The Deer Creek triathlon was this past weekend in Mt. Sterling, OH. I competed in the Olympic distance portion of the race, but they also offered an Olympic duathlon along with a sprint tri and du. It was the first race in the WheelieFun (LBS) race series, a regional Ohio points series made up of about 5 races that are all either sprints or olys as far as I know. This is the only race I’m doing in the series, but I noticed more higher level regional competitors at other races I’ve been to in the area, so it must be a pretty competitive series.
Race morning: The wife and I decided to stay at our house in Cincinnati the night before the race and just get up early to make the ~1.5 hour drive to Deer Creek. She laid out a pretty nice passenger setup including earplugs, a pillow, a blanket, and an eye mask so she could sleep for the trip…I had coffee. We took off around 5AM and I got to see a pretty awesome sunrise on the way. The spectacle took place straight in front of me and the sun looked enormous. I tried getting pictures with my wife’s camera, but they don’t do it justice. Otherwise the drive was pretty uneventful. I’d say that most of the other cars I encountered on the trip were also headed to the race. When we arrived, we unloaded the car and headed to check in. This is somewhere they could look to improve in the future as the 3 people working check-in could not keep up with the participants from the 4 race offerings. We got in line at right around 7 and were checked in by 7:40, but the line was still long so they had to delay the race start 15 minutes to complete it.
Pre-race: I found my friend who was doing the Oly as his first tri and who I was afraid would beat me because he’s so genetically gifted, and we headed down to the beach to watch the sprint starts. My wife and a classmate of hers were doing the sprint, it was the classmate’s first tri too. I downed my pre-race gel, checked the water temp and was ready to go.
Swim: The swim was a 2 loop rectangular course where the long sides of the rectangle ran parallel to the shore. I like swim courses like this because I can keep the shore in sight which helps me swim a little straighter as well as is somewhat comforting for me since I’m not the most confident OW swimmer in the world. It was your pretty standard tri swim with plenty of contact, especially at the start. I knew it wasn’t where I would excel so I just tried to cruise as much as possible and save my energy. My big takeaway from this race is that I clearly need to work on my swim technique, although I pretty much already knew that. I’m making it an off-season priority to get some level of coaching to help. Out of the swim, we had to run up a hill about 250m or so to get to the timing mat, so it’s included in the swim time (which wouldn’t have been impressive either way)
Time: 28:39 (101/208 overall, 6/8 in AG, +2:09 on goal time)
T1: Nothing to it…would like to speed this up some though. Time: 1:48
Bike: The bike was also a 2 loop course which was mostly flat and open. The wind wasn’t too strong, but you could tell the difference when it was working against you. The first loop the course was crowded since the sprint triathletes were still out, so I motivated myself by working my way through everyone. I passed my wife around mile 10 looking very strong and in good spirits. At the end of each loop you drop into a valley and have 2 short, steep climbs back out. I passed a lot of people on the hills, which was nice. On the second loop people were much more strung out, so I focused more on making sure I was on point with nutrition and monitoring my exertion to make sure I saved some for the run. My bike CPU had the course a little long (~.5 miles) so my time was off my goal, but my pace was pretty close.
Time: 1:06:32 (22.4mph avg or 22.9 on CPU, 18/208 OA, 2/8 in AG)
T2: I went pretty quick here, still could improve. My biggest delay was trying to make sure I didn’t forget something since I had the feeling I did. Time: 1:01
Run: The run was an out and back that crossed a levy in the first mile or so, then was on country roads. The entire run was very flat. I saw my friend coming in on the bike and was worried I didn’t have enough time on him to hold him off, but I decided to run my race for the first half then judge where I was when I passed him on the way back to see if I would beat him, or would need to try for an extra push. I carried a bottle of Infinit with me, so only took water from the aid stations. This was probably a good thing since they also offered Heed, which I hear is pretty terrible tasting. I felt like I held back enough on the way out, but the heat and fatigue was starting to get to me as I hit the turnaround. I checked my watch as I passed my friend and estimated I had about 2 minutes on him. From there, I started to get some uncomfortable side-stitches, but my pace didn’t drop. As I approached the last mile, I refused to look back for fear I was being chased down, turns out it was all in my head. As I turned the corner to see the finish line, I picked up the pace a little, but didn’t have much left.
Time: 42:19 (6:50/mile pace, 12/208 OA, 2/8 in AG)
I waited for my friend to cross…turns out he didn’t fare so well in the run since his legs weren’t used to running off the bike so I beat him by a somewhat comfortable margin. I give him maybe 1 season before he’s leaving me in the dust, so I have to enjoy my victories while I can.
Overall, I was pleased with my race, particularly my run leg pacing, but don’t like the disparity between my relative speeds in bike/run and my non-competitiveness in the swim. However, that gives me a clear path to more improvement. The most disappointing part was being as close to 2:20 overall and not breaking it.
Total time: 2:20:19 (24/208 OA, 2/8 in M20-24 AG)
As for the other competitors, my friend is hooked I’m pretty sure, my wife had a screaming fast bike leg for her and great race overall, and her classmate is now a triathlete…so a good day all-around.
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