” in my legs during the pre-race warm-up.
Anders made the drive down with me to Middletown and I was excited he was racing this race as I felt he had a good chance for an overall podium. I was looking forward to a head-to-head AG class with Paul Schlosser but noticed before the race that he did not show. I didn’t anticipate anyone else in my AG being able to push me in this race.
Race morning brought us some reasonable racing weather for a change. It was partly cloudy and around 75 degrees. There was a modest 10-15 mph wind. It was a bit humid but after the weather of most of the races this year I was pretty pleased with the conditions.
The Swim
The swim is a simple out in back in the lake that sits on campus. The swim has always been longer than the 0.25 miles that is advertised and this year was no different. The RD for this race has an elite wave of sorts and I was placed up in it. No one else in my AG was in this wave so I was racing blind. No issue as I didn’t believe anyone in my AG could push me in this race. It was fun to go first and in the same wave as Anders. The water, by the way, was nowhere near “wetsuit legal”—it must have been 82-84 degrees—but we were allowed to use them anyways.
We had a relatively large wave that seemed to be populated with quite a few young and strong swimmers. Before the race I noticed a number of competitors from the Brandywine Y Men’s National Swim Team. As a consequence, the swim was crowded and pretty rough all the way out to the turnaround. I cruised along catching a draft here and there. At the turnaround I glanced at my watch and saw 3:48 and knew my swim was going to be somewhat slower than last year.
I pushed it on home in a mostly uneventful swim and hit the shore at 8:02. My HR averaged 164 bpm, which is a function of a hard effort, my lingering fatigue, or both. I averaged 161 last year. Here is how this swim compares to my prior races here at St. Andrews:
2003 9:32 129/271 7/19
2004 9:16 80/275 4/18
2005 8:33 50/299 2/23
2006 8:06 38/263 4/21
2007 7:32 24/257 3/23
2008 8:02 43/294 2/11
I came out of the water 1:15 behind Anders and I was also behind Mark Facciani and Bryan Sauer both of whom I out swam last year. So the effort was there but the results were only mediocre. Competitively, I was 5 seconds behind the best swimmer in my AG with no one else being close. Oh well, time to transition to the fun stuff.
Transition One
I labored up the hill and down the road in this long transition. I managed to step on something and slice up my foot pretty bad but this did not slow me down in this transition. That said, I had a pretty slow transition taking 2:57 to finally get on my bike. My HR continued to be elevated (174 vs 171 last year). My transition times from the last 6 years:
2003 3:01
2004 3:18
2005 2:49
2006 2:44
2007 2:47
2008 2:57
At this point I was 50 seconds behind my race last year. Time to get to work!
The Bike
I quickly began to pick off all those good swimmers who were ahead of me. As I came up on the main body of competitors I was depressed to see blatant drafting again. There were several cheaters but Mike McConnell was clearly the worse. He has no business cheating like this because he’s good veteran triathlete. I yelled at him a couple of times and just basically tried to ignore me. Anders and Mark also reported that the guy who would ultimately end up 5th overall drafted the entire bike. Oh well, what can you do.
I did reasonably well on the bike and basically was able to keep my power up the whole ride. I completed the ride in 38:12, which was a new course record for me. I averaged 254 watts this year versus 249 last year and my HR was 167 bpm both years. My cadence was only 80-rpm vs 86 last year and this reflects a trend this year—I’ve neglected working on my cadence and it shows. I’m going to tweak this over the next couple of months. My average speed works out to be 24.4 mph for the 15.55 miles I measured the course to be. Here is how my ride this year compares to prior years:
2003 39:41 9/271 1/19
2004 39:40 8/275 2/18
2005 39:43 6/299 1/23
2006 39:03 6/263 1/21
2007 38:34 7/257 1/23
2008 38:12 8/294 1/11
I’m pleased with this ride, especially given the fatigue I brought into the race. This is a tough course with a lot of rollers in it and to average 24.4 is very encouraging. I seem to be rounding into very good biking shape this year. Competively, I was almost 6 minutes faster than the next guy in my AG.
Transition Two
The second transition in this race is very straightforward. The favorable rack that Anders and I scored helped this. I had a very good transition and started my run just 39 seconds after hopping off my bike. Anders was 2 minutes in front of me and having a great race. He left T2 in second overall. Here is how my T2 times have changed over the years:
2003 0:47
2004 0:40
2005 0:40
2006 0:43
2007 0:40
2008 0:39
My HR averaged 166, which was actually lower than the 169 I had in T2 last year.
The Run
I pretty much just mailed in this run. I gave it a good effort (my HR was 171 vs 170 last year) but I could feel the fatigue and I definitely held back some—I probably had another 30-45 seconds available if I had really wanted to go for it. I cruised home in 21:00 for the 3 mile run. This brought my final time to 70:50, which was the first time I did not PR on this course. I won my AG by over six minutes for my third victory of the year. Here is how the run and my overall time stack up against prior years:
2003 21:50 81/271 5/19
2004 20:55 60/275 6/18
2005 19:46 39/259 2/23
2006 20:38 42/263 5/21
2007 20:20 46/257 7/23
2008 21:00 64/294 1/11
2003 74:53 28/271 4/19
2004 73:46 24/275 3/18
2005 71:21 14/259 1/23
2006 71:14 16/263 2/21
2007 69:54 9/257 1/23
2008 70:50 19/294 1/11
Observations
1. A nice race and fun way to spend Father’s Day.
2. A victory is a victory—I’ll take it any day. Obviously it was a weak (and small) AG field but there is nothing I can do about that.
3. The swim was disappointing and I cruised the run. The bike however was very encouraging—I seem to be ahead of where I was last year, which is very encouraging.
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