Aquabike Nationals

I did the USAT National Aquabike Championship yesterday at the Rev3 event at Cedar Point in Sandusky, OH.  It was a challenging but ultimately a rewarding effort.

There was a bad storm on Friday night and it was quite windy most of Saturday--this made for a challenging practice swim.  Race day forecast called for 4-5 mph winds but we awoke on Sunday, race morning to 20+ mph winds from the NE.  This generated large, short-period wind chop on Lake Erie.  I had a ton of trouble with that.

The AB wave started at 8:26 and the first 700 yards or so were directly into the wind.  I really, really struggled in the big waves.  I was kicked in the face and swallowed quite a bit of water and felt very uncomfortable--at one point I contemplated abandoning but soon banished those negative thoughts from my brain.  When we turned to the East, things got noticeably easier, although I still struggled to find any rhythm.  The last segment was downwind and we received a bit of a push from the waves.  Here is a map (note it was an in-water start):

One might conclude that I did not swim a very straight course and indeed I ended up swimming 1.33 miles--it was very challenging to site well and swim straight.  I ended up taking 42:13, despite being in genuine 31-32 minute swim shape.  Others fared poorly as well, but I seemed to do differentially poorly.  I had hoped to exit the water in 1st-3rd in my Age Group (out of 12) but ended up exiting 7th!:

1.  Grady      32:21
2.  Hoyne    + 1:17
3.  Skinner  + 6:03
4.  Gauthier  + 7:24
5.  Gigliotti  + 9:06
6.  Benson   + 9:09
7.  Christofferson + 10:04
8.  Shastany  + 10:13

I took 1428 strokes for an average stroke length of 1.64 yards (vs. the 1.9-2.0 yds/stroke I have been averaging lately.  My Avg stroke length by quarter--note the improvement after the first leg:

1. 1.40
2. 1.52
3. 1.69
4. 1.90
5. 1.73

My average cadence was just 33.8 wpm vs. the 36+ I've routinely hit as of late.

Very disappointing--for sure caused mostly by the conditions but I probably let it affect me too much.  In any event, I knew I had a bad swim and I estimated that I was somewhere around 4th or 5th in my Age Group as I entered transition.

I had a very good transition (I was one second slower than Gigliotti, who had the fastest and was 45+ seconds faster than most of the rest of the field.  I left transition trailing the leader by 9:17 and had moved up into 6th place.

I tried to put the swim out of my mind as I headed out on the bike.  I knew I had work to do and early on it looked like I could hold power above 200 watts without too much trouble.  By mile 10 I passed Skinner and figured I was in 3rd or 4th (I was in 5th).  However, shortly after mile 10, Shastany blew past me on the bike and I figured I was 4th or 5th and i began to wonder if I might be 6th (I was 6th).

At mile 23.8 I was still 7:52 off the lead and in 6th place--had i really understood what a hole I was in I would have been very concerned for sure.

My power for the first 5 5-mile segments was decent: 203, 214, 215, 210, 211 watts.  However, I lost concentration between miles 25 and 30 as we were going up a false flat (that I belatedly recognized) and into a bit of a wind and my power dropped to 195 watts and my speed below 20 for the first time.

At mile 30 I snapped out of it and began to get back on it.  I was rewarded around 32 by passing someone in my Age Group and now was in in 5th.  Shortly after 45 I picked off another and thought I was either on the podium or one off.  My power for 5-mile splits 6-9: 195, 204, 219, 210.

Between 45-50 there were a lot of tight turns and my power dropped to 204 watts but after that I began to "pour" it own and was rewarded just past 54 by passing the swim leader Grady!  I was pumped and pretty confident I had done enough to get on the podium.  My power in the final two segments was 221 and 229 watts.  I ended up averaging 212 watts (215 NP) and 21.6 MPH.  My average cadence was 84 and my avg HR was 151bpm.  I recorded 721 feet of climbing on the course:

My time was a disappointing 2:35:16, which was 16 seconds slower than Grand Rapids.  Grand Rapids had more climbing at 1043 feet and my average power there was 195 watts (8.0% less) so you can infer the impact of the wind and poor road conditions in this race.

I ended up in 3rd, which I'll take given my swim.  The two guys better than me, both had considerably better (7-9 minutes) bikes so even if I had a normal swim, I probably was destined to finish 3rd today given my bike fitness.

My bike fitness isn't horrible--the best power I've ever recorded on a half is just in the 225-230 range, so I'm not that far off (and this may be at least partially a function of age).

Oh well--good enough.  I have about 17 more days to get quality work in before I begin my taper for Kona....

On the ground in Cedar Point--US National AquaBike Championship

I drove the 475 miles out to this big Ohio amusement park on Friday.  I drove the course and had a nice pasta meal.  Today, I rode my bike for an hour and did a short swim in Lake Erie.  Dropped my bike off in transition and am having a light dinner while I wait for the Michigan State/Oregon foot ball game.

The USAT National AquaBike Championship is a relatively new event--I think the first time it happened was in 2011 when Uber-cyclist Dave Luscan took down Canadian National Team legend Brett Saunders.  It's been a LC race the last couple of years: 1.2-mile swim/56-mile bike.  Last year there was far less than 100 entrants and a 2:54 won the race outright.  When I first thought about this race I thought who knows, maybe I can take the whole thing....As I planned out my year, with the focus on racing Kona on 10/11, I latched onto the idea of racing an AB in early September rather than a H-IM.  My thought was that my legs would be able to absorb more training in the weeks following the race.  So I entered this event.

Now that I'm here, I've found out that there are 165  people entered of-which 112 are men and 13 are in my M55-59 Age Group.  It would seem that the AquaBike is beginning to become a mainstream event!  While this is typically thought of as a older person event (no run), there are 54 guys entered who are younger than I.  One fellow, Guy Berkebile, I know for sure is quite a bit better triathlete than I am--although, when you throw out the run, the gap between us narrows considerably.  So, my original thought about winning this thing or perhaps reaching the podium is probably not a solid one.

There are several strong guys in my Age Group as well so it is certainly not a given I can win or podium in my Age Group.  But not-to-worry, I'm going to swim as hard as I can and then go like there's no tomorrow on the bike and we'll see where the chips fall--after-all you can't play defense!

Here are some thoughts on how I might do:

The Swim

I've done 22 H-IM swims to date.  My PR is 32:45, which I did at Eagleman in 2007.  My top five swims are:

1.  Eagleman 2007---32:45
2.  IM70.3 WC 2006---32:59
3.  Devilman 2006---33:01
4.  Oceanside 2010---33:07
5.  SkipJack 2011---33:16

I've been under 35 minutes 9 of my 22 races.

My two H-IMs this year were NOLA (36:03) and USAT LC WC (36:54).

So what about this race?  Well, assuming the course is accurate (probably won't be) I do truly think I can set a new H-IM PR tomorrow.  I think I could potentially go as low as 31:30.  Some of this will depend on conditions--which today were very challenging (the forecast is for relatively favorable conditions at race start).  I don't think I'll go any slower than 36 minutes.

The Bike

My bike PR is 2:24:04 also at Eagleman in 2007.  Here are my top 5:

1.  Eagleman 2007---2:24:04
2.  IM70.3 WC 2006---2:24:10
3.  White Lake 2007---2:24:47
4.  Devilman 2006---2:26:17
5.  Eagleman 2005---2:26:28

I've had 10 races under 2:30, but none since 2011.

My two this year were 2:44:56 and 2:35:00

Realistically, given the course and all the chip seal road surface, I'll be hard-pressed to go under 2:30 tomorrow.  Still, I don't have to run so I can throw everything on the fire and go for it--which I plan to do.  I'm in better shape than I was when I did the 2:35 in Grand Rapids--I did 195 watts at that race.  I think I can above 200 watts tomorrow, perhaps as high as 220 watts--which would indicate a 2:31 or so.  It's hard for me to have a real sense about the relative difficulty between the two courses--although Grand Rapids was not easy.  At the end of the day I see myself going somewhere between 2:28-2:35.

Putting it all together, best case I see myself (with transition) doing:

31:30+2:30+2:28= 3:02

Worst case would be something like:

36+4+2:35= 3:15

Pretty big range for sure but I guess I would be most likely to be right around 3:10.

I think a sub 3 will be necessary to get on the podium outright, so I'm not going to worry about it.  At 3:02, I'd like my chances of capturing my Age Group but at 3:15, maybe I can still snag a podium spot.  3:10 would be shaky for the win for sure.

We'll find out tomorrow--should be fun!!!

Go spartans!

August Totals

My August training volume (last full training month before Kona--will start taper in September) was decent--not as much as I wanted, especially on the bike and run:

Swim: 43,000 yards
Bike: 956 miles
Run: 112 miles
Time: 84:17

I continue to have some trouble recovering from my "normal" IM training volume.  I'm especially finding it tough to follow up a hard 100+ mile ride with a long-run later in the week.  I've missed several long runs as a result.

My swim continues to be rock solid and my bike is certainly serviceable.  This week is an easy week as I'm letting my body absorb the heavy 3-week training block.  Further, I plan to light it up at the National Aquabike Championship (1.2/56) on Sunday in Sandusky, OH.

After that race, my main training priority will be to get in 3 long runs before I begin my taper around the 24th or so of September.  I'll do long rides and swims as well but I'm going to need to prioritize my run to see if I can salvage it for Kona....

Fish Week

Second week of a 3-week "heavy" block.  I did a decent job this past week, although I'm clearly struggling to absorb the training load--my aging body is just recovering as quickly as it has in prior years.

I had a very big swim week, the biggest of the year, which included two IM distance OWS--one of which was the Cedat Island "5K" race yesterday in Avalon (more on that shortly).  My bike was solid with a mid week 108 mile ride.  My run suffered as my legs were still feeling the effects of last week's 40+ mile week.  I bagged my long run and cut my run rolume in half--I hope to pop it back up this week and will definitely fit a long run in.

Totals for this past week:

Swim: 14,800 yards
Bike: 277.5 miles
Run: 21.2 miles
Time: 23:22

A little more on the swim--here is the map of the Cedar Island Swim:

As I mentioned, I did the swim mid-week as part of our weekly OWS group, and then again as the race yesterday.  Yesterday, the conditions were considerably more challenging with a 20+ mph wind from the NE (pushing us through the first 3 quarter-mile splits and in our face  in 6-8 above.  Also, the race started at 7:45 and high tide was not until 8:02 and we really didn't get much help.  Here are some summary stats from the two swims:

Practice:  61:18 for 4,407 yards (2.50 miles).  Pace: 24:30/mile or 1:24/100.  Total strokes: 2,203. Avg. stroke length: 2.00 yps and average cadence: 35.9 spm.

Race: 62:41 for 4,251 yards (2.42 miles).  Pace: 25:58/mile or 1:28/100.  Total strokes: 2,277.  Avg. stroke length: 1.87 yps and average cadence: 36.3 spm.

The benefit of the tidal push for the practice swim is evident in the total time and the average stroke length.  I worked quite a bit harder in the race (subjectively) and that is reflected in the very high (for me) cadence of 36.3 spm.  This cadence is typical of a sprint race for me and I think is a testament to the great strides I've made in my swim endurance this year.

Looking at the splits yields a little more light on how the conditions affected each swim:

Quarters 1-3

Practice: 6:16, 6:15, 7:41
Race: 6:25, 5:37, 5:36

I was 2:05 faster in the race through 3/4 of a mile.  This is in-part a function of my effort and in-part a function of the waves pushing me a lon during this segment.

Quarters 4-5

Practice: 6:55, 7:14
Race: 6:38, 6:32

I was 59 seconds faster through this half-mile section.  Here there was no impact from the tides or the wind and I think this best shows my harder effort during the race.

Quarters 6-8

Here is where the tide helped the practice and the wind/waves hurt the race:

Practice: 5:33, 5:47, 5:33
Race: 7:25, 6:57, 7:09

I lost 4:38 vs the practice swim.  (During the practice swim I took 589 strokes over this 3/4 mile segment and in the race I took 771--a 30% increase!)

Quarters 9-10

Practice: 5:03, 5:33
Race: 7:09, 6:15

This last section is where the tidal effect is greatest and my practice swim was 3:24 faster for this half-mile.

All-in-all, I'm very pleased with my race (and my swim).  I think I'm in 63 minute or so IM shape (with a wetsuit), which is very good for me.  I finished 39th overall (150 entrants) and did comparably well vs. some other folks who have served as swim benchmarks for me through the years.

Thanks to Jimmy Moore for this picture (I'm in the Roka):

last week and looking ahead

Pretty solid training week last week with the emphasis on my run:

swim: 9,500 yards
bike: 250.1 miles
run: 42.2 miles
time: 23:55

At this point we are 55 days out from Kona.  Given everything going on, I've decided to bag racing triathlons until then and focus principally on training.  I plan to go pretty hard the next two weeks and then during the first week of September, have a bit of a consolidation week.  I also plan on doing the National Aquabike Championship in Ohio (1.2 mile swim/56 mile bike).  I'll then go hard again  until about the 24th or 25th of September when I'll start my taper for Kona....

Back at the beach

Epic weekend at our family wedding.  Not much training time afforded, especially given no bike access for 4 days.  Still, a good thing as my bod was crushed post big training block and the NYC triathlon.  I finally felt "normal"--generally not a good adjective to describe me--today on my run.

In any event, I had at the very least, an unavoidable recovery week, and most likely, an overdue recovery week:

Swim: 8350 yards
Bike: 99.8 miles
Run: 27.1 miles
time: 12:20

Back on it now!

Chillin' post NYC triathlon

I did the NYC Olympic tri last weekend.  Always wanted to do that one from an experience point of view and I needed to shake the race rust off after not racing for 6 weeks.

My expectations were modest given the very heavy training load of the prior 4 weeks--especially the last two weeks before the race.  I wanted to do a 2:30 and finish in the top 10% of my Age Group.  As it turned out, I did a 2:30:06 and finished 15th out of 130 so pretty close.  I had an exceptionally good swim for me finishing 91st OA out of about 3500 triathletes.  My bike and run were sluggish as expected as my legs were deeply fatigued coming into the race.

Still, a great experience and money in the bank from a training perspective.  Post race my legs are fried and my body told me it was time for a recovery and consolidation week, which with the family wedding this weekend works well.  So just doing some easy training this week (probably 12-15 hours) and then I'll get back into next week.

I'll post an NYC race report over the course of the next few days...