Annapolis Sprint Race Report

2011 TriRock Annapolis Triathlon Race Report
May 14th, 2011


Background

My third triathlon in 13 days, this new sprint race in Annapolis is my 4th of the season and the 104th of my career. The race format was advertised as a 500m swim in Annapolis harbor, a 12.4-mile bike near the Naval Academy, and a 5K run through historic Annapolis.

I drove down on Friday the 13th to register and do some quick recon of the course. The swim looked a little on the unpleasant side and bike was all up and down—something I hadn’t planned for. Oh well. The run looked relatively easy.

Jenny and her friend from Loyola drove over from Baltimore and we went out to dinner down at the City Dock that evening. While we were there I spied a very fit looking gentleman sporting bib # 613. Since I was bib # 614 I surmised that he was in my AG. I knew nothing at all about the race competition—there was no information available beforehand. I didn’t know how many people were entered and whom I was racing in the 50-54 YO AG. However, as I saw him go by, obviously a very fit and serious triathlete, I told the girls that he was my competition, and the one I’d need to beat to avoid my recent pattern of 2nd place AG finishes. They told me that they would send him bad energy vibes during the race. I said just cheering for me would suffice.

I awoke at 4 a.m. and ate my PB&J and banana. I washed it down with a couple cups of Joe and I was good to go. We were staying just a mile away so I rode over with my tri-pack on my back and entered transition around 5:30—90 minutes until show time. I set up my transition area and eyed my competition around me. This was a big race! In fact some 883 competitors would start (and 825 finish) and 36 were able to finish in my AG (not sure exactly how many started). After eyeing the other dinosaurs I concluded that number 613 (his name turned out top be Bob Brown) did indeed look to be the biggest obstacle to securing my first win of the season. Of course, who really knew? I could have been the 10th best for all I knew (after the race I learned that there was only one guy in the race that I had ever raced before).

The Swim

After some dude did a poor imitation of Jimi Hendrix with the National Anthem, the waves of swimmers began going off. We had to stand in corrals for over 30 minutes so we were all glad to finally go. It was lightly, but steadily raining—almost misting—and it was foggy and humid. The air and water were both measured at 60 degrees this morning. The wind was very brisk—a good 20 mph with frequent gusts. I thought that it might get a little gnarly out on the bike (if I only knew). I waved at Jenny several times and then it was my turn.

The swim was a simple, right hand turning box that probably was pretty close to 500 meters. The swim start was off-line to the first buoy and very narrow. In addition to my AG, there was a women’s AG in my wave as well—probably about 70 of us in total. I jumped in first and positioned myself right next to one of the buoys marking the starting line. I was on the right side, which gave me the ability to look at the field as I breathed and also put me closer to the buoy line. The disadvantage of this spot was the line slanted away from the course so folks on the left buoy probably had a 3-4 yard head start. The water felt fine but was very murky.

At the horn I surged away—pulling aggressively for the first 20-30 strokes. I looked over and saw three guys pulling away on the left and as I looked back I could see that I had opened up a pretty sizeable gap on the guys on my side of the course. Nice! I eased back slightly and tried to consciously smooth out my stroke as best as I could.

The water was very choppy with the strong right to left breeze. About halfway out to the first turn-buoy--I’d say about 100 meters in--we began to run into the back-end of the prior wave—wow, 3 minutes to go 100 meters…going to be a long swim for some. Fortunately, most of the slower swimmers had the good sense to stay off the buoy-line and I found that I was making good progress.

I focused my attention on my competitors. I saw that one of the fellows had dropped back—having gone out too fast. Another seemed to be pulling steadily ahead of me, and the third seemed to be matching my pace—albeit, about 15 yards to my left. Decision-time. I focused on the leader and debated going after him. I might be able to close the gap and get on his feet…. Ultimately I decided against this as he seemed stronger than I and I was pretty comfortable with getting out of the water in 2nd or 3rd.

At the first turn-buoy, I was still even with the 2nd swimmer and I noticed that he swung way wide of the buoy. This pattern repeated itself at the 2nd turn buoy. I decided to just match his pace and then at the 3rd and final turn-buoy kick-it up a bit and get to T1 in second. This is in fact what I did. He swung wide and I hammered it the final 50 yards reaching the finishing dock a couple seconds in front of him.

I exited the water in 8:37 with an average HR of 152 bpm. If this was truly 500 meters than my average pace was about 1:34/100 yards—so with the chop, I’d guess the course was fairly accurately measured. It turns out that I had the 2nd fastest swim of the 36 finishers in my AG (97.2 %-tile). I was also 34th OA or 96.3 %-tile. This turns out to be my 3rd best OA %-tile finish of my 104 triathlons to date. I had a great swim!

Competitively, my swim provided me a nice cushion over most of the field and importantly (as we shall see) a 2:36 gap on ol’ number 613, Mr. Brown:

1. Graham --------
2. Christofferson + 0:42
3. Hammond + 0:44
4. Roche + 1:03
5. Higgins + 1:38

Transition One

The transition had a long run-out before I was able to reach my bike. I knew I had a good swim and I wanted to back it up with a solid T1—I was anxious to be gone before Mr. Brown showed up—outa’ sight, outa’ mind! As I neared my bike I confirmed that I was second and saw the other fellow just finishing up his transition. I estimated I was 30-45 seconds down.

I had a little trouble getting my wetsuit bib-johns off and I felt a little slow but the data would suggest otherwise. I took 2:09 to complete T1 and had an average HR of 167 bpm—I was pushing it. I was 3 seconds slower than the best T1 in my AG and ended up securing the 2nd fastest in my AG! I picked up valuable time against those closest to me and here is where we stood after T1:

1. Graham --------
2. Christofferson + 0:27
3. Hammond + 0:43
4. Roche + 1:06
5. Higgins + 2:02

The Bike

I waved to Jenny and mounted up. I was very motivated to run down Graham and try to open up as a big a lead as I could before the run—especially given how bad my knee has been of late (I only had run 26 miles in the prior 14 days). The first part of the bike course wound through some narrow streets near the Academy. This section had only modest hills but it was very tight and CROWDED with slower athletes from the five waves in front of me. There is about a 1-mile section out to the two-lap out and back. Each of those two laps was about 5 miles or so. This meant that something like 800-900 cyclists would all be sharing a 2.5-mile stretch of road!

I hit the turn onto the main road and the crowding on the course hit me full force. They had us confined to one lane with competitors whizzing by just inches from each other—in opposite directions. This section is very hilly with an immediate, quite steep climb up and over the Academy Bridge. Cyclists were riding 3-4 abreast in places, as there seemed to be quite a few rookies on the course. (As an aside, if one based one’s conclusions on empirical data then I would say that all triathletes who ride mountain bikes believe it is their right and duty to ride at a slow speed and as far left as possible). I passed Graham on the bridge—probably about 1.5 miles into the ride and I was in the lead.

We were paralleling the harbor so the wind was a nasty crosswind. Up on the bridge we were very exposed and I had my hands full with my 1080 front wheel. As I started the first descent and my speed began to jump up above 30 mph I realized there was no way I could stay aero, as I was probably 10-20 mph faster than large portions of the field. It was raining hard and really blowing. As I sat up my front end de-weighted and my bike began to vibrate and I could feel it wanting to go harmonic on me. I rose up off the seat and clamped my top-bar with my legs to try to dampen out the vibrations. I had to feather the brakes and basically I decided that I was going to have to give up a ton of speed if I wanted to maximize my chances of racing again this season. So be it.

It was very sketchy! For sure, one of the scariest rides of my career. I had to pass left and right—often having to swerve out into a break in vehicular traffic or by jumping over onto the return portion of the bike course. I said “on your left/stay right” about 150 times. I had to soft pedal or just coast for extended periods of the ride. The good news was that the ride seemed to pass quickly as I was terrified and very focused throughout the ride. I passed countless cyclists and had no one pass me back.

Finally, I completed the second lap and headed back to transition—passing another 25 or so riders over the course of the last mile—what a trip! I completed the bike in a split of 34:28. I clocked the course at 12.56 miles so my average speed was a mere 21.9 mph—probably one of my “slowest” sprint rides ever. The rest of the raw bike data was consistent with all of soft pedaling and coasting I had to do as well. My average power was 235 watts. My HR averaged 162 bpm (probably reflecting the scariness of the ride more than anything). My cadence was only 61 rpm!

I knew my ride was slow, but given the circumstances I thought that it was probably pretty competitive—and I knew I was in first place in my AG. As it turns out, Brown actually out split me (either he is a very good cyclist, or less cautious than I, or both!). That said I was able to open up big chunks of time on the rest of the AG. Overall, my bike was 24th or 97.4 %-tile. I’ll take it and make no apologies for my conservatism! Here is where we stood after the bike:

1. Christofferson --------
2. Brown + 1:57
3. Roche + 2:36
4. Graham + 3:44
5. Hammond + 4:11

Transition Two

I sprinted into Transition like a man possessed. I saw a beautiful sight—my whole area of the transition zone was completely free of bikes. I had no idea how big my lead was or who was in 2nd but I had this sixth sense that Brown was coming and I needed to get out of transition as soon as possible. Unlike, T1, I felt I had a great T2 and was quickly heading for the exit. In fact, I had the fastest T1 in my AG with an elapsed time of 1:18 and an average HR of 161 bpm. Importantly, I was able to put 15 seconds on Brown in T2 and as I ran out I saw that my transition area was still completely empty. Here is where we stood after T2:

1. Christofferson --------
2. Brown + 2:12
3. Roche + 2:57
4. Graham + 4:01
5. Hammond + 4:45

The Run

Shortly after exiting T1, I saw Jen and gave her the #1 sign to let her know that I was leading this thing. The run, in contrast to the bike, is much flatter but does feature a first half-mile through town that is uphill, leading away from the harbor. There is also another hill that we had to tackle twice that is a little steeper but considerably shorter.

I had no idea what my knee would feel like, or even if I could even run the whole thing. It had hurt badly for the past two weeks, even making walking a chore. After my strong run of last week I decided to replicate my very short, quickstep, upright running style. To my surprise, I felt really good—right away. The rain and mild temperatures definitely help me on the run. Probably, the conservative nature of the bike helped as well. I felt like I was making good progress up the hill and to my surprise I was passing a lot of other runners, with very few passing me.

I hit the first mile with a split of 7:47 and a HR of 166bpm. This seemed like good news given the hill and I began to get a bit optimistic. I decided that I was going to really go for it if I needed to—the thought of finishing second for the 3rd straight week, especially with Jenny there, seemed very unappealing.

Shortly after the 1-mile mark we detoured to the right and up the short, aforementioned hill. This was a new addition to the course that wasn’t on the map—perhaps the course change was driven by the flooding that was prevalent down by the harbor (the bike course had to be altered as well). I didn’t know what the change was going to do to the run length, but tactically it meant we would have three turnaround points (instead of one) in relatively short order—this would give me a good chance for the first time since early in the bike to assess my tactical position.

At the top of the hill I checked my watch and began scanning the runners behind me for folks in the high 500s or low 600s. Sure enough, 45 seconds later there was ol’ number 613! I knew he was the one I had to watch out for! I was pretty confident that he was the next guy because they did a good job of marking our biceps. So I had a 1:30 lead at about 1.25 miles into the run. (Although, I didn’t know this, it implies that Brown had made up 42 seconds over 1.25 miles—about 34 seconds per mile. If I had known this and been able to run the math, I would have known it was going to be close but that I had a good chance of holding on).

I thought that Brown had not seen me but I couldn’t be sure. Seeing him however boosted me into a higher gear. I knew there was another turnaround not too far up the road and I wanted to make sure the gap didn’t drop dramatically. Shortly after seeing Brown, I saw the 2-mile marker for runners on their return trip. I quickly realized that this meant that the distance from mile 2 to the finish was a whole lot longer than 1.1 miles. I was pretty certain that the course was long—potentially significantly longer than 5k. Oh-oh! This fueled my growing anxiety.

I pushed hard to the far turnaround and dropped in behind a group of three runners to try to “hide” from Brown. We soon passed and the gap had stayed steady at 45 seconds so my lead was still 1:30. This gave me a huge boost. Since my HR was up above 170, I decided to back it down a bit—I was in good shape and definitely pushing the limits of my run fitness.

I made the left turn to the new section and passed the 2-mile marker with a split of 7:23 and an average HR of 169 bpm. I was having my best run of the early season. I climbed the hill and made the turn. As Brown approached I could see that he clearly saw me and we passed at 36 seconds—my lead was now down to just 72 seconds with something like 1.3-1.4 miles to go. Oh boy, going to have to want this thing!

As we headed back towards the finish line I was encouraged by the thought that it was all down hill—modest at first and then real noticeable over the last half-mile. I passed the 1-mile mark and knew I just had to hold on for another 7 or so minutes. My HR was pegged over 170—I was at or above my threshold at this point—I had to try to stay there without stepping over the line and “rigging up”.

I decided to start checking for him and looked back several times. I knew he was gaining on me but I couldn’t see him. We hit the Church circle in the middle of town and made the turn onto the bricked downhill straight. I looked back one last time and knew I had it. I gave a fist pump and opened up my stride length to take advantage of the downhill.

I hit the “3-mile” mark with a split of 10:25 and an average HR of 171 bpm. 23 seconds later, with my HR averaging 172, I crossed the finish line. My total run time was 26:28. I was to learn later that the course was GPSed by several Slowtwitch folks at exactly 3.5 miles. This rings true to me and if so, my average pace worked out to be 7:34/mile.

Brown crossed the finish line just 38 seconds after me, having run 1:34 faster than I (he ran 27 seconds per mile faster than I on average). Here is where we stood at the finish:

1. Christofferson --------
2. Brown + 0:38
3. Graham + 2:08
4. Basham + 4:03
5. Roche + 5:47

Competitively, on the run, I fared quite a bit better than I have as of late. I was 5th in my AG (88.9 %-tile) and 142nd OA, which was at 84.0 %-tile. Pretty respectable run numbers for old sluggo.

For the race as a whole I finished in 26th place with a time of 1:12:59. This translates into a sparkling 97.2 %-tile. Surprisingly, given how my knee felt before the race, I had one of the best triathlons (statistically) of my career. This represents my 3rd best OA %-tile finish. My top two are Metroman 2007 (98.3 %-tile)-where I finished 3rd OA and Marlton 2005 (97.6 %-tile)—where I was at the peak of my bike fitness—and posted the fastest OA bike split over a former triathlon world champion. AG wise, this is the 2nd largest field that I have ever won against—only White Lake 2007 (44 competitors) has more.

Final Thoughts

Outstanding race for me. There were issues of-course, and I don’t think for a minute (despite the stats) that I’m back at the level I was at in 2007 when I was working with Peter Reid. But there is much to be encouraged by here. Competitively, my swim/bike was a powerful 1-2 punch, which allowed me to get far enough ahead to protect against my run weakness. By the time Brown finally saw me, the race was almost over. And even with the run—there was some good news here. Overall, I did a great job tactically—from a competitive and safety perspective--and I finally ran a race worthy of my father’s memory. It was awesome having Jenny there to share in my race.

The only dark cloud is the continuing pain in my knee. It feels different this time. I’m crossing my fingers that this is not the case because clearly the 2011 plan is solidly on-track…. so far!