Jersey Genesis Race Report

2010 Jersey Genesis Triathlon
Race Report #5: 6/5/10


Background

Fifth triathlon of the 2010 season and my 91st OA. Fifteenth running of this “old-school” tradition—one of the more established local triathlons for sure. Advertised distances were: 0.5-mile swim/16-mile bike/4-mile run. This was the third time that I would race this race (but I had not raced here since 2003). Race morning the weather was hot and very humid and we were well into a weeklong heat wave.

I entered the race 4 weeks before my “A” race at IM Germany and pleased with my swim (so far in this season) and how much my bike has improved since my crash—I was getting demonstrably stronger each week that went by. However, my run was still quite suspect as I continued to struggle with my left hip flexors.

Competition wise, (22 deep in my 50-54 YO AG) I did not see any overwhelming competitors. There were a couple of strong swimmers entered and I looked forward to gauging the strength of my swim fitness against them. I was just finishing a 327-mile ride week and over 25 hours of overall training so I knew I might be too tired to race well but frankly, with the progress I’ve seen over the last few weeks I was optimistic about my ability to crank a good race.

The Swim

A rather pleasant triangle in a river “bay” that empties into the Atlantic was the swim venue. I must say, while I disliked this swim back in the day, today this strikes me as a nice place to swim.

I am in the 2nd wave, 45+ males, and start way right (as is my custom--so that I can keep an eye on the field as I breathe on the left side.) Off we go and as has been the pattern this year I quickly begin to surge ahead of the field. I have one fellow to my right who is swimming strong and I immediately suspect that it is Grout—one of the aforementioned strong swimmers. To my left are only 2-3 swimmers who are pulling away and I know one of them must be Hemmerle (an extremely strong 50-54 YO swimmer).

The first turn is about 150-175 yards out and since we are swimming a lot faster than the rest of the wave the buoy navigation is quite easy. I cross paths with the fellow I assume to be Grout a couple of times and then put my head down and begin to move away. During this long stretch parallel to the shore I make a number of navigation mistakes (we are swimming into the sun and through a lot of slower swimmers) but keep on pushing.

As the swim ends I feel my heart “fluttering” a bit but I realize that I’ve not pushed as hard as I could, that I made a bunch of mistakes and that I seemed unnaturally “spent” from this short swim.

From a competitive standpoint I was holding my own as the following data indicates. Here was my AG standing after the swim:

1. Hemmerle --------
2. Christofferson + 2:46
3. Grout + 3:29
4. Sherry + 4:08
5. Bruno + 5:39

The most interesting piece of data is that I was faster than Grout. I have raced him many times before and have never swum faster than him before. Over the last two years I raced against him at Hammonton (’08 and ’09) and at Bassman (’08). He has (on average) been 9.9% faster than me in the swim (range: 5.4-16.4%). However, today I was 5.1% faster and 15% faster versus prior years (which has been typical of my relative swim improvement versus last year.)

However, I do think I left a bit on the table. Overall I was only 22nd of 193 (89.1 %-tile). My HR was high at 158bpm for the 12:47 it took me to swim the half-mile.

Transition One

I struggled as I ran up the beach towards the racks. I was unusually spent and had to jog slowly. When I reached my space I almost threw-up as it seemed that I was overheated (in retrospect it was way to warm in the water to wear a full wetsuit. In theory it’s supposed to be 78 degrees or below to allow a wetsuit but my guess is that it was 80-82 degrees). I sat down and took several seconds to compose myself and get my HR back under control. I finally did and I took 1:54 to execute T1 with an average HR of 1:54 bpm. This was the 4th fastest in my AG but considerably faster (1:14) than Hemmerle and my AG exited T1 as follows:

1. Hemmerle -------
2. Christofferson + 1:32
3. Grout + 2:10
4. Sherry + 3:02
5. Bruno + 3:23

The Bike

Time to do my thing. Looking out through my glasses I passed a steady stream of folks (including Hemmerle) but consistently saw surprisingly low wattage numbers. I was FRIED!!!! No high-end punch at all. I did everything I could to push it but it was just not there at all. Hard to sustain in the 230s…Yet I seemed to pass everyone in my sight (this would be predominantly slower guys under 45 who started 4 minutes in front of me in wave 1).

I tried to soldier on and finished the bike leg with an elapsed time of 40:10. I measured the course at 15.5 miles so my average speed was only 23.2 mph (yuck). It was fairly windy but that just does not cut it. My average power was only 236 watts (yikes!). My average HR was 161bpm, which isn’t that bad (should be 165) but that correlated with my lousy power indicates someone who wasn’t physically ready to rumble.

Competitively this played out as I only had the 12th fastest bike (94.3 %-tile). In my AG I did do fairly well delivering the fastest bike ride by almost 3 minutes and more importantly out-splitting Hemmerle by almost 5 and a half minutes. Here is where we were after the bike:

1. Christofferson --------
2. Hemmerle + 3:44
3. Sherry + 4:31
4. Grout + 4:50
5. Josephson + 4:53

Transition Two

Despite being in wave two I entered a pretty empty transition zone. I could tell I was holding my own and even though I really had no real data on where I stood in my AG, I suspected I had a big (good enough) lead. My transition was uneventful and executed in 1:09 with an average HR of 156 bpm. In my AG the competitive situation was essentially unchanged.


The Run

Although I didn’t know if for sure I left T2 with more than a four-minute lead. It was very hot and I was, how can I say it, very uninspired. I just sensed that my race was quite slow but no one was going to get me in my AG. I should not have thought this way but I did and I was right.

I basically jogged the run with an average HR of only 163bpm and finished the advertised 4-miles in 31:26. This was only the 8th fastest in my AG (68.1 %-tile) and 75th OA (61.6 %-tile). I finished 23rd OA (88.6 %-tile) in 1:27:25 and easily won my AG:

1. Christofferson --------
2. Sherry + 3:40
3. Hemmerle + 4:03
4. Bruno + 4:58
5. Josephson + 5:09

Bottom line: I was very fatigued entering this race and my results showed it. Rested I think I’m at least 4-6 minutes faster. Oh well. It was more than enough to win the AG. And for this I am very grateful.