2008 Parvin Sprint Triathlon
Race Report #7: 6/21/08
Background
The 5th edition of this small New Jersey gem. I had previously raced the 2004 and 2006 races. I volunteered in 2005, as I was just 9 days past my shoulder separating bike injury of that year. The swim length and shape is variable but advertised as a quarter mile. The bike clocks out at 12.3 miles and the run is a mixed surface 5K.
Race morning was pleasant with the earlier threat of rain evaporating. It was in the mid-70s with some humidity but nothing to worry about given the distances involved. Before the race there was very little wind though some probably developed during the race itself—more on that latter.
This was my third race in as many weekends and my 4th in 5 weeks. As such, and coming just 22 days before IM Austria, this was definitely a “C” race for me. In the past I have always raced poorly when I’ve tried to race 3 weekends in a row. However, given that I’m treating IMAUS as a “B” race (IMC will be my “A” race this summer) and all the personnel distractions of the past few weeks I thought it would be fun to just get out and blast a sprint. In particular, I really wanted to let it rip on the bike. My good friend and long-time competitor, Mickey Syrop was racing and he was really targeting this race to give me a battle so I got up at 4:30am and drove the 40 miles to Parvin State Park eager to do have at it!
The Swim
Us dinos were in the 4th and last wave. The swim was set up as 3 sides of a rectangle with 2 clockwise turns. The lake is a typical central New Jersey body of water and pleasant enough for the short time we would be in it. I put the water temp at about 78-80 degrees but as with other Chuck Sellers’ races this one was wetsuit legal (hoo-ray!).
I chose to line up to the right on the buoy line right next to fast Eddie Wright. Mick went to the far left. At the gun I got an excellent start and was able to pull away from everyone around me. In my haste I swam a little of-course and soon found myself inside the buoys and had to redirect and head on a line to the first turn-buoy. Since I was on the right and I breathe on the left I could see all the competitors in the wave easily. There was one swimmer clearly in the lead and I assumed this was Howard Levine. I soon learned that this was really Mickey (Howard had gone in an earlier wave).
We converged on the buoy from our opposite tact and Mick reached the buoy first, about 2 body lengths in front of me. I could feel another swimmer on my feet as I rounded second. I knew it was essential for me to stay on Mickey’s feet if I wanted to stay close because he is a stronger swimmer than I. This strategy had worked for me earlier at Hammonton where I was actually able to out split him in the swim for the first time. This was not to be the case in this race however as despite my going into the red zone he began to pull steadily away.
I noticed that I was fairly anaerobic and had to back off. I was passed by another swimmer in my wave. Soon I was weaving threw the slower traffic of the prior waves. I knew I was going to face a significant deficit in this swim to Mick and as I regained my balance I tried to stay calm and smooth to limit the time damage.
I hit the shore in 7:24 with an average HR of 154bpm, which tells me I probably did not push hard enough in the last 1/3rd of the race. (Last week at St. Andrews I had averaged a HR of 164). I was 18 seconds down to Mick so the damage wasn’t too great. I ended up with the 3rd best swim spit in my AG and the 26th best OA. Here is how this compares to the two prior year races:
2008 2006 2004
Time 7:24 8:07 5:58
AG rank 3/14 1/13 3/14
AG %-tile 85.7 100.0 85.7
OA rank 26/235 18/159 32/173
OA %-tile 89.4 89.3 82.1
In 2006 I had been 28 seconds down to Mick so from that perspective, I was in pretty good shape heading into T1. It should also be noted that the 2004 course was set up significantly shorter—my guess is this was my best swim here at Parvin. Despite that, I felt like my swim fitness had begun to degrade a bit from 2-3 weeks ago.
Transition One
Up the man-made beach and straight to the racks, T1 at Parvin is a straightforward affair. Mick and I were racked right next to each other and in the ideal location. I was pretty quick (for me) and completed my T1 in just 1:15 with an average HR of 167bpm. This was the 15th best in the OA field but Mick was even better. He put 9 more seconds on me and started the bike with a 27 second lead on me. Our transitions were much faster than the rest of our AG competitors so we were now head-to-head.
The Bike
A simple big rectangle. The roads are not ideal in some places and there is quite a bit of traffic to contend with (this is mitigated by relatively wide shoulders). They coned a number of the turns to keep us away from the vehicular threats so there were 2-3 places that were slow and congested.
I had inadvertently plugged my SRM into a faulty socket the night before so I had no real time data during the race—old school racing strictly by feel! As I mentioned above, my intent was to take no prisoners on the bike and it was my goal to post the top bike split in the race OA. That plus my 27-second gap to Mick put some urgency in my pedaling.
I was passing tons of triathletes from the earlier waves but it seemed to take forever for me to catch Mick. I had no idea how long or how far but Mick told me latter that it was about 3.5 miles into the race before I caught him. This computes to a 7-8 second per mile advantage for me vs. Mick. I didn’t know this of-course but if I had I would have been concerned—I had averaged 17 sec/mile faster than Mick at Hammonton. It did seem to me at the time that Mick was doing relatively better than at Hammonton. I thought I was riding well but couldn’t be sure. Mick definitely looked strong. Yikes—we have a race on our hands!
I just kept hammering as hard as I could. It was weird having no quantitative feedback—I definitely do not like racing this way. I had to slow down a couple of times due to the aforementioned congestion but generally had a drama free bike. I’m also happy to report I saw very little blatant drafting for a change.
I came flying into T2 with an elapsed time of 29:57 and an average HR of 164bpm. I was able to get this split during the race by looking at my Polar HR monitor and I was bummed because I knew it was slower than my prior year efforts. The 164 is probably about 4-5 beats below where I want a sprint effort to be at so I was generally thinking I had a bad bike split.
But the fact of the matter is that I had the 2nd fastest bike split OA, just 4 seconds off the top split. As I look at people who raced in prior races this year seemed decidedly slow so maybe the wind was more of a factor than I thought (it was blowing considerably harder as we left the Park after the awards ceremony). I’ll never know for sure as I don’t have any of the other data I usually analyze.
What I do know is that I averaged 24.6 mph, which isn’t too shabby, and that I had managed to put 2:27 into Mickey on the bike giving me an even 2-minute lead entering T2. This implies I was an average of 14 seconds per mile faster over the last 9 miles or so. I was relatively stronger as the race wore on and this tells me that my buddy Mick was really pouring it on in the beginning of the bike. Here is how this ride compares to prior years:
2008 2006 2004
Time 29:57 29:28 29:34
AG rank 1/14 1/13 1/14
AG %-tile 100.0 100.0 100.0
OA rank 2/235 3/159 2/173
OA %-tile 99.6 98.7 99.4
Transition Two
I felt like I flew through transition—very solid. I did have trouble weaving through a crowd of bikers who were coming in as I was exiting—this cost me a few seconds. I completed my T2 in 0:51 with an average HR of 163 bpm. This was good enough for 14th OA but Mick was even better with an outstanding 3rd best OA transition that was an unbelievable 14 seconds faster than mine. Mick was having an awesome race and my lead was a decidedly uncomfortable 1:46 to the fleeter Mickster.
The Run
As I left T2 I was annoyed at the congestion I had just escaped and was worried that my bike wasn’t very good and that Mickey wasn’t that far behind. I figured that Mick was probably about a minute faster than me on the run and I was hoping I had at least that big of a lead. The good news was that I didn’t see him as I left T2.
I felt only “OK”—not bad but not particularly good. No tapers and a lot of extracurricular activities will do that to you. The run is an out and back with about 50% on a dirt path and 50% on a road. I kept glancing at my HR monitor and saw 167-171 throughout so I knew I was pretty close to the right effort level. I hit the first water station that Mick had told me was at 1 mile in 7:13, which again was only “OK”. I was eager to get to the turnaround and see what the last half of the run was going to entail.
At the turn I looked at my watch and when I saw Mick I yelled: “Going to be close!” I looked at my watch again and calculated that at my pace I was 1:26 in front of him. Given he was running faster I was probably about 1:20 ahead at this point—so Mick had closed the gap by about 26 seconds. I didn’t know this of course but had I know it I would have been very pleased. I did know that I was unlikely to lose more than 45 seconds over the last part of the run and I figured I was going to eek out a victory.
I tried to run smooth and steady down the stretch—trying to focus on my form. I think I did a pretty good job and hit the tape with a run time of 21:53, which is an average of 7:04/mile at an average HR of 169. I’ll take it. Mick steadily closed the gap and ended up finishing 40 seconds behind me as he ran a 20:45. This was a pretty good run for me considering everything. My split looks pretty good as compared to the prior year races (I should note that the course has changed through the years so there is no guarantee that these splits actually measure a run of the same distance):
2008 2006 2004
Time 21:53 23:09 21:41
AG rank 3/14 3/13 5/14
AG %-tile 85.7 84.6 71.4
OA rank 44/235 42/159 48/173
OA %-tile 81.6 74.2 72.8
Overall I finished the race in 61:20 that was an improvement over 2006 (although not 2004 with it’s much shorter swim course). Here is the comparison for the overall race results:
2008 2006 2004
Time 61:20 61:43 59:30
AG rank 1/14 1/13 2/14
AG %-tile 100.0 100.0 92.9
OA rank 9/235 9/159 18/173
OA %-tile 96.6 95.0 90.2
Conclusions
1. Good race, especially considering everything that’s going on.
2. My swim fitness has probably degraded over the last 3 weeks as I have not been able to get the yardage in
3. Probably had a pretty good bike although it’s hard to tell without the SRM data
4. Solid “get the job done” run.
5. Here comes IMAUS—need to have a big training week which will be tough with hospital visits and then it’s time to taper—Yikes!!! Could be ugly.
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