Anyhow, this event - which always is the last weekend of the month - has kinda become the end-of-season triathlon capper event for me. I like it because, being an Olympic distance, it is something I can show up to, crank out, and not worry about taper or recovery. And, at least for the past couple years, being a month after an Ironman gives me enough time to recovery from that event, while still lighting a bit of a fire under my butt to get moving again around mid-August.
There were a couple differences in this years race from last year - a new TT helmet and aero jacket for the rear wheel, and different recovery status following IMLP. Last year, I finished the Ironman and felt like I was back to myself after about 3 weeks (I felt about 85% after two). This year, I was still experiencing oddities with my workouts in the week before this race - I'd have a workout where RPE and pace just didn't match up, and then I'd have another workout where it seemed like things were falling into place. In the week prior to this race, though, I did manage to get a couple run near-threshold sessions in, and a bike threshold workout or two in. I'd like to think that I was able to do 3 or 4 x 1 mile @ TP for the run, and 2 x 20' @ FTP for the bike, but sadly it was more like 4 x 0.5 miles @ MP for the run, and 3 x 10' @ 95% for the bike. Still quality workouts, but clearly the volume of the past three months did their work in taking the power and speed edge off what I had built over the winter. So I estimate my effective VDOT to be probably 49-50 (1-2 lower than tested), and my effective FTP to have been around 260 - about a 5% drop.
The evening before, I looked up my performance from last year: ~24 min swim, 1:17 bike and ~44:30 run - 2:32:30 overall, 8/42 in my division and 71st overall. Not too shabby. The problem was - I felt like I should be a good deal faster with improved fitness this year, but I also didn't see much area for where I'd improve. Furthermore, with the sprain in my right foot having been something I've dealt with for over two months now, I hadn't really been able to get back into a groove since the Ironman - and with my recent runs having been inconsistent, I really did know that I'd be able to sustain the 7:13 min/mile pace from the previous year. And with my FTP definitely taking a solid 12W hit - who knows what I'd be able to pull for the bike. I decided I'd try to target 230W or so and see what happened. C'est la Vie.
Race morning was pretty typical - check in, get marked, set up in transition, etc. Sounds pretty innocuous, but I actually made my first mistake of the day - but we'll get to that.
My wave was #2 - males 35-44. It was announced it was the largest wave of the day (even though WTC further divides up into 35-39 and 40-44, or whatever), so there were a lot of people in the water at the start. Twenty four minutes - that was what I was trying to beat. The problem was, I can't tell 24 minutes from 25 or 26 - and I hadn't swum a stroke since exiting the water @ IMLP.
As is with most swims, it was rather uneventful. A bit of contact at the beginning, but it was easy enough to find open water before too long. Just patience, and form. Swim around a few buoys, make your way back, and exit out of the water. I guess that's the thing about a swim - not a lot to observe other than if you are in the middle of a pack of other swimmers, or whether you notice you are being passed (I didn't notice that), or if you are passing people from the wave(s) ahead (I did pass a few from the wave ahead of me).
I exited the water, made my way to transition, and realized my error from before. See, at Quassy, my bike was at the end of the rack. At IMLP, you have transition bags and an entire transition tent. So here, in a normal, local triathlon, I found that my race belt, HR monitor strap and helmet were located on the front of my bike, where I left them - my shoes and socks were towards the rear tire, where I left them. The problem was the bike rack right in the middle. And the close quarters of the bikes to the side meant that scooching under the race wasn't going to work, unless I wanted to risk toppling the entire rack over. So, that meant finagling my bike out of the rack so I could get to the shoes and socks - but then I had my hand(s) full with the bike itself. It wasn't a fun time. I managed to get everything I needed, but it wasn't without some difficulty and frustration at the fact I had been stupid and not thought about my transition flow whatsoever.
Anyway, I got myself all sorted out, ran out to the bike mount line, mounted up, and started going to work. I gave myself maybe 10-15 minutes as warm up on the bike - there were a few turns here and there towards the beginning anyway, so it wasn't worth getting all revved up quite yet. I also wanted to make sure I started taking in calories, sodium (my bottle had 1.5 servings of Infinit, for 450 calories and 750 mg of sodium, intended to last about 90 minutes) and water.
After that initial warm up period, I started punching 230W as much as I could. I felt like I was doing a pretty good job of it, but was actually paying a lot of attention to RPE and HR as well. With my workouts having been inconsistent, it was still a very real possibility that I wasn't recovered from the IM yet. So if I could hit 230 and the HR stayed in the 160 range and felt sustainable - fine. Otherwise I allowed myself to back off a smidge - which generally wasn't often except maybe a few times when I had to punch it a bit to pass another ride.
Speaking of which - this was the first race where I felt like I was potentially being watched by the officials. Maybe I just didn't recognize them before, but a couple times I did see them go by on the motorcycle. One time it was just after finishing a pass, and I had no idea they were behind me - so I'm glad I executed that pass properly and didn't do anything that would have resulted in a penalty.
The bike was largely uneventful. There were a few people, especially in the final 6-8 miles or so, that I saw frequently - the typical thing where one passes another, and then a mile down the road things switch up. But for the most part, just like last year, there just weren't that many people on the course - an indication I got out of the water relatively quickly, and was staying ahead of the bulk of the pack on the bike. Quite different from IMLP where I was dealing with lots of congestion the entire first loop.
At the very end of the bike, there was a portion where 3-4 of the people I had been riding 'with' punched ahead of me and entered transition first, technically beating me on the bike. However, for at least one of them, I was pretty certain I'd blow by him on the run. Sometimes you can just tell these things.
I went through transition, and overall it was pretty smooth sailing.
Starting on the run, I decided to keep it a tad easy - a little above marathon pace. I didn't want to go too easy - with only 6 miles I didn't have a lot of time to dilly dally if I wanted a chance to beat my last years time. So I decided to keep the first couple miles right around last years pace, perhaps a bit slower if necessary, just to gauge how things were going to fare. Once again, HR was the big limiter - keeping it under 160 for the first couple miles, or first third of the race.
Once mile 3 hit., I was surprised that my legs still felt reasonably lively, and I was able to pick up the pace a bit. I still held back a tad because I felt like I was operating close to the edge, and the edge is a tough place to be for 4 miles - so in order to keep from screwing up my mile 5 and 6, I played it safe in miles 3 and 4. However, even so - I was still able to post a 7:08 and 7:03. It was starting to look like I could possibly beat last years run time afterall.
The last couple miles were largely mental - at this point it was very similar to a threshold training run, and just a matter of toughing it out. Fourteen minutes, twelve minutes - then 'oh, only 8 minutes left of this. I can do that!'. By the time I got close to the 6 mile mark, I was paying attention to cheering behind me - if there was any soon after I passed, I knew someone was on my heels - if not, then I had a good lead on the next person. I didn't want to be passed at the very end!
As I approached the finish, I could see that if I really gunned it, I might be able to beat the clock at 2:30 - but I also knew that would require a hell of a lot of effort, and would result in a very jacked up HR for little gain. I knew the clock was 4-5 minutes ahead since I was in the 2nd wave, so I knew I had 2:30 in the bag, so the only thing that extra effort would net would be trying to show off for the crowd. Not my style - instead, I just kept pace and let it go.
In the end, the final time was 2:26:11 - a full 6 minutes faster then last year. I came in 8/52 in my age group (vs 8/42 last year) and finishing 67 overall, vs 71 last year. Oddly enough, the field was slightly different this year, as I came in lower overall for the swim and run, even though my times were faster. Obviously, the biggest single factor was the bike, with a 3 minute improvement - but that resulted in a large drop for overall placement - 68 this year vs 124 last year. The strange thing about that was that as much as I was trying to nail 230W as much as possible, my average power was pretty similar to last year - something like 216W in 2012 and 221W in 2013. With wattage being so close, I actually have to give most of the credit for the three minute improvement to the TT helmet and aero jacket.
