Devilman Sprint Race Report

2011 Devilman Sprint Race Report
May 7th, 2011

Background

My third triathlon of the fledgling season and the 103rd of my career. This was to be my fifth time racing on the Devilman course. The first two were half-Ironman efforts and the prior two years I’ve raced the sprint, which I chose to race again today.

The sprint is a 0.4-mile swim (theoretically—the actual swim distance varies considerably from year to year), 21-mile bike, and a 4.4-mile run (it’s advertised as 4 miles but I’ve clocked it with my SRM and know that it is longer than claimed).

The weather for the 2011 event was considerably better than 2009 and 2010. Much cooler and it appeared that the winds would be lighter than the prior two years.

272 triathletes started the race with 13 in my AG. John Dawson was entered, having just aged-up, so I knew that best case I was shooting for second. Based on a quick review of those entered, on paper I was favored to finish 2nd.

As I prepared my transition area I had two equipment issues worth noting. First, my SRM was having trouble picking up complete power readings so I knew I was unlikely to get a clear read of my instantaneous or average power during the race. Second, and more importantly, about 15 minutes before the start as I was pulling my wetsuit bib-johns on, the seam on the left side between the front panel and the leg separated giving me a nice 14 inch hole in the thigh area. Yikes!

My racing wetsuit was useless. Fortunately, I knew I had my old training wetsuit in the car and I sprinted (a fair distance) to the parking lot and made the switch. I sprinted back just in time for the start of the race.

The Swim

The swim is in a pretty disgusting “lake” in central New Jersey. It’s a simple box comprised of left-hand turns (my favorite). I was in the 2nd wave, which allowed me to get my HR back down before I entered the water. I started on the right away from the buoy line to take advantage of my left-hand breathing tendencies.

As the gun sounded I knew I was likely to be slower with the wetsuit change. I’ve tested these two wetsuits in the pool and found my racing wetsuit is about 6-8 seconds per 100 faster. Still, after last week’s strong swim I was surprised to see guys in my wave pulling relatively easily away from me. My swim was uneventful although I had to spend a fair amount of time weaving through the slower swimmers form the first wave.

I hit the dock with an elapsed time of 9:31 and an average HR of 154 bpm. This means I actually worked pretty hard or else, the higher HR was due to the harried last few minutes before the start. Last year I did the swim in 11:55 and in 2009 took 8:20. As I mentioned before, the swim distance is highly variable from year to year. I estimate the course was actually 600-650 yards in length (about 0.35 miles) this year.

To get a sense of how I did relative to last year, I created a “control” group of the top five guys who did the rave both years (Lovett, Buckson, Verdeur, McGurk and Jones). On average this group was 26.5% faster this year than 2010. This implies that I should have swam 8:45—46 seconds faster than I did. This seems about right and in-line with the 6-8 second difference I noted above. I also felt that I wasn’t as “on” for this swim as I was last week.

This is confirmed by my relative performance. My OA %-tile finish for the last three years was:

2011: 74.3%
2010: 83.6%
2009: 61.6%

These numbers are all probably lower than they actually were as the Devilman RD takes the swim split after a good 75 second run from the water’s edge up to the beginning of the transition area. As you know, running is not one of my strong suits.

I had the 3rd fastest swim in my AG (84.6 %-tile). Here is where the top 4 in my AG were after the swim:

1. Dawson --------
2. Lombardi + 1:21
3. Christofferson + 1:29
4. Kotarski + 1:49

Transition One

After the long run out from the swim, I jogged across the baseball diamond to where my bike was racked. Dawson was racked next to me and he was long gone. I thought that I would have a modest chance of seeing him in T1 so I knew right then that my swim was slow. T1 was uneventful and I had the 46th fastest T1 OA (83.4 %-tile) and the 3rd fastest in my AG (84.6 %-tile). I clocked my T1 at 4:01 which was identical to 2010 and 9 seconds slower than 2009. My HR averaged 165 this year. I did manage to move up into 2nd leaving T1:

1. Dawson --------
2. Christofferson + 1:47
3. Lombardi + 1:57
4. Kotarski + 1:59

The Bike

The bike course here is a very straight forward four-mile-circle at the end of a long out-and-back. It’s very flat with no technical challenges. It is exposed in that Jersey Shore way and so wind typically is a challenge.

After the first couple of turns I settled in and began cranking out the miles. My power meter was giving me garbage so I ignored it. My HR was consistently up above 160 so I knew I was going at it. Like last week, my legs felt extremely good. During the long run out I was seeing my speed consistently in the 26-30 mph range. I was passing a steady stream of competitors—most from the earlier wave. I began to get excited about my ride and began to wonder if I could close in on Dawson (even though he has consistently been a stronger cyclist than I in the past). In the back of my head I also knew that my high speed was likely due to a stronger than expected tail wind.

When I exited the loop and began to head back home, reality thundered in and I was confronted with a very strong headwind. It became difficult to hold 18 mph in places. I was able to stay pretty strong throughout and I’m happy to say my hip felt just fine all through this longish bike leg. Also, I’m happy to report that my reversion to my old position (6 mm lower in the front) felt awesome and I definitely thought I was faster and more aero.

I finished off the bike in 54:19. I knew this was considerably better than my last two rides here but I wasn’t certain how much was due to the conditions—as I was missing that critical power data. Here’s a look how the last three years compare:

Elapsed time
2011: 54:19
2010: 55:14
2009: 55:19

Average Speed
2011: 23.2 mph
2010: 22.8 mph
2009: 22.8 mph

Average HR
2011: 162 bpm
2010: 162 bpm
2009: 162 bpm

Average Cadence
2011: 85 rpm
2010: 82 rpm
2009: 82 rpm

Average Power
2011: ?
2010: 244 watts
2009: 244 watts

This is generally very encouraging—the split and the cadence especially. I really miss the power data. Using the cubic relationship between power and speed (to double speed you needs eight times as much power) I can estimate that my power this year was 257 watts, assuming everything else being equal. Of course everything else wasn’t equal and when I look at my control group I see they were on average 1.5% faster which means an adjusted time of 54:24 for me—I was just 5 seconds faster than that. So, it probably was more the conditions than my performance. In any event, I can estimate my likely power to have been 245-257 watts—a range that I don’t find too exciting after the sparkling 271 watts of last week. Oh well.

The competitive data tends to confirm this assessment:

Overall Place/%-tile
2011: 18/272 (93.8 %-tile)
2010: 11/226 (95.6 %-tile)
2009: 14/112 (88.4 %-tile)

AG Place/%-tile
2011: 2/13 (92.3 %-tile)
2010: 1/13 (100.0 %-tile)
2009: 1/3 (100.0 %-tile)

Dawson crushed me on the bike, putting a whopping three minutes on me. I really can’t remember the last time an AG competitor did this to me in a sprint. I was more than four minutes faster than anyone else in the AG so hats off to John—he killed it! Here is where we stood after the bike:

1. Dawson --------
2. Christofferson + 4:48
3. Lombardi + 9:35
4. Kotarski + 9:47

Transition Two

I was blissfully unaware of how far up the road John was. As I surveyed a mostly empty transition area and feeling good about my bike ride, I was pretty confident I had 2nd sown up. I turned in the third fastest transition in my AG—just 2 seconds slower than Dawson. My total transition time was 1:51 with an average HR of 162 bpm. This was my fastest T2 at Devilman and was a full 29 seconds faster than last year. Better than a sharp stick in the eye!

The Run

As you know, my run has been pretty bad for quite a while now. I was further frustrated this week by my knee hurting so badly that I could only run twice (my knee still is a real problem and is significantly limiting my ability to train right now—4 days after the race).

I decided to shake things up in this run by changing my stride and being more upright with shorter/quicker steps. My immediate impression of this change was that it was working. I seemed to be running quite a bit faster than last week. I noticed my HR was up into the mid 160s and that always is a good sign for me. In a sprint, it’s when I average 165-170 bpm that I have my best runs.

The mile markers in this race have only an approximate relationship to actual distance. The RD calls this a 4.0-mile course when I have clocked it with my SRM at 4.41 miles. None-the-less, I hit the first marker with an elapsed time of 8:47 and an average HR of 163 bpm. This was 11-13 seconds faster than I went through the same point in the prior two races.

I felt pretty good (for me). A few people were passing me, but it seemed that there weren’t as many as I’ve recently experienced. I hit the turn around with a second split of 8:13 (163 bpm). Presumably this is right around 2.2 miles so at this point I was on a 7:44/mile pace. I was 41 seconds faster than last year for this second split. Also last year at this point I was really struggling (especially with my bad hip). Today, to the contrary, I felt pretty good.

I decided to pick it up as I saw a couple of guys in my AG. They were a good ways back but I didn’t want to take any chances. The 3rd split was 8:19 (167 bpm)—so I was actually slower but working harder. I was 23 seconds faster for this 3rd split than last year.

I continued to feel good down the stretch and did in fact pick it up quite a bit recording a final split of 8:04 (168 bpm). The back half of the run was 37 seconds faster than the first half and I ran at an average pace of 7:27/mile for the last half. Overall, I logged a 33:23 (165bpm), which is an average speed of 7:34/mile—a huge improvement over last week’s run at Bassman.

I was also 1:44 faster than 2010 and 20 seconds faster than 2009! My control group was only 0.2% faster this year than last so it appears that the improvement was all me! Nice. My average HR last year was 168bpm so I was quite a bit faster at a lower heart rate—it’s nice to get a bit of sunshine on my run—it’s been cloudy for quite a while!

I had the 4th fastest run in my AG (76.9 %-tile) and 89th OA (67.6 %-tile)—so let’s not get carried away, I am still SLOW! I did manage to secure a distant 2nd in my AG—I was a comfortable 2:37 ahead of the 3rd place guy.

Overall, my time was 1:43:05, which was 5:19 faster than last year and 5 seconds faster than 2009—even with the supper short swim of 2009—a new course record for the old man! I finished 35th OA (87.5 %-tile).

Observations

This was a good and quite satisfying race for me. I had some problems equipment-wise, which I need to address, but even there I made progress with my bike position and the functioning of my drivetrain (I needed to replace the top pulley in the rear derailleur).

My swim was disappointing but given the circumstances, I’ll expect to bounce right back next week. I set CRs on the bike, the run and for the race. As I showed, I was certainly helped by more favorable weather conditions, but hey a CR is a CR. I don’t get them very often anymore and the whole point of racing is to go faster. So, I guess when I do I should at one level, accept it for what it is and be grateful. So that’s what I’ll do.

Now, I just need to get my knee healthy again!