St Peter’s RecPlex Sprint Triathlon Race Report

This past weekend I celebrated father’s day at the St. Peter’s RecPlex Sprint Triathlon in St. Peters, MO. My dad was there participating in the race as well, and it’s the 5th consecutive year we’ve spent father’s day this way.  St. Peters is a small town about 25 minutes west of St. Louis. We usually travel to this little race because it gives us an excuse to get to St. Louis to see my sister, who also raced.

The race itself involves a 500m (nice and short for weaker swimmers like myself) serpentine pool swim, a 20.5 mile almost pancake flat bike through farmland, and a 4.4 mile trail run through mostly parks and suburbs. The course has changed a bit since my first year racing because the transition area was moved and the RecPlex has added on, building over some of the original course. The heat always seems intense and this year was no exception, with 95 degree heat index at 9AM. Luckily, the swim start is determined by order of registration (chronological), so the past two years we’ve made sure to register ASAP to make sure we get to be early starters. In addition, the race organizers moved the start time forward 30 minutes to 6AM. I was slated to start 18:30 after the first starter…possibly the earliest I’ve ever started a race. However, with St. Louis being Central time it felt more like 7:18 to me, so not so bad.

Race morning: Up bright and early at 4:30AM, dressed and out the door with a banana safely in my stomach. We arrived to a muggy race site, checked in, got marked, and setup our transition areas. This race has a biased transition area with limited good positions and no assigned spots. With being early starters, we were able to get a decent spot, but the good racks were already full. I have provided a general diagram to depict the transition area below…

 

Once properly setup, I hit the bathrooms, downed a powergel with caffeine, and waited by the pool watching the starters before me and chatting with the family and some other racers in the area.

500m Swim:  Since the racers are started on a first come, first serve basis, there really is no logical speed progression in the swim.  Luckily, since there were 4 in my family racing (sister, myself, my dad, and my wife) and we know our swim speeds relative to one another, we signed up to start fastest to slowest.  This way, we didn’t run over each other in the first few laps.  The swim was uneventful, I felt pretty smooth, but was apparently going slower than I thought.  Same lesson as previous races…I need to get some lessons to repair my poor technique.  Time: 10:32 (9/13 in AG)

T1:  I didn’t have to deal with a wetsuit and the run to transition was short, but I was a little frustrated after seeing my swim time so I was slow here.  Estimated time 1:45 (T1 and 2 are added to bike split)

20.5 mile bike:  The plan was to go all-out here since I was familiar with the course.  It takes you away from the RecPlex, across the interstate, down thru old St Peters, and then into the country for the next 15miles or so…flat as a pancake and super-smooth roads.  From putting my sunglasses on with my head still wet, the lenses fogged up pretty badly, particularly on the left side.  For this reason, my visibility was pretty low until about mile 18.  I did however see my wife on the out and back section.  Since it was morning the wind hadn’t picked up, and I was able to fly (for me at least).  On the only real hill with about 2 miles to go, some guy hopped on my wheel to blatantly draft.  I had never experienced this before.  I turned to look back and heard him say “thanks” for the free ride, I assumed.  So, then I started yelling at him to back off, which he didn’t do.  Luckily, the hill steepened before long and I was able to drop him.  I wanted to report him, but decided it wasn’t worth it, especially since he was part of a relay team so wasn’t direct competition…I didn’t get his number anyway.  Time: 52:38 (1/13 in AG, 23.4mph avg)

T2: Quick in and out, except for moving the bike that was now on my rack.  This is another quirk of this race since people with later swims show up later and just force their way onto already full racks while people are out on the bike…Estimated time: 0:45

4.4 mile run: As I left transition, my legs felt pretty heavy…they just seemed to have no bounce to them.  I tried to focus on small steps and high cadence, but my legs were like lead.  This continued for the first half of the run.  I’m not sure why they started to loosen up, it could be because I realized I was on my way back, but either way I was thankful.  Around this same time, a runner from a relay passed me.  He was moving pretty good, so I used him as a rabbit to pace me in.  The run wasn’t what I was hoping for, but wasn’t way off what I normally do here.  Considering that it was uncomfortably hot by that point in the race, so I’ll definately take it.  Run times seemed to be slow across the board.  Time: 32:25 (4/13 in AG, 7:22/mile)

Overall, I was glad to be done and done early for that matter since it only continued to get hotter.  By the time we left at around 9:30, it was unbearable and there were still people just leaving for the bike.

Total Time: 1:38:06 (3/13 in AG, 17/384 OA)

Next up is my first ever crit race this Saturday…I hope to survive uninjured.

Crazy June

Busy is the word of the month. I mentioned in my previous entry at the end of May (June, bring it on!) that June was going to be rough. I was prepared and bulled my way through the first couple weeks. The finish line is in sight at this point, but it’s an optical illusion and seems to keep moving off into the distance. The two 15+ hour days per week are definitely wearing me down, but only 2 remain so I just have to keep on pushing. However, the amount of assignments remaining for my 2 grad classes that I need to finish in the next 2 weeks is astounding. They include:
2 final exams, one objective and one essay (online)
2 group presentations
2 research papers (1 involving collecting new data and not just lit review)
1 interview and interview report
The bulk of this work is due by a week from today, but some of it spills into early July because our professors are so nice to give us some extra time (hint of sarcasm).

Obviously, the grad school work along with some B and C races have limited my ability to get some key longer workouts in, but such is life. I feel pretty confident in my preparation thus far despite the inconsistent training of late. I can’t say my training has been lacking, just a bit of a roller coaster. Two weeks ago I only logged about 6 hours (2.25 of which was a race), then last week I was able to get 13 hours including 10 on the bike. This week looks like I’ll be lucky to log over 5hrs, and next week I think I have the opportunity to go big again. It’s not exactly my style to adapt as I go this much since I like routines, but it does make things interesting.

Since my last race report, I got 2 significant rides in this past weekend. One was a relatively easy paced “tour” of SE Cincinnati I took my dad on that involved a decent amount of hills and some start and stop riding with traffic. We also stopped in Mt. Lookout for some coffee. It was fun being tour guide for our 3 hour journey. Then, on Sunday, I participated in a charity ride where I was hoping to work on my tri-bike pacing/nutrition. This was not to be, since I couldn’t get away from the competitive peleton and was unable to ride behind them without riding into the fold. So instead, I worked with the front of the pack pace-line (about 7-8 of us) and we flew for the first half of the ride. On the way back, I was able to go it alone a bit since people left the turnaround area at different times. I rode back until I found the wife who was on one of the shorter offerings and cooled down, riding the last 10 miles with her. I was very pleased with the ride Sunday since I was able to average 20.1mph for 63miles w/ 31miles pace-lining @22-23mph, 22miles solo at 20-21mph, and 10miles cooldown at 14-16mph and still felt pretty fresh at the end.

This Sunday, I have a C race sprint distance race that is a good excuse to visit my sister in St. Louis. I have a race-plan in mind, but don’t know if I’ll have time to publish it before I leave for the weekend. If not, look out for a report early next week, when I’ll be a couple steps closer to defeating the month of June.

Deer Creek Oly Tri Race Report

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.

Deer Creek Oly Tri Race Plan

My 2nd tri of the season is Sunday (6/7). It is the Deer Creek Triathlon in Mt. Sterling, OH and I am doing the Olympic distance. This is a B race in prep for my HIMs later in the summer/fall, mostly because the swim is similar in length and it is long enough for me to take a look at my fueling strategy in a race setting. Obviously, the bike and swim are less than ½ of HIM distance, so the fueling won’t be as important this week but I’ll be working with the same fuels I intend to use later and am testing ease of use as well as practicing being rhythmic with my fueling.

So, here is my race plan…if all goes well I’ll see a big PR, but I should be able to get at least a small PR without much difficulty since the course is flat and fast, much less crowded than my previous PR course (Chicago tri last year), and doesn’t require a long run to T1…along with improved fitness and weight loss, of course.

Pre-race: I’m going to try coffee on race morning. We are leaving early from Cincinnati, so we have about an hour driving to the course; I think I’ll take my coffee thermos with me for the drive. I also plan on eating a bowl of cereal before leaving and a banana en route. Otherwise, I will have a powergel w/ caffeine about 20-30 minutes before swim start.

Swim: Since Tri-for-Joe’s swim is such a mess, it’s very difficult to judge where I am with my swim training so far…that’s what this race will be for. I’m setting a goal time here, but am really looking more for a decent time to use as a baseline for future races. Goal: 26:30 (1:46/100m), Total Time: 26:30

T1: I haven’t seen how the transition area is setup or how far it is from the water, but judging from previous years’ results, it looks pretty average as compared to most races I see.
Goal: 1:30, Total Time: 28:00

Bike: I have a friend doing this race who is an athletic freak-of-nature. He’s done sub-3 marathons on relatively unstructured training and is just naturally gifted for endurance sports. It will be his first tri, and he just picked up biking this spring…so I have experience on my side and would like to beat him overall. That being said, I’ve accepted he’s going to be gaining on me during the run, so I’m going to push the bike pretty good here to try and put as much time into him as possible before the run. However, for practice for future races, I will also be working on nutrition, so I need to make sure to stay disciplined and not treat it like an ITT. I plan on fuelling with only liquid during this race so will alternate b/w my Infinit 70.3 mix (1 serving bottle—~280cals) and water, taking 1 solid drink every 8 minutes, beginning with the Infinit.
Goal: 1:04:00 (~23.25mph avg), Total Time: 1:32:00

T2: These are usually pretty quick, but I’m working in a bit of leeway here.
Goal: 1:00, Total Time: 1:33:00

Run: Even though my friend will gain on me on the run, I still consider myself a strong runner…he’s just strong-er. I tend to have a difficult time not coming out of T2 too fast. I’ve noticed this in my training t-runs as well, my legs coming off the bike want to turn over quickly and before I know it I’m running way too fast. In sprints and maybe Olys it’s no big deal, but this will be my downfall come HIM if I don’t get it under control. My goal is to hold myself back a bit at the start and focus on getting some nutrition and especially some water in (I’ll be carrying a bottle of diluted Infinit and maybe a water bottle…these are small, amphipod bottles), then to negative split the run. I’ll be wearing my cheapie swim/run training watch for the entire race solely so I can time my run leg to monitor myself.
Goal: 42:00 (~6:46/mile)

Overall Goal Time: 2:15:00

If I hit this, I will be ecstatic. I will still be pleased with anything under 2:20. I feel like this is an aggressive race plan, especially since I’m trying to cut over 10 minutes off my PR that was set only last August. We’ll see how it goes.

My wife is also racing the sprint distance offering along, so I’m not sure if there’ll be any pictures. I’ll be back with a race report early next week. Have a good weekend.

First century ride report

I closed out my bike focused May with the Forget Me Not bike ride.  This was a last minute addition to my month, but I figured it’d be a fun way to get some long and low bike training in. 

My longest bike ride previously had only been 66 miles, which was actually on the previous Monday, so I went in planning on taking it slow and looking for a group to work with to take advantage of some drafting.  Apparently, this was not meant to be.

The event, held in Morrow, OH (NE of Cincinnati) had about 450 total participants spread throughout 4 possible ride distances.  There was a family 10 mile ride on the rails to trails path, a 40 mile flatter route to the South, a 60 mile rolling hill route to the North, and the Century which was actually a combo of the 60 and 40 mile routes.  It appeared that only 40 or so people registered to do the century, so my possible pack was limited. 

I went out at the front of the group and monitored other riders’ tactics to scope out possible “teammates” for the day.  I felt like we were going slow as a whole, but I didn’t want to be the fool to go off the front only to be passed by everyone later when I was suffering, so I waited for someone else to move forward.  It wasn’t long before 3 guys moved off the front, but I didn’t go with them initially due to being stuck behind another rider.  Since it wasn’t a race, I decided I could probably cross the gap so off I went.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t making much progress and was just wasting energy.  I decided to sit up and work with people behind instead. 

Once I got caught, I worked with 2 guys on tri-bikes (I brought my roadie to not commit a faux-pas) along with another roadie.  I sucked their wheels for a while until I started getting annoyed with myself for being a mooch.  I moved to the front and found my legs had warmed up.  I took a long pull, and before I knew it we were caught up with 2 of the 3 riders that went off the front initially.  The third rider was never to be seen again.  We rode along for the next 5 miles or so as a mini-peleton until we hit a substantial climb where the group was blown up.  I tried to go with the front guys again and failed…again.  This time though, I rode alone for a while since I apparently moved well ahead of the others on the climb.

The first aid station was at mile 20, but I had plenty of nutrition on board and was feeling good, so I moved on.  As I passed, what did I see, but a triathlon in progress.  So, out came the camera.

I have yet to master taking shots while riding as you can see

I was invigorated by the tri, so began taking some pictures of the state park for the next 10 miles or so.  Once I left the park, I was passed by one of the tri-bikers.  I worked with him a bit, then he went on ahead.  I stopped at the 40 mile aid station and ate even though I wasn’t hungry to follow some advice I’d been given.  It was also the 20 mile stop, so was crowded with more casual 60 mile riders.  I left that aid station alone, sort of accepting that I’d be riding solo most likely anyways.  The next 20 miles of the 60 mile route were pretty uneventful.  I completed the first 60 miles in about 3:09 of riding time (19.1mph average).  I still felt pretty strong, but took my time and ate plenty more before leaving for the final 40.

I actually did leave for the 40 loop with the tri-bikers, and was talking with them planning on using them for support as I headed to no man’s land.  However, I dropped them on the first climb and one of them seemed like he was struggling, so I went it alone once again.  I expected a stop at mile 70 (it was on the cue sheet), but it was not there.  I think that frustrated me some, so I started focusing on my discomfort a bit.  The 40 mile route as a whole was much flatter, but on roads in worse condition and exposed to the wind and heat, so not much easier.  I got into a bit of a groove again, though until I hit the 80 mile aid station.  They were well stocked with cookies, wraps, and water as well as an aspiring musician performing in the barn.  I hung out there a few minutes, and wasn’t in a hurry to continue on.  Finally I convinced myself there was just over an hour left, so I moved forward. 

The next 9 miles were actually very smooth on good roads mostly with a tailwind.  I enjoyed the progress I was making and stopped at the last aid station thinking I had it made with ease.  However, soon after I left the last aid station, I hit rollers again…and cracked roads.  Every little hill and bump made me grumpier at this point, but I slowly trudged along until finally I was on roads I recognized again.  I cruised back to the school and the finish, crossed the finish line, put my bike away, and headed for food.  As I was going through the line, someone noticed me and realized I might have been a century finisher.  Haha, so much for fanfare…not that I would have cared at that point.

Overall, I completed the ride (sadly only 99.15 miles on my CPU) in 5:16 on the bike (18.8mph avg).  It went much faster than I thought it would, and so did I pace-wise, particularly since I rode alone for at least 75 miles of the ride.  Although I would have rather there been more riders, it was well staffed with volunteers and had plenty of good food and cookies.  All in all, a good day of training.

This week upcoming is a recovery week as a whole as well as a half-week taper for my B race come Sunday.  My next post sometime mid-week will layout the race plan.