Race Reports

RACE REPORT: Mountain Man Sprint Triathlon, part II

Just a reminder: the Top Triathlon Transition Tip Competition ends tonight at midnight ET. If you haven’t had a chance to submit your tips, do so now! We’ll announce the winners on Monday.

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Here’s Part II of my Mountain Man Sprint Triathlon race report. You can read Part I here.

THE SWIM (750m)

My girls are giving me a last-minute piece of advice before I enter the blender.

This literally sucked.

I was hoping to have a nice, relaxed and smooth swim this year…unlike last year’s rude awakening. No deal.

The water temp was 71 and no wetsuit was necessary. I wore my old QR farmer john and instantly regretted it. I’m finding that wetsuits are just a pain in the ass to deal with and I never enjoy the choking sensation I get from the neck seal. If you want to know what it’s like to swim at altitude, try doubling your breathing pattern. For instance, I typically breath once for every three strokes. I tried this at the pool today by breathing once every six strokes. That was close to the same sensation I felt in my lungs while swimming at 6,800′.

Once again, I simply could not catch my breath after the first two minutes. It was at this point that several others came to the same conclusion, Just before the first buoy, I popped up into a breast stroke to catch my breath and saw a sea of green swim caps from my wave (men 49 and younger) doing the same. It was like a sea of green-tipped bobbers with big saucers for eyes. Everyone was gasping for air and I’m sure was thinking the same thing I was: “It cannot be this hard so early!”

That freakin’ altitude came to bite us all in the ass.

I’m the one in the green cap.

Exiting the swim.

And, just like last year, I was never able to get into a rhythm from that point forward. I have to be honest and say I was very tempted to bail out and quit. Very tempted. But, experience has taught me that defeat leaves a very bitter and very long-lasting taste in my mouth and at most, I had another 20 minutes of suffering.

Piece of cake.

As I watched one of my fellow triathletes signal for a rescue from the support crew, I struggled on. Rather than use my standard three strokes per breath pattern, I was once again reduced to a one stroke per breath and found some relief by accentuating the length of my pull so I could take a longer, deeper breath. Even then, I could only go for a minute before needing to pop up to catch my breath again.

Time: 18:00
AG (40-44): 16/28
Overall: 132/276
Fastest AG male swimmer: 12:21
Fastest Overall swimmer: 10:13

I was hoping to knock off a 15:00 swim but the altitude did me in.

TRANSITION 1
I had a great improvement over last year’s T1 debacle. Of course, this was mostly due to me not trying to roll out of the rack with a flat tire. Reading all of the transition tips submissions from the past week, inspired me to try a few out during this race. I had never practiced with these before so I did not have the most intelligent approach, but it worked out.

I made sure I got to the transition area about 5:30 a.m., which meant dragging my poor family out of the hotel bed at 4:30, and got to a nice open rack to set up my gear.

I put my bike shoes on the bike and tied a loop of dental floss from the shoe to the bike frame; one for each shoe. This held the shoes in the 3 o’clock and 9 o’clock positions and worked fine while I ran out of T1.

Once I passed the bike mount line, I got on the bike and started pedaling with my feet on top of the shoes. Once I crested the little hill and got on the main road, I started to put my feet in the shoes. That worked just fine and I only had a 30-second snag getting my left foot in. The velcro tab had re-stuck to the shoe so I couldn’t stick my foot in. Once I saw what the problem was, I fixed it and settled in for my ride.

Time: 3:37
AG: tied for 15/28
Overall: 164/276
Fastest AG T1: 1:34
Fastest Overall T1: 0:51

BIKE (18K)
The sprint course is designed for speed. It’s relatively flat and I didn’t notice the altitude as much once I was back on terra firma. Also, here’s where my aerobic training started to pay off.

Again, I did not monitor speed or cadence. I simply watched my HR and did my best to keep it at 179…and I did. Well, actually I kept it between 178-180, but we’re not going to get that anal about it, are we?

The ride was good and I passed a couple of people and was passed by several more, but not many. I think most of those were cyclists on the Olympic course. I typically don’t find myself being passed by too many studs and stud-ettes on $5,000 tri bikes when I’m on the bike course. Those folks are already ahead of me.

I planned on cranking up the throttle a little bit after the turnaround and needed some cyclists ahead of me to target. I did and passed a couple of riders and had a nice mini-battle with another cyclist that I won. A few minutes later, he came barreling by me as we were getting ready to enter T2.

Oh well.

What was surprising was the lack of officials on the course. There were a group of cyclists that blew my me in a nice little peloton of about six riders. People were drafting like crazy out there.

Overall, my bike went well. I could have opened it up a bit more but I felt like I was going at a hard, sustainable pace which averaged 17.5 mph. I think I could have shaved another minute if I had more rabbits in front of me to chase down on second half of the course. There just weren’t that many riders out there.

Time: 38:26 (17.5 mph)
AG: 21/28
Overall: 171/276
Fastest AG Bike: 30:08 (22.3 mph)
Fastest Overall Bike: 29:03 (23.1 mph)

TRANSITION 2

Whoah there Nellie! My running dismount as I head into T2.

There’s never much to report on T2’s is there?

About 100 meters from the dismount line, I got my feet out of my shoes and pedaled with them on top. About 15 meters out, I kicked my right leg over the seat and balanced on my left pedal as I coasted in for a stop. There was a bit of a traffic back-up at that point, and volunteers screaming “Slow down! Slow down!,” so I didn’t do any dramatic high-speed dismounts that I like to do at home. Those just make me feel way cool.

I ran in, racked my bike, put on my shoes and swapped my lid for a visor and started jogging out of transition.

Getting ready to head out for the run. Has anyone seen my oxygen tank?

At this point, I typically feel the efforts of the bike in my legs. It’s like wearing concrete shoes that are connected to my pelvis by a wet noodle.

Much to my surprise, my legs felt good.

Time: 1:58
AG: 18/28
Overall: 151/276
Fastest AG T2: 0:52
Fastest Overall T2: 0:51

THE RUN (5k)
My most challenging event of the three sports that are the hallmark of triathlon. Again, my “plan” called keeping my HR at 179 or below. I was curious to see how this would play out with the altitude. My guess was that I would be shuffling along equivalent to a walking pace.

Fortunately, that wasn’t so.

Unlike the start of other runs, I felt good at the beginning. I kept my pace nice and steady and was averaging about a 10:30/mile at 180 bpm according to my HR monitor. With the first half of the run at a slight incline, I was just playing it by ear…or by breath.

The turnaround seemed to come much faster this year and I still felt good, so I moved on to Plan 2: Screw the HR and start picking up the pace. I started to pace a couple of people and that just gave me more energy to keep going. Just like the bike, however, there weren’t too many rabbits to catch at this point.

Plan 3 was to drop down to an 8:30-ish pace for the last quarter mile, which is just about where you can see the lake again. I kept that pace going all the way to the finish line and was only able to pick up the pace a wee bit the last 50 meters. I had no more gas for the full-out sprint.

I was pleased with the run. My “wind” was strong and my legs were strong. To me, that showed that my tactical change in training was working. There were several key speed sessions I had missed and that was obviously an influence on race day. The turbo chargers that were present during the run at the Rage in the Sage were gone.

Time: 35:41 (11:29/mile)
AG: 24/28
Overall: 218/276
Fastest AG Run: 22:33 (7:15/mile)
Fastest Overall Run: 19:47 (6:22/mile)

CONCLUSION
Overall, I had a great time and did better than I thought considering the lack of training the past month.

2006 vs 2007

	2006	2007	Difference
Swim	17:47	18:00	+0:13
T1	07:09	03:37	-04:32
Bike	38:35	38.26	-00:09
T2	01:59	01:58	-00:01
Run	39:16	35:41	-03:35
Total	1:44:44	1:37:40	-07:04

The swim, which is historically my best event, once again knocked me for a loop at Lake Mary. Going forward, I’m not sure how to fix that other than trying to build up my aerobic engine so I can better handle the altitude.

My HR averaged 181 for the race and maxed out at 204 during the last 50 meters of the run. From the training I did before the last four weeks of nothingness, I know that 180 was a good, sustainable cap for me. It worked. Now I just have to get faster.

The bike and run continue to be my biggest challenges and I’m anxious to see how they will improve for my “B” race in September and then my “A” race showdown at the Pumpkinman. All it takes is consistency, right?

LESSONS LEARNED

• Ditch the wetsuit when possible. Although I was able to strip the wetsuit fairly fast, it was a pain in the butt and I don’t particularly care for the constriction around my neck. The extra buoyancy is just not worth the hassle.
• No socks for sprints. I need to condition my feet to go without socks on the bike and the run. It took about 20-30 seconds just to get the socks on my wet feet. With the previous day’s rain storms, the transition area was wet and running in my socks just got them soaked…and dirty. They were brand new!
• Staying with the HR cap worked out pretty darn good. I felt like I was maintaining a good pace throughout the race. I just need to make sure I get in those speed sessions so I can bring the turbochargers back online when I need them.
• My pre-race meal was 1/2 of a ZoneBar and a half-bottle of Heed that I started sipping about 90 minutes before show time. The only other nutrition I had was a bottle of nuun (Kona Cola flavor) on the bike. At the last second, I grabbed that bottle and took it with me on the run. I had a third of the bottle remaining when I crossed the finish line. This worked just fine.
• Age does not matter. The overall winner of the sprint was Nick Martin from the 50-54 age group. He came in with a smokin’ 11:33 swim, 31:16 bike and a lightning fast run of 19:47 for an overall time of 1:05:38.

Find your edge and dance upon it.

hak

 

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© 2007 The Outdoor Journey.