This year was the second year I did the Webster Lake triathlon, a sprint distance with a 1/2 mile swim, 12 mile bike, and 3 mile run (actually just a bit short of that). Last year I sprained my back, and lost about 4 weeks of training just before the triathlon, and felt that my run time would suffer because of it. Turned out I was able to put out about 7:30 minute miles, which was a pleasant surprise.
This year, I knew there was no way I was going to match last year. First, I only had one speedwork session. Two, I had nowhere near the stamina training - I had only done one 15 mile bike ride (last year I had done at least 2 x 50 milers by this time), and my longest run has only been 5 miles (last year I had built up to 15 miles by this time).
The only thing that would be improved is the swim, with the improved technique I picked up throughout the season last year, and had been practicing some this year. I knew that if nothing else, the recovery and therefore T1 time would improve over last year, because I remember being winded coming out of the water and having to walk a good distance of the way from the water to the transition area.
So, here is how things went today:
Swim: Overall I felt pretty good. I felt as thought I was swimming faster and a bit easier than last year. My sighting was a bit off, but it wasn't too awful bad. Sighting still needs work, but my tendency to drift right has been greatly reduced after learning that I've been reaching with my left hand almost to the mid-line during extension.
When I exited the water, I checked my watch and saw I was around the 14 minute mark. I felt like I remember my time in the water last year being maybe 16 minutes, but not sure.
T1: T1 was definately better than last year. I did stop to walk briefly, but not nearly as much as last year.
Overall, up to this point, I felt like the difference between last year and this year was noticable, but perhaps not effective (ie, any faster).
Bike: Felt pretty typical - passed by a lot of people as usual. I remembered there was a big hill, and was actually pretty accurate about my memory in where it was (around the 3.5 to 4 mile mark). I also remembered that it wasn't one big hill, but was broken up. What I didn't remember was which portion was the hardest (turned out to be the first part).
The rest of the bike was pretty typical.
T2: This transition is usually pretty quick. Nothing too special.
Run: This sucked. It was a rough 3 mile run. I started out feeling ok, but just gassed overall. My heartrate was in the 170's pretty much the entire time, but I didn't feel energetic. The heel presented no issues at all, so that was good. I had to stop 2 or 3 times on the way back to walk for 30 seconds, because I couldn't run slow enough for my HR to drop - and after a point, I figured I'd be better off just walking or a bit and letting my HR recover rather than run really slow and maintain a high heartrate.
About halfway through the run, I decided that my goal would be to finish in under 1:30. I couldn't remember exactly what I had last year - I felt like it was in the 1:21 or 1:24 range. So there was no way I'd be ahead of last year. The last third of the run felt better, but that was mostly adrenaline at knowing I was almost done. So I was able to crank up the speed a bit and just deal with the discomfort.
I crossed the line in 1:28:47. Whew! Under 90 minutes! I decided to give myself a pat on the back, considering my run training was aborted for 6 weeks, I had done no real bike training, yet was only a few minutes behind last year.
Here are the stats:
Swim:16 of 19 in the M30-34 division, 168 overall. Time of 14:29
T1: 5:09 (last)
Bike:19 of 19 in the M30-34 division, 191 overall. Time of 43:43
T2: 1:11
Run:17 of 19 in the M30-34 division, 152 overall. Time of 24:14
Overall: 17 of 19 in M30-34, 174 overall
Later on in the day I looked up the times for last year, and to my surprise, it was 1:28:47. You read that right - the exact same time, down to the second! Consistent. Poor, but consistent.
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