Hammonton Sprint Triathlon
Race Report #4: 5/24/2008

Background

Hammonton, my fourth race of the 2008 season, is a low-key, local New Jersey sprint triathlon. Distances are 0.25- mile swim, 12.7-mile bike, and a 5k. I did this race in 2004 and returned and did the bike/run portion as part of a relay with Judy in 2005 nine days after my shoulder separation.

This race is a “C” race for me. Raced in the middle of a heavy 3-week training block as part of my final prep for Eagleman, my first “A” race of the season. This race was also 13 days after my H-IM at Gulf Coast. My objectives for the race (in order of importance) were: 1. get a high quality brick workout in; 2. win my AG; and 3. improve on my prior performances time-wise.

The Swim

Race day dawned with nearly ideal conditions which was a treat given the weather we were subjected to for my first 3 races of ’08. Sunny and temps in the 55-65 degree range. Modest wind at 7-12 mph. The water was a bit nippy at 61-62 degrees but given the short swim this was not a concern.

Twelve guys started in my AG but the only competitor I was concerned about was my old buddy Mickey Syrop. Mickey is a great guy I’ve raced about 20 times through the years. He is a very good swimmer and a better runner than I. The bike is typically where I have to beat him.

The swim is an out and back in a shallow, weedy lake. It’s not for everyone but I rather like this swim. Once again the dinosaurs go off last (come on Chuck—give us a break!). It’s real fun to be in a low-key race. Kind of a return to my roots. There is a lot of good-natured kidding as we await the horn. Ed Wright tells Mickey to make sure he knows where I am. It’s fun being a “marked man”.

I break hard at the start—a full sprint for about the first 50 yards. I start right on Howard Levine’s shoulder. Howard isn’t in my AG but he is clearly the best swimmer in our wave (he was an Olympic caliber swimmer back in the day). I feel great but fall increasingly further behind Howard who is awesome. I seem to be clear of most other folks in our wave.

About 75 yards from the turnaround I get crashed into from the right—my blind side. We hit about 4-5 times and I decide to back-of and jump on his feet. I quickly figure out that this is Mickey (he’s wearing an orange cap under his white). Mick has a very strong kick and he’s easy to draft on. This is great! Mick usually beats me by 30 seconds or so in a swim like this so to be on his feet at this point is nice. Mick is swimming hard and I have to focus to stay with him.

We begin to swim through the slower swimmers from the waves in front of us as we reach the turn. The field compresses and I’m on Mick’s feet several times as we navigate the turn. We sort that out and Mick applies the accelerator. I struggle to hold on and briefly contemplate letting him go, as I know he’s supposed to out swim me. I’m able to regroup however and focus on a nice tight draft.

The crowd is thick in front of us and we have to weave through them. As we near the finish, Mick veers left to avoid a big clump of slower swimmers. I conclude that this is a tactical mistake, as the right, nearer the shore, appears to be more open and a more direct line. This also allows me to keep my eye on Mick as I breathe predominately on my left. My path proves to be superior and as we pass a large group I notice that I am a couple of body lengths in front of him. I decide to drive hard to the beach and I exit the water in front of him.

I hit the beach in 7:10, five seconds in front of Mick. I learn latter that I’m 2nd out of the water in my AG (out of 12) and I’m 36th overall out of 238 individuals. Surprisingly, my HR only averages 151 bpm, which is still an aerobic effort for me. All four of my swims (from .25 to 1.2 miles) this year have basically been at this HR. This is curious and I’ll have to evaluate it some. But one thing for sure is that I have excellent swim fitness at this point and I’ve just had a very good swim in this triathlon! Here is the data:

2008 2004 Delta

Time 7:10 8:56 19.8%

AG Place 2/12 2/9
AG %-tile 91.7 88.9

OA Place 36/238 35/122
OA %-tile 85.3 72.1

Competitively, here is where we were at after the swim:

1. Richard Grout
2. Randy Christofferson +0:22
3. Mickey Syrop +0:27

I also did one final post-race analyses by looking at how triathletes who raced both Bassman (4 weeks ago) and Hammonton compared on their swims. My comparison group was Duprex, Smith, Donohue and Grout all who swam faster than I in both. Relative to this group I did 5.4% or 24 seconds faster at Hammonton than would have been predicted by my swim at Bassman. This could be explained by a bad swim at Bassman for me (relatively) but I really do think it’s consistent with a good result here at Hammonton and a validation of my peaking efforts for Eagleman. That’s my story and I’m going to stick with it!

Transition One

The transition at Hammonton is a relatively simple affair. It’s a neutral flow through set-up, although being at the bike out end is a definite advantage. Having arrived at the race site at 5:30 this is where I was racked. I thought I did a reasonable job on the transition although I lost a few seconds getting one of my shoes on. I completed my transition and mounted up in 1:39 with an average HR of 161.

In 2004, I did this transition in 1:25, although the transition flow that year was faster—by 5 seconds or so I’d estimate. I had the second fastest transition time in my AG as Mickey beat me pretty easily and was out on the bike ahead of me—primarily because his bike shoes were clipped in to his pedals (more on that latter). I was 35th OA. While this seems pretty reasonable, I do have to conclude that my transitions are pretty mediocre—I really should work on them!

The good news was, excepting Mickey; everyone in my AG was considerably slower than I. I was 16 seconds faster than Grout and 21 seconds slower than Mickey. So here are the standings after T1:

1. Mickey Syrop 8:25
2. Richard Grout +0:10
3. Randy Christofferson +0:16

The Bike

The Hammonton bike course is an out and back affair that measures 12.7 miles. It only has 7 turns so is a technically simple course. It does have some smallish hills and today we had a helping wind on the outbound leg and headwind heading home. It’s not a real “fast” course for reasons that are not entirely evident to me. Maybe a combination of the road surface, the undulations, the slow turns and the wind make it a mile per hour or so slow.

In any event, off we went. Just after exiting the park I saw Mickey ahead trying to get his feet into his shoes. I had already made up a good portion of his 16-second lead. I’m probably old school on this but I just don’t think the shoes in the pedals thing works that well for us old guys. I think it leads to slow bike splits (which I hate) and is a bit dangerous with all the traffic leaving and then entering transition.

We have a tight race leaving T1 in my AG but I am very intent on changing that quickly. While Grout does not pose a running threat, Mickey does and I sure don’t want him anywhere near me leaving T2. I put the hammer down and by 0.75 miles I catch and pass him. Presumably, I also pass Grout somewhere early in the bike leg.

It was an unremarkable bike leg from then on. I tried to keep my power up—I wanted to average 260-280 watts. I made the turnaround and saw I had about a 1:45 lead on Mickey and knew then that the AG victory was most likely mine. It was a bit of a challenge back into the wind as the speed bled off but the great thing about a PM is that you can just focus on your watts and ignore the speed.

As I came back into transition, I saw Midge crashed on the side of the road. She had just gone down when Jocelyn Saunders had run into her from behind as they were nearing the park. When Midge was hit she was busy taking her feet out of her shoes. Hmmmm. Midge is fantastic at transitions—much better than I will ever be and there is no way to know if the focus on the shoes contributed to her crash but I do think I’ll stay old school on this.
I completed the bike leg in 32:02 for an average speed of 23.8 mph. I averaged 254 watts with an average HR of 158 bpm. The latter is pretty good and is only 4bpm or so off from what I consider to be my “peak sprint HR”. I seem to be getting close. The power number is disappointing. I feel like my normalized power is considerably higher and I’ll have to download it into training peaks to check. My average cadence was 80 rpm which is below where I’d like it (85-90) but this probably, in part, reflects the turns and the sections in the park where you coast and soft pedal a fair amount.

I was 3:33 faster than Mick and 3:40 faster than Grout on the bike. I hopped off the bike with a comfortable lead:

1. Randy Christofferson 41:02
2. Mickey Syrop +3:07
3. Richard Grout +3:24

My bike split compared favorably to my two prior Hammonton bike legs:

2008 2004 2005

Time 32:02 32:25 32:52

AG place 1/12 1/9 NA
AG %-tile 100.0 100.0 NA

OA place 9/238 5/122 7/219
OA %-tile 96.6 96.7 97.3

Comparing my relative times vs. Bassman and my comparison group shows I did 1.4% better which was good for a 27 second relative improvement. I’m not happy with a 9th place bike split but if I had been 15 seconds faster I would have placed 6th which would have been more in line with my expectations.
Transition Two

Short and simple. Although in my case, not that fast. I complete T2 in 1:09 with an average HR of 154 bpm. This is the 3rd fastest in my AG and a pedestrian 75th OA. Did anyone mention I need to work on my transitions? Mickey is 12 seconds faster than I but I’m able to put 20 more seconds on Grout. We leave T2 as follows:

1. Randy Christofferson 42:03
2. Mickey Syrop +2:55
3. Richard Grout +3:44

The Run

The run is a simple out and back. The initial part in the park, about ¾th of a mile, is on a dirt and sand path. After that it’s sidewalks and roads. The run is very flat, and with the near ideal running weather, very fast. And I feel fast right from the start. Due to my wave start, I’m passing more people than are passing me. I feel good with a nice lift in my legs. This is very encouraging given the heavy workload since Gulf Coast.

There are no mile markers but I feel like I’m having my fastest run of the year. At the turn I see that I’m about 2:30 ahead of Mickey and basically cruise home. I’m pushing it but if I needed to I had another couple of gears ready to be selected. I hit the finish line with a 21:15 run split and an average HR of 165 bpm. The latter indicates I was pushing, though not as hard as I can in a 5k. I’m a little surprised my HR was that high, as it did not feel that hard. My HR may be a little elevated from my recent training and the associated fatigue. If the course was accurate, my split translates into a 6:51/mile pace, which while a step in the right direction, is still not where it needs to be.

Relatively, I showed the same ratios in comparison to Bassman as the other four triathletes—so no progress was is evident in these numbers. Mickey was able to put 56 seconds on me in the run so I beat him by 2:10 (63:17 to 65:27). Grout was another 3+ minutes back. Here is the run and overall race data:

2008 2004 2005

Run time 21:15 23:11 22:26

AG place 2/12 1/9 NA
AG %-tile 91.7 100.0 NA

OA place 60/238 36/122 51/219
OA %-tile 75.2 71.3 77.2

Total time 63:17 66:43

AG place 1/12 1/9
AG %-tile 100.0 100.0

OA place 21/238 11/122
OA %-tile 91.6 91.8

Conclusions

1. Good race—all pre-race objectives achieved
2. My swim is in great shape. I should be able to PR at Eagleman.
3. My bike is also in pretty good shape. It’s not where I wanted it to be (2:20 bike split at EM) but I’m probably capable of riding near a PR or better if the conditions are decent.
4. My run is still very suspect. The 1:38 I ran at White Lake seems completely out of reach. I probably need to run 1:40 and certainly 1:43 (which I did last year at EM) to have a chance of qualifying for Kona. I feel that I’m really at risk here. But you never know! I’m certainly going to go for it like I believe I can do it. We’ll find out in less than 2 weeks!