2012 Tuckahoe Sprint Triathlon
Race Report
August 12th, 2012
Background
Location: Beesley’s Point,
New Jersey
Distance: 0.28-mile swim/12.2-mile
bike/2.1-mile run
2012 Triathlon Race
Number: 8
Career Triathlon Race
Number: 122
Conditions: Mild for July
in NJ. Mid 70s. Cloudy, very humid and little wind. 78-degree water temperature. Lots of mosquitos.
Four weeks since my last
tri and only 7 triathlons done and it’s mid-August—soooo--I felt I needed to
get a few race experiences in before Kona.
Of course, this year has been a bit strange with RAAM and RAMROD, but I
was feeling the racing itch. Alex and I
had just gone to Minnesota to visit my Mom, Bro and a bunch of my cousins—and
my Uncle and Aunt so things were all mixed up with the two 10-hour travel days.
I was in week 6 of my Kona IM build and
did a brick with a 15.5 mile run on Thursday so I was definitely coming into
the race a bit unready to race but here we go!
Funky little race, which has,
as it’s main attraction a very short 2.1-mile run. I didn’t know much about my 8 competitors in
my AG, which I assumed was good news from a competitive standpoint. Overall, 205 souls lined up to do the
individual triathlon this morning. This
marked a continuing decline in participation in the race over the last four
years: 335/258/222/205. It also marked
my fourth straight year in the race. I
had finished 2nd in each of the prior three years in my AG—to
different gentlemen each time. I had
hopes of finally breaking through.
Lastly, the course was changed yet again and so while I’ve done the race
four years in a row, in reality, none of the times are consistently
comparable. That said, we had over 200
folks showing up to lay it down—let’s get it on!
The Swim
This was the second year
that the swim was to the west of the old route 9 bridge. I went out before the race and swam the
course and noted that the current was pretty solid and against the 2nd
of the 3 legs of the swim course. My
guess is that it added some 5-15 seconds to the swim.
The old guys went off in
the 3rd leg after all the chickies and I started way to the right as
the buoy structure was such that it made sense and I could also benefit from
looking at everyone on my natural left-hand breathing side. My swim was very pleasant and
uneventful. There were a handful of
folks in front of me and I was content to cruise along up near the front. I had felt very queasy before the race so I
was intent on just being solid on this swim.
Bottom line I had a
respectable swim. My elapsed swim time was 6:22. The competition in this race seemed a bit
swim heavy but if I am to believe my Garmin data, I did pretty well on this
swim—especially given the current. Here
are my wetsuit/open-water swims this year:
Race
Min/Mile Stroke/Min Yds/Stroke
Rumpass 23:27 37 2.02
Devilman 22:58 37 2.09
Hammonton 21:56 36 2.23
Tri-It 24:24 37 1.94
Lake Lenape 24:13 37 1.97
Tuckahoe 23:05 37 2.09
From a competitive
perspective, I had the 23rd fastest swim (89.3 %-tile), which surprisingly
was my least effective (competitively) showing of my 4 Tuckahoe
triathlons. However, I enjoyed a
substantial advantage vs. my AG competitors:
1. Christofferson ---------
2. Leisure +
0:45
3. Venella +
1:59
4. Delaney +
2:57
5. Graham +
3:21
Transition One
The transition set-up at
this race is awkward and you basically run a little more than a quarter mile
(0.28 miles) to the transition area. I
labored through that run passing a lot of the slower women but getting passed by
several of the younger men. My total elapsed T1 time was 3:27,
which was 32nd OA (84.9 %-tile) but was substantially better than
any of my AG competitors. Here is where
we stood after T1:
1. Christofferson --------
2. Leisure +
1:49
3. Venella +
2:28
4. Reilly +
4:19
5. Delaney +
4:21
The Bike
For the fourth straight
year, the bike course was different so it’s not valid to compare my times from
year to year. I was a month removed
from my fastest OA bike split at Lenape and I secretly harbored the thought of
making it two in a row, but that hope was quickly dashed as Brian Duffy came
blasting by me on his way to an overall victory.
I settled in and felt
pretty good. I was spinning real well
and I was able to get my HR up reasonably well.
However, I noted that my power just wasn’t quite there—I seemed to be
missing about 10 or 15 watts.
The ride was uneventful
and I spent it passing quite a few of the women who went in the first two
waves. I completed my bike split in 31:00, and I
clocked a total distance of 12.22 miles, which works out to a 23.7 mph
average. This is pretty descent given
the first and last part of the course has a 0.2-mile section where you are
slowed down by having to ride single file.
Overall, I averaged a
disappointing 246 watts (vs. 261 in 2011 and 258 back in 2009). My normalized power was 250 watts. My HR averaged 164 bpm and my average cadence
was 89 rpm. Competitively, I had the 6th
fastest bike split, which is at the 97.6 %-tile (vs. 95.6 in 2011, 99.6 in
2010, and 97.6 in 2009). I was much
faster than anybody in my AG and here is where we stood after the bike:
1. Christofferson --------
2. Venella +
5:36
3. Reilly +
8:31
4. Leisure +
8:53
5. Delaney +15:03
Finally, here is the data
from each mile of the bike:
1:
21.5mph/163bpm/86rpm/277wattsAP/289wattsNP
2: 24.0/166/90/232/236
3: 24.7/164/91/242/242
4: 24.8/165/90/234/239
5: 25.0/163/89/241/241
6: 23.7/162/88/230/236
7: 22.8/163/87/267/267
8: 23.1/165/89/251/252
9: 23.7/164/89/238/238
10: 23.8/165/92/242/248
11: 23.5/164/89/244/244
12: 24.7/163/92/244/246
.2: 19.9/166/70/270/276
Transition Two
I had an uneventful transition and completed the
bike to run transformation in 51 seconds. This was 51st OA
(75.6 %-tile) and once again, substantially better than my AG competitors:
1. Christofferson --------
2. Venella +
5:48
3. Reilly +
9:23
4. Leisure +
9:42
5. Delaney +15:24
The Run
I felt very sluggish on
the run right from the start. My guess
is that I still had the long run from Thursday still in them. I could also tell early in the run that I had
a big AG lead. As a result, I never
really got rolling on the run and just chugged along. My
total run time was 16:59 for the 2.1-mile run course. This is a very poor 8:05/mile. This turned out to be the 64th
fastest run OA (69.3 %-tile) and surprisingly, it was the 2nd
fastest in my AG (88.9 %-tile). I ended
up finishing the race in 58:39, which was good enough for 15th OA
(93.2 %-tile). Here are the final
standings in my AG:
1. Christofferson --------
2. Venella +
5:52
3. Reilly +11:05
4. Leisure +11:58
5. Delaney +13:42
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