Paul Schlosser
Memorial Sprint Triathlon Race Report
June 16th,
2013
Background
Location:
Middletown, DE
Distance:
0.33-mile swim/15.5-mile bike/2.9-mile run
2013
Triathlon Race Number: 6
Career
Triathlon Race Number: 132
Conditions:
Low 70s. A modest breeze, say 10-15
mph. Clear and nice. Water temp claimed to be 83 degrees but
actually felt about 78-80.
After a
two-year hiatus (graduation party and RAAM) I returned to compete in DE’s
oldest triathlon—this was to be the 26th version of the race. The race had recently been renamed to honor
the passing of Paul Schlosser—one of my main competitors in Delaware through
the years here. I’ve blogged about his
importance to me in my triathlon career before so I’ll just say that we all
miss him and wanted to race as fast as we could in his honor.
This was
the ninth time that I’ve raced this race—more than any other triathlon—so I
guess you could say this is my favorite triathlon. I’ve enjoyed some success here in the past
with four wins, two seconds and a third out of eight races. While the swim varies from year-to-year, the
bike and run have remained identical so it does offer a good opportunity to see
where I stand against prior year performances (which is less attractive as I
get older).
The
weather was very nice for a change. It
was a bit humid and there was a noticeable breeze but nothing too
significant. There were 210 competitors
overall and 14 in my AG. One of my
competitors was Craig Holm, who holds the overall course record for the Caesar
Rodney half-marathon, where he did a 64:54 in the 1982. I knew I needed to have an ample cushion
coming out of T2! Us old boys were up in
the 3rd of four waves and we all jumped off the dock and into the
water to await the starter’s horn.
The Swim
Wayne (the
RD) was using an assistant RD today and for some reason he announced the water
temp at 83 degrees and for the first time that anyone could remember the swim
was non-wetsuit legal. The water felt
like it was 78-80 degrees and I’m sure the RD could have justified a wetsuit
swim. Oh well, I knew this would ding me
a bit in the swim but I wasn’t concerned given the swim was so short. On that point, Wayne told me they made the swim
longer than usual this year for a reason I didn’t understand and in-fact my
Garmin measured the swim at 0.33-miles.
I started
to the left away from the buoy line.
There is just one set of buoys and it looked to me that athletes in the
first two waves who were right on the buoy line were crossing over and swimming
into one another.
At the
start I got off well and felt pretty comfortable. I decided to just dial back slightly my
effort to accommodate the lack of a wetsuit.
My goggles were nicked and the right one filled up with water. This was more of a nuisance than anything and
at one point I stopped to try to correct the problem—with only partial success.
After the
turn, I drifted too close to the buoy line and ended up having to swim through
some of the slower swimmers—this race could really use a second line of buoys! I finally exited and scrambled up the muddy
grass slopes in front of the St. Andrews campus. I
wasn’t shocked, but was still mildly disappointed to see my swim split was just
9:17. As I mentioned, the swim was
0.33 miles, so this works out to a 28:08/mile pace—pretty slow indeed! I took 333 strokes, which translates into
1.74 yds/stroke and 36 spm.
Competitively,
I had my worst swim of the year as I finished 84th OA (60.5 %-tile)
but I fared somewhat better in my AG, as I was 3rd. Again no surprise I was slow without a
wetsuit, but I probably should have been a good minute faster this morning—not
the best of swims for sure. Here is
where we stood in the AG competition after the swim:
1. Faccenda --------
2. McHale +
1:49
3. Christofferson + 2:15
4. McNaughton +
2:16
5. Sungtinette +
2:48
Transition One
T1 at St.
Andrews involves a lengthy run up the grass hill by the lake—my Garmin had T1
at 0.26-miles. I continue my 2013 pattern of strong transitions and I complete T1 in
3:12. This is the 32nd
fastest OA (85.2 %-tile) and I’m at least 30 seconds faster than everyone else
in my AG. I see one of my competitors
(McHale) fiddling around and I leave transition before him. I also see that one bike is gone so I know
that I’m leaving T1 in 2nd place:
1. Faccenda --------
2. Christofferson + 1:23
3. McHale +
1:27
4. Volpe +
2:47
5. Carey +
3:03
The Bike
I eagerly
head down the St. Andrews road and exit the school grounds. I feel like I’m ready to have a strong
bike. I’m at the end of my second week
of my IM build phase so while my legs are a bit heavy with miles I’m also
beginning to build some real fitness for the first time in 2013.
Naturally,
with my slow swim and with two waves in front of me I’m passing many other
competitors and this serves to fan my motivation. I catch Faccenda just pass mile 2—having made
up 83 seconds over those 2 miles—and I can tell by the way he is riding that he
won’t be a threat in this race. I’m able
to stay on top of my pedals and I even feel that “pop” sensation I get when I’m
having a strong bike. I power up the
hill that leads to the end of the first lap and can see that I’ll have no
trouble breaking 40 minutes on this ride.
Here is what the first 8 miles looked like:
Mile 1:
23.9mph/156bpm/83rpm/272 avg watts/273 NP
Mile 2:
22.3/156/84/251/256
Mile 3:
22.4/155/85/249/250
Mile 4:
22.7/156/90/251/251
Mile 5:
23.8/156/86/247/247
Mile 6:
26.3/159/88/265/277
Mile 7:
24.0/157/82/279/282
Mile 8:
26.3/160/88/265/277
I feel
very comfortable on my new TT bike and it feels very fast this morning. I hit 37.5 mph on one of the descents and it
feels rock solid. The second lap is more
of the same. I hit a soft patch from
miles 12 through 14 where I probably let my concentration slip a bit—I’ll need
to really focus on staying locked in for the whole ride in future sprints. Here are the last 7.5 miles:
Mile 9:
23.4/159/87/260/261
Mile 10:
22.8/157/89/249/255
Mile 11:
22.5/159/86/252/255
Mile 12:
21.6/156/86/236/238
Mile 13:
25.7/156/87/242/242
Mile 14:
24.9/155/88/237/238
Mile 15:
23.1/158/82/272/282
Mile
15.5: 21.5/159/82/262/276
I finish the bike in 39:16, which for the 15.5 miles works
out to be 23.7mph. This course has some
hills and I recorded 433 feet of climbing.
My average power is 254 watts and my Normalized Power is 259 watts. I average 86 rpm for my cadence and my HR
averages 157 bpm. The later number is
surprisingly low and indicates that I have the potential to go a lot faster and
that I’ll need to work more on 100-115% of FTP intervals over the next two
months. I have lots of historical data
to evaluate this effort with so here goes:
Firstly,
here is how my power has improved over the last 4 races this year—all the races
that I’ve had my new TT bike:
Bassman
(29.8 miles): 232 watts @ 155bpm
Escape DE
(9.9 miles): 245 watts @ 165bpm
Genesis
(15.0 miles): 251 watts @ 160 bpm
St.
Andrews (15.5 miles): 254 watts @ 157 bpm
This is a
very promising trend line and I should be able to put up some very strong bike
rides over the rest of the summer!
Overall,
I have the 3rd fastest bike split (99.0 %-tile) with only Blair
Saunders and his son eclipsing my effort.
This is a very strong result and represents my most competitive bike split
of my nine races here. Here is where I
have finished historically on the bike at St. Andrews:
2003: 9th/97.1
%-tile
2004: 8th/97.5
2005: 6th/98.3
2006: 6th/98.1
2007: 7th/97.7
2008: 8th/97.6
2009: 7th/97.8
2010: 10th/96.6
2013: 3rd/99.0
I also
have some comparable HR/power data from prior years:
2005: 167
bpm
2006: 165
bpm
2007: 249
watts @ 167 bpm
2008: 254
watts @ 167 bpm
2009: 237
watts @ 164 bpm
2010: 250
watts @ 162 bpm
2013: 254
watts @ 157 bpm
Comparing
my splits from year-to-year is less informative as the weather has varied quite
a bit but this ride is the 4th fastest of my nine efforts here:
2003:
39:41
2004:
39:40
2005:
39:43
2006:
39:03
2007:
38:34
2008:
38:12
2009:
41:48
2010:
39:45
2013:
39:16
Lastly, I
looked at how I did against three specific other riders who have raced here
most times: Saunders, Mulveny, and Holmes.
Saunders is 48 and he always posts the fastest bike split here (he is a
former Canadian National Cycling Champion), Mulveny is 42 and a perennial
top-ten finisher at this race, and Holmes, 67, is an incredible cycling talent and
I hope to equal his times in the years ahead.
Interestingly, when I average the bike splits of these three guys, it is
always very close to mine—which means it can provide another measuring stick
for my bike performance.
A fair
question at this point is why bother when I can compare OA %-tiles through the
years? Well, I worry that while I had my
best OA %-tile this year, that perhaps it was because 3-4 guys who used to race
here are no longer racing and therefore that standard has become easier. Therefore, comparing directly to these three
long-time, very strong cyclists gives me another view. So what does the data say? It says I nailed it this year! Here is how I compared (plus means I was
faster and minus means I was slower):
2005:
+1.1%
2007:
(3.7)
2008:
(0.1)
2009:
(2.9)
2010:
(0.2)
2013:
+2.6
Anyways,
enough of this. In my AG competition I
put 4+ minutes on everyone on this bike leg and here is where we stood after
the bike:
1. Christofferson --------
2. Holm +
5:48
3. McHale + 6:35
4. Faccenda +
6:51
5. Volpe +
7:17
Transition Two
As I
rolled down the final part of the bike course I pulled up my averages page on
my Garmin so I was well aware that I had put down an effective bike split. I was confident that the race was mine at
this point. I focused in on my
transition and once again (2013 is the year of transitions for me) executed a
very solid T2—I completed my tasks in 46
seconds with an average HR of 158 bpm. This
was substantially faster than anyone in my AG and was the 28th
fastest OA (87.1 %-tile). With the bike
and my transitions I had built an insurmountable lead—even given my run
weakness and the strength of Holm’s run—and I knew this was true as I left T2. Here is where we stood after T2:
1. Christofferson --------
2. Holm +
6:04
3. McHale +
6:58
4. Faccenda +
7:27
5. Volpe +
7:55
The Run
I
struggled throughout this run—no two ways about it. I probably could have run faster if I had
competitive pressure but my legs where fried right from the start. I’m not in good enough run shape yet to
deliver the (even so modest) runs I expect.
That said I thought I gave it an honest effort.
My Garmin
had a lot of trouble in the woods on this run course. It’s a challenging cross-country run but it’s
one of my favorites—a lot of up and downs, leaping over rocks and trees—very
entertaining.
I exited
T2 in 10th place OA and fell all the way to 31st during
this run (85.7 %-tile)…pretty disappointing for sure. My run
took 24:22 to complete with an average HR of 162bpm. At an estimated 2.9 miles this works out
to a very disappointing 8:24/mile. This
is also 1:23 slower than I did in 2010, which was heretofore my slowest run on
this course—yikes! The 162bpm is telling
as it indicates that I was a good 10bpm lower than when I’m really
pushing. Conclusion—I’m not in good run
shape and I didn’t push hard enough today.
Oh well.
I was
still fast enough to win my AG rather easily.
While I had the 95th fastest run (56.2 %-tile), I strangely
enough had the second fastest in my AG.
Here is how we ended up in my AG competition:
1. Christofferson --------
2. Holm +
2:48
3. McHale +
7:08
4. Faccenda +
9:15
5. Volpe +11:39
Conclusions
It’s easy
to conclude poor run/swim and excellent bike from the above. I think that’s probably more true than
not. Still, the biggest takeaway I have
is the progress on my bike and the seeming potential I have for the rest of the
year—it’s possible that I’ll have an exceptional year from a bike perspective.
This was
my 4th win out of the 6 races (2 seconds) this year and that is not
so bad. It was also my 42nd
AG victory. Never a bad race when that
happens—quite satisfying actually!
I for
sure did not race well on the swim and run today. That combined with my poor fitness in those
areas makes it pretty clear what I need to work hard on over the next 14 weeks
before Lake Tahoe—and so I will.
Next
Sunday I’m doing Mont Tremblant-70.3 and I’m excited to do so. My expectations are modest given my training
history and demonstrated fitness levels.
At the very least, it will be a great training day as I build towards my
“A” race of 2013 at Tahoe.
Thanks
for reading!
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