Stone Harbor Race Report

It's a little late and not very pretty but here it is:


2010 Stone Harbor Sprint Triathlon
Race Report #9: July 18th, 2010


Background

I returned to the site of my first triathlon after a long hiatus from racing this Jersey classic. This triathlon consists of a quarter-mile swim in a bay off the inter-coastal, an 11.6- mile, 3-loop course of the very flat Stone Harbor island roads, followed by a similarly flat 5K.

This was my 9th race of the 2010 season and 95th of my career. Since the race was just 14 days after IM Germany, I knew that my race performance would likely suffer. I was, however, interested in finding out if the PT program I had started was having any early impact on the hip issues that were so problematic for me at IM Germany. Wes and Brian were both racing in my AG—strong triathletes I’d have trouble beating when I was 100%--so I was hoping to try to sneak in a 3rd place finish. I didn’t know how likely that was given a number of unknown competitors and the unknown state of my body post IM. Anyways, I hoped to have some fun and do the best that I could.

The Swim

Race morning dawned very hot (we were in the midst of a multi-week heat wave), clear and with a modest (say 10 mph) wind. I was racing in the 1st wave, which was a nice courtesy that I probably didn’t deserve given my anticipated performance. I treaded water next to Brian and Wes right before the gun and Brian told me he was going to try to stay on my feet as long as possible.

At the gun I went out very hard but was immediately surprised to see a significant number of people surging away from me. One of these was Wes whom I’ve out swum in the past and I expected to out-swim today given my strong swim performance this year. This was not to be today however. I felt uncoordinated and a little out of breadth as I fell further behind. I could feel Brian banging away on my feet. I was just 50 yards into the race and I could tell I was “off”—more so than I had anticipated.

Thankfully this was just a sprint so I only had to endure a few minutes of this uncomfortable swim. I exited the water in an elapsed time of 6:43 (average HR of 151 bpm), which is very underwhelming. I actually swam 6:33 back in 2006 and I am a significantly better swimmer today than back then. My relative performance confirmed this as I was only 3rd out of 22 in my AG (90.9 %-tile) and 85th out of 369 overall (77.2 %-tile). I expected a bit of a performance decline but not this much.

Competitively, Wes was 33 seconds ahead of me and a fellow names Fones was also 15 seconds faster. Brian was just 20 seconds back.

Transition One

Unremarkable transition, although I felt on the slowish side. I executed T1 in 1:58 with an average HR of 163. I had the 69th fastest T1 overall and was 3rd once again in the AG race. I dropped a full 30 seconds to Wes and left T1 63 seconds behind. I was quite a bit faster than the other top swimmers and left T2 in 2nd—with a 24 second advantage over Fones and 45 seconds up on Brian.

The Bike

I was very interested to see if I could ride hard on my TT bike and not experience the sharp pain and discomfort that I felt in Germany. In that regard, this ride was a success. My left hip is definitely not normal but I did not have a repeat of the German agony.
That said, it was apparent to me almost right away that I did not have anything on the bike. I had trouble hitting 200 watts even though my HR was elevated well above 160. I was trying very hard but simply had nothing in the tank. I was getting passed by people whom I normally easily out-distance. I tried to grin and bear it, but I was shocked by how little power I had.

I completed the ride in 29:48 with an average HR of 164 and an average power of 195 watts. To put this in perspective, consider how this compares to my two prior short-course races that I did just before IM Germany:

Presidential Lakes 26.1 miles 241 watts 156 bpm
St. Andrews 15.5 250 162
Stone Harbor 11.5 195 164

Further, the three prior times I rode this course in Stone Harbor my times were: 28:28, 28:28, and 28:27. This fall-off in performance, while not unexpected to a degree, was none-the-less shocking to me.

Not surprisingly, my competitive performance suffered. I had the 4th fastest bike leg in my AG and only 20th OA (94.9 %-tile). While I was still in 2nd in the AG, I was now a full 84 seconds behind Wes and only 5 seconds ahead of a rapidly closing Brian—who were both having great races.

Transition Two

As I dismounted, I heard Rob, the RD call out Brian’s name and I chuckled to myself—I was way out of my leg today. I half-heartedly jogged through T2 resigned to my fate. I completed T2 in 1:43, which was only 13th best in my AG and 170th OA. Brian ran past as I was screwing around in T2 and I cheered him on. Finally I headed out for what was sure to be a very slow run.


The Run

My elapsed time when I started the run was just over 40 minutes and I thought if I could finish somewhere around 64/65 minutes maybe I’d have a chance to grab 3rd—though I doubted it—usually you need a 61 or so to get on the podium. The only time I had finished in the top 3 here was a 2nd place in 2006 when I finished with a 60:43.

Much like the bike, I had no power running. My legs were very dead. Sluggish would have been an improvement. My first mile was 8:15 with a 166 HR—I was working at a pretty hard level but running about 1:15+ slower per mile than I should have been. Miles 2 and 3 were much the same and I finally jogged across the line with a run of 25:27 (average HR of 168). I’m not sure, but that may be my slowest 5K ever—even slower than my first Stone Harbor triathlon, way back in 2001. Not a pretty picture.

I finished with an overall time of 65:37, which was only good enough for 5th in my AG and 50th OA (86.7 %-tile). I was 7th and 118th respectively on the run. This 5th place finish snapped a streak of 29 consecutive Short Course podiums for me that dated all the way back to August of 2006.

Oh well. I wasn’t ready to race and I had a real bad race. No other way to look at it. Time to fix my hip, recover from Germany, and get ready for Kona. And so I shall!