Columbia Association Triathlon Race Report
Date: June 20th, 2021
Location: Columbia, MD
2021 Triathlon Race Number: 2
Career Triathlon Race Number: 161
Conditions: Hot and humid. Very little wind. Pool swim with about 80-degree water
Background
After spending most of the week recovering from Eagleman, I drove back down to Maryland on Saturday afternoon. I went by the race site and checked on the course and then went to bed early in my La Quinta hotel room.
I was down in Maryland to compete in the CAT Super Sprint, which is a 200-yard pool swim, a 5-mile bike and a 1.75-mile run; one of the shortest triathlons I’ve ever participated in. There were just 67 competitors on this morning, and I was the oldest participant. In fact, there were no other racers over 60 and as such I was the only person in my AG.
The Swim
The swim was a 200-yard “snake” swim—essentially down one lane, duck under the lane divider and back down the next lane, progressing across the pool. We lined up on the pool deck according to our expected swim times. I was about the 10thor so person in line. In front of me were a bunch of under-20 competitors, most in their local team or USAT National team tri-suits. I was thinking before the race that I could get smoked by a bunch of these kids as this clearly wasn’t their first rodeo.
When it was my turn to start, I jumped in and did my thing. I was passed by Tan (whom by the way is an eleven-year-old girl) but otherwise swam by myself for the whole swim. I exited the swim at 3:30, which is a reasonably good outcome for me. In reality, with the traverse of the pool, it was probably about 210 yards, so my swim works out to be about 1:40/100 yards, which I’ll take any day without a wetsuit.
Officially, my swim time was 4:26,as the timing mat was set-up at the entrance to transition, which was about a 100-yard run across the pool deck and then out and down a fairly steep hill. I posted the 12thfastest swim (83.6 %-tile) time and was about a minute behind the afore-mentioned Tan, who was leading the race after the swim:
1. Tan --------
2. Ehrlich + 0:17
3. Dimitrova + 0:18
4. Hollingsworth + 0:25
5. Belgrave + 0:25
12. RC + 1:03
Transition One
The rest of the transition went by quickly as there was no wetsuit to deal with and I was racing in my swim-skin. I didn’t think my T1 was particularly fast, but at 56 seconds, it turned out to be the 3rdbest OA (97.0 %-tile) and consequently, I had moved up to 6thOA. Tan, also had the fastest T1 to back up her swim and I was now 1:20 behind her. Here is where we stood after T1:
1. Tan --------
2. Ehrlich + 0:29
3. Hollingsworth + 0:52
4. Belgrave + 1:09
5. Dimitrova + 1:13
6. RC + 1:20
The Bike
The bike was a fairly hilly (two big climbs) 1-loop neighborhood ride. The bike course actually had more elevation gain than the 56-miles of Eagleman (which is more of a commentary on how flat Eagleman really is!). I was in full-attack mode and basically, I was going full-tilt for the whole ride—it was very much like a FTP test. I passed everybody in front of me and eventually caught Tan about halfway through the bike.
My bike took 14:15 (14:38 officially), which works out to be 21.1 mph, which seems slow, but I think was actually a pretty solid effort. In any event, I had (by far—second fastest was 17:22) the best bike split OA, out-riding Tan by 3:23 and as I ran into T2 after dismounting, I was convinced that I was leading the race. Here is where we stood after the bike:
1. RC --------
2. Tan + 2:03
3. Ehrlich + 2:47
4. Hollingsworth + 3:52
5. Slopek + 4:06
Transition Two
I tried to hurry through T2 as fast as I could as I was sure there were soon going to be a lot of much faster runners chasing after me. My T2 was 1:00, which seemed pretty good, but turned out to be just the 8thfastest overall (89.6 %-tile). Tan was 18 seconds faster and she put a total of 35 seconds on me (officially) in the two transitions—in reality it was quite a bit more than that as that number doesn’t include the post swim run down the hill to the timing mat. In any event, here is where we stood after T2:
1. RC --------
2. Tan + 1:45
3. Ehrlich + 2:41
4. Hollingsworth + 3:28
5. Dimitrova + 4:17
The Run
The run was about a half-mile across the thick grass of the athletic field where the race was being held and then on local roads and a walking path. There was one significant hill about 1.25 miles into the 1.75-mile course. Given the short length of the run , I didn’t bother with my off-loader knee-brace and tried to limp along as fast as I could. Unfortunately, this was only about 10 minutes/mile and behind me, Tan was running 8:35s, and a little past the 1-mile point she came speeding by me. I gave her a shout out and chuckled to myself that I was being passed by an 11-year-old girl in the last 0.6-miles of a triathlon.
Anyways, I did the best I could and ended up running a 17:39, which works out to 10:05/mile. Pretty slow, but it was still good enough for 14thOA (80.6 %-tile) in what, objectively was a relatively weak triathlon field.
My overall time was 38:39, which was good enough for second OA (98.5 %-tile) and 48 seconds behind Tan—probably all attributable to being out-transitioned. Here are the final standings:
1. Tan --------
2. RC + 0:48
3. Ehrlich + 1:15
4. Dimitrova + 1:21
5. Hollingsworth + 3:00
Obviously, a low-key event but I’m still happy enough to finish 2ndOA and while I had no competitors in my AG, it still counts as my 52ndAG win over my career.
Onward and Upward!
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