2012 Vincentown
Sprint Triathlon Race Report
July 7th,
2012
Background
Location:
Vincentown, New Jersey
Distance:
0.27-mile swim/14.4-mile bike/3.3-mile run
2012
Triathlon Race Number: 6
Career
Triathlon Race Number: 120
Conditions:
HOT—in the 90s. Sunny and humid. Modest Wind.
Water temperature near 90 degrees.
Knowing
that I really wasn’t ready to race, but also knowing that at 5 triathlons so
far this year I’m under-raced, I decided to have a go in this small Jersey DQ
sprint triathlon. I had raced here once
before—back in 2009.
I was
just two weeks removed from the end of RAAM—Race Across America—and I was still
not fully recovered. This was also the
first week of my 12-week IM build for Kona and my legs really felt the effects
of the surge in training load. Further,
I had spent the prior two days in NYC with Kara helping her secure a new
apartment. It was brutally hot and I
arrived back in Jersey Friday afternoon tired and dehydrated.
Despite
drinking 4 large bottles of water Friday night I awoke and in the bathroom soon
discovered I was still way under-hydrated.
Also when I awoke, I checked my resting HR and it was 58 bpm—this is a
good 15bpm over my normal wake-up HR. I
also knew that today was going to be the hottest day of the summer to boot but
still, I was excited to race. Sometimes
my “C” game can be competitive in a race like this.
There
were 151 triathletes starting the race and 9 in my 55-59 YO AG. Before the race, Gary Smith racked next to
me. Gary is in my AG and has a similar
profile to me—he’s a LC specialist and has completed many IMs including Kona—in
his case several times. Notably, we both
raced Kona in 2010 and he was about 2 hours faster than me. Gary is a MOP Kona Ironman Age Grouper. I, on the other had, am a decidedly bottom
third competitor in that race. Given
where I was body-wise, I was hopeful to not embarrass myself this morning. Also in the race was Tom Senff, whom I raced
6-7 years ago and as I recall, he usually beat me—but not by much. It would be interesting to see how our bodies
had fared (relatively) as we entered and then reached our mid-50s.
The Swim
This swim
takes place in one of the worst places you should ever have to swim in a
triathlon. First, the RD measured the
water at 90 degrees! No wetsuits
of-course, but that temp is ridiculous!
When I jumped in it seemed more like 85 or so to me. Second, the swim is in a small pond-like body
of water that is a “cedar lake”, which means that you can’t really see
anything. Third, there is a lot of
vegetative matter on the bottom of the lake and when the triathletes wade in it
gets stirred up emitting quite an unpleasant odor.
I wore my
TYR Torque and lined up way right in this out-and back, left turning swim
course. Those of you who have read my RRs
in the past know that I’m a pretty solid wetsuit swimmer but my competitiveness
dramatically decreases without a wetsuit.
I seem to slow-down without a wetsuit more than most people. This is due to my late introduction to
swimming and my very weak kick. Still on
this morning, I felt pretty good about my swim—I focused on being in control
and being in the mix when I hopped on my bike.
My swim
was uneventful and I cruised around the pond at about 90 %. I knew I could go faster but given the heat,
I wanted to err on the conservative side.
I hit the shore with an 8:03 swim
split. My Garmin had the swim at
0.27-miles and recorded 286 strokes for me, which is about 1.66 yards/stroke. By comparison, at Hammonton, with my wetsuit,
I averaged 2.22 yards/stroke—a 25% reduction in average length per stroke. I averaged 36 strokes/min—the same as I did
in Hammonton—so my body position—with and without wetsuit caused me to go 25% slower
today than Hammonton—which is quite remarkable—and in other words, with a
wetsuit, I do this in 6:02.
That’s
theory, but in practice my 8:03 is slower than the 7:31 I did back in 2009 with
my wetsuit. In 2009 this was good enough
for the 78.9 %-tile. Today I am at the
68.2 %-tile OA. Still, I have the 2nd
fastest in my AG (88.9 %-tile) and I’m just 2 seconds off the lead—I certainly
didn’t embarrass myself this morning:
1. Senff --------
2. Christofferson + 0:02
3. Smith +
0:12
4. Denko +
0:17
5. Zobel +
0:42
Transition One
I don’t
see Senff as I run through transition even though I obviously passed him
there. Without my wetsuit, I seem to
have a great T1. Right before I leave T1,
Smith runs up and I know the early advantage is mine.
I record a 1:21 transition split
and my Garmin reports I ran 523 feet in transition. From a competitive perspective, this is great news
indeed. I have a much better T1 than
anyone else in my AG (Smith is 19 seconds slower and no one else is within 30
seconds):
1. Christofferson --------
2. Smith +
0:23
3. Senff + 0:33
4. Denko +
1:07
5. Zobel +
1:21
Overall,
I have the 13th best T1 (92.1 %-tile). In 2009, I had the 33rd/84.3
%-tile T1 and was 3rd in my AG.
Very satisfying, especially since it’s been 4 weeks since I last raced a
triathlon.
The Bike
Even
short of it’s advertised distance, the bike at 14.4-miles suits me. In 2009, I did the course in 36:28 (23.9 mph)
and averaged 260 watts at an average HR of 160bpm. I was curious to see how my body performed
today. With RAAM, I had a tremendous training
load in 6 days and could reasonably expect to see a real jump in fitness. On the other hand, I could tell that even
with 2 weeks, my body had not fully recovered yet from RAAM.
I jumped
out quickly on the bike and felt amazing.
My watts jumped well north of 300 and I had to consciously slow myself
down. I hit the first mile with an
average speed of 21.9 mph, but with an average of 273 watts (84 rpm/159
bpm). I was very optimistic—I could feel
the latent fitness in my legs but I was still cautious—I had been warned about
the difficulty that one faces post-RAAM.
My next two miles were still strong, but I was definitely holding back:
Mile 2:
24.8 mph/247 watts/89 rpm/160 bpm
Mile 3:
23.4 mph/247 watts/86 rpm/159 bpm
Towards
the end of third mile, and despite my low HR, I could really feel my legs
“rig-up”. They were uncharacteristically
leaden. I knew right then that RAAM was
still negatively affecting me. I kept
pushing the rest of the ride but it was a struggle. I just couldn’t go hard enough to really
stress my aerobic engine—you can see that in the HR numbers below:
Mile 4:
22.5/242/86/160
Mile 5:
23.9/236/87/159
Mile 6:
24.9/230/88/157
Mile 7:
24.9/242/85/159
Mile 8:
23.2/246/85/160
Mile 9:
23.4/227/87/158
Mile 10:
21.5/224/83/160
Mile 11: 23.6/239/86/159
Mile 12:
23.8/239/86/158
Mile 13:
24.0/228/81/156
Mile 14:
23.6/239/84/158
Mile
14.4: 20.6/246/84/157
For the
ride as a whole I averaged 23.4 mph, 240 watts, 85 rpm at an average HR of
158bpm. My bike split was 36:51, about 23 seconds slower than 2009. My watts were 20 watts lower as well. Consequently, I fell from 7th
(97.1 %-tile) to 11th (93.4 %-tile) OA. I still managed the fastest bike split in my
AG with Gary the only one hanging close:
1. Christofferson --------
2. Smith + 1:05
3. Senff +
4:39
4. Denko +
4:46
5. Zobel +
7:02
Despite
the slower speed, power and OA placement, I felt pretty good about this
ride. I believe (or at least I’m
hopeful) that I have really improved my bike fitness post RAAM, and as my legs
fully absorb that training stimulus and I more fully recover that I will be
seeing a nice improvement in races to come—we’ll see. In any event, I entered T2 with a lead that
needed protecting.
Transition Two
I enter
T2 feeling pretty good about things. I
know at 240 watts, my bike was somewhat limited in the damage I was able to
inflict on my Gary. Still, I had no idea
what his bike was. I was surprised,
frankly, to be ahead of him after the swim and so the optimistic part of me was
hopeful I had opened up a big gap. The
realistic side said I probably needed at least 3 minutes to hold him off in the
run. Had I know he was just 65 seconds
back I would have know for sure the race was lost right then.
But I
didn’t know that and hurried through T2.
My T2 was a disappointing 1:02 and
measured 323 feet in length. My HR was
160 bpm throughout. I had the 37th
fastest T2 OA (76.2 %-tile) and 3rd in my AG as Gary clawed back 17
seconds on me:
1. Christofferson --------
2. Smith +
0:48
3. Senff +
5:00
4. Denko +
5:05
5. Zobel +
7:02
The Run
Very,
very hot. Very, very dead legs. I knew I was really, really slow today. Gary caught me just past one mile and at the
out and back, I could tell no one else was close so I just mailed it in. I clocked the run at 3.3 miles. My splits were: 8:15/165, 8:32/162, 8:50/162,
and for the last 0.3 7:48/166. My run split ended up being 27:22. Only 3 guys broke 20 minutes and Gary,
while being the fastest in our AG, only clocked 24:05. It was a long course and a slow day. And on top of that I was about as slow as
I’ve ever been in a triathlon sprint run.
Still, I felt good afterwards and was able to put a big 4+ hour training
day the next day—onward and upward towards Kona!
I was 4th in my AG and 67th OA (56.3 %-tile) for the run. for the race as a whole, I finished 31st OA (80.1 %-tile). Here are the final AG standings:
1. Smith --------
2. Christofferson + 2:26
3. Denko +
7:08
4. Senff +
7:45
5. Zobel +
8:56
