St. Anthony's Race Report
The executive summary:
Race Morning
Got the site, prepped everything in transition, did about a mile warmup run. Got my wetsuit, and started walking over to the swim start ( about a mile away ). I misjudged the timing, and I barely made it to the swim start in time. I was in the second wave to go, and I was putting on my wetsuit when the first wave went off. Doh! So I hurried up, got suited up, and had just enough time to get into the water to get wet.
Conditions were perfect temperature and sun-wise. The wind, now that was a different story. It was blowing pretty strong, about 15 mph from the East. More on this in a bit.
Swim
I lined up in the first row, just inside the buoy line. As I stand there, I get my first real look out at the water. There's a good 3-4 foot chop due to all the wind. Uh oh! And the first leg of the swim is headlong into the waves.
The horn goes off, and we hit the water. I go hard with the rest for the first hundred meters or so, and then decide it's time to start finding some feet to follow. I see a pack off to my right a bit, so I drift over to them. I see some feet in front of me, so I start to follow. I watch as the feet move upwards, and disappear over my head. WTF?! We just hit the big chop, so everyone was now moving up and down with the waves. It was impossible to draft, so it was everyone for themself.
I fight the waves the rest of the way around the course, and finally make it out. I got off course pretty badly a couple times. I just didn't sight enough, or take into account how much the waves would push me off course. Oh well, I still beat my swim time from last year, and in much tougher conditions.
T1
Get up the stairs from the swim exit, to the transition area. Start peeling wetsuit top off, and running for my bike. Grab a cup of water, and rince the saltwater out of my mouth. Wetsuit came off easy. I threw on helmet and sunglasses, and took off for the bike.
Bike
Pulled off a perfect flying mount, of which I was very proud. Passed two guys in front of me in transition who were slower mounting up. Never saw them again either. Pedalled with my feet on my shoes over the cobblestone/brick road section. Once on the normal pavement, I put both feet in the shoes, and then it was time to work.
I was running with a disc cover on my rear training wheel, so that I would have power data ( and feedback ) on the bike. I had a borrowed zipp 404 in the front. The shop that is building my 404s with the Powertap hub didn't get them done in time. So I had to improvise a bit. The rear wheel was a lot heavier than a 404 would have been, but since St. Anthony's is mostly flat, that didn't matter too much. The main thing was that it was aero, thanks to the disc cover.
I cranked hard on the bike, and just pushed it at around my power threshold for the whole ride. It was windy on the bike too, so there were a few sections where we were pretty exposed to it that really blew ( hah! ). Finally came around the last bend to transition, and pulled my feet out of the shoes, to get ready for T2. I managed a great dismount, slamming on the brakes last minute and jumping off and hit the ground running with my bike. Passed another 2 guys coming into T2 as they were slower at the dismount line. Woop!
T2
Ran bike back to my rack, got it racked, helmet off. Put on hat. Look at feet. Realize they are covered in grass. Try to wipe the grass off on my towel. Realize that isn't doing anything, so I decided to just screw it, and put on my socks and shoes and take off running.
Run
I felt like I was running slower than molasses. My Run LT is around 170, so that's where I wanted to get my HR. I just couldn't seem to get it out of the low 160's though. Never had that problem before! I tried to speed up, but I was stuck. Just couldn't make the legs work any faster. I was afraid that I was running 8-9 minute miles, and I was hoping to run 7's. Imagine my surprise when I hit the first mile marker and saw a 7:30 split. Okay, that's not bad, I can live with that. I was actually quite shocked as I felt like I was going very very slow. It's a good feeling to be that fast, and be well under my LT.
The run course was an out and back, so as I was heading out, all of the pros were coming back in. It was really cool to see all of them just a couple feet away, on the same course. Most of the men passed by in the early part of the run, but I didn't see many of the women pros until I was nearing the 1/2 way point!
The rest of the run was steady. I held onto the 7:30'ish pace, and even split the run. I saw 2:34 on the clock as I came around the last bend to the finish, and knew that I had a new PR by a couple minutes. The clock started with the pro's 10 minutes ahead of me or so. Subtract 10, and I was in the low to mid 2:20's.
With a little work and slightly more favorable conditions for the swim and bike, I expect that I'll be hitting sub-2:20 before the end of this season! Never in a thousand years did I think I'd ever get this fast, when I did my first olympic distance race 2 years ago. It's really true. You don't have to be a genetically gifted athlete to succeed. It takes hard work and consistent training and you can find out that your body is capable of some amazing feats.
Here's a picture from a warmup ride the Friday before the race, so you can oogle at the race bike setup. I love how it looks with the disc in the back.
Swim: 25:09
T1: 1:21
Bike: 1:09:45
T2: 1:21
Run: 46:56
Total: 2:24:30
Place: 311th overall, 28th AG
Race Morning
Got the site, prepped everything in transition, did about a mile warmup run. Got my wetsuit, and started walking over to the swim start ( about a mile away ). I misjudged the timing, and I barely made it to the swim start in time. I was in the second wave to go, and I was putting on my wetsuit when the first wave went off. Doh! So I hurried up, got suited up, and had just enough time to get into the water to get wet.
Conditions were perfect temperature and sun-wise. The wind, now that was a different story. It was blowing pretty strong, about 15 mph from the East. More on this in a bit.
Swim
I lined up in the first row, just inside the buoy line. As I stand there, I get my first real look out at the water. There's a good 3-4 foot chop due to all the wind. Uh oh! And the first leg of the swim is headlong into the waves.
The horn goes off, and we hit the water. I go hard with the rest for the first hundred meters or so, and then decide it's time to start finding some feet to follow. I see a pack off to my right a bit, so I drift over to them. I see some feet in front of me, so I start to follow. I watch as the feet move upwards, and disappear over my head. WTF?! We just hit the big chop, so everyone was now moving up and down with the waves. It was impossible to draft, so it was everyone for themself.
I fight the waves the rest of the way around the course, and finally make it out. I got off course pretty badly a couple times. I just didn't sight enough, or take into account how much the waves would push me off course. Oh well, I still beat my swim time from last year, and in much tougher conditions.
T1
Get up the stairs from the swim exit, to the transition area. Start peeling wetsuit top off, and running for my bike. Grab a cup of water, and rince the saltwater out of my mouth. Wetsuit came off easy. I threw on helmet and sunglasses, and took off for the bike.
Bike
Pulled off a perfect flying mount, of which I was very proud. Passed two guys in front of me in transition who were slower mounting up. Never saw them again either. Pedalled with my feet on my shoes over the cobblestone/brick road section. Once on the normal pavement, I put both feet in the shoes, and then it was time to work.
I was running with a disc cover on my rear training wheel, so that I would have power data ( and feedback ) on the bike. I had a borrowed zipp 404 in the front. The shop that is building my 404s with the Powertap hub didn't get them done in time. So I had to improvise a bit. The rear wheel was a lot heavier than a 404 would have been, but since St. Anthony's is mostly flat, that didn't matter too much. The main thing was that it was aero, thanks to the disc cover.
I cranked hard on the bike, and just pushed it at around my power threshold for the whole ride. It was windy on the bike too, so there were a few sections where we were pretty exposed to it that really blew ( hah! ). Finally came around the last bend to transition, and pulled my feet out of the shoes, to get ready for T2. I managed a great dismount, slamming on the brakes last minute and jumping off and hit the ground running with my bike. Passed another 2 guys coming into T2 as they were slower at the dismount line. Woop!
T2
Ran bike back to my rack, got it racked, helmet off. Put on hat. Look at feet. Realize they are covered in grass. Try to wipe the grass off on my towel. Realize that isn't doing anything, so I decided to just screw it, and put on my socks and shoes and take off running.
Run
I felt like I was running slower than molasses. My Run LT is around 170, so that's where I wanted to get my HR. I just couldn't seem to get it out of the low 160's though. Never had that problem before! I tried to speed up, but I was stuck. Just couldn't make the legs work any faster. I was afraid that I was running 8-9 minute miles, and I was hoping to run 7's. Imagine my surprise when I hit the first mile marker and saw a 7:30 split. Okay, that's not bad, I can live with that. I was actually quite shocked as I felt like I was going very very slow. It's a good feeling to be that fast, and be well under my LT.
The run course was an out and back, so as I was heading out, all of the pros were coming back in. It was really cool to see all of them just a couple feet away, on the same course. Most of the men passed by in the early part of the run, but I didn't see many of the women pros until I was nearing the 1/2 way point!
The rest of the run was steady. I held onto the 7:30'ish pace, and even split the run. I saw 2:34 on the clock as I came around the last bend to the finish, and knew that I had a new PR by a couple minutes. The clock started with the pro's 10 minutes ahead of me or so. Subtract 10, and I was in the low to mid 2:20's.
With a little work and slightly more favorable conditions for the swim and bike, I expect that I'll be hitting sub-2:20 before the end of this season! Never in a thousand years did I think I'd ever get this fast, when I did my first olympic distance race 2 years ago. It's really true. You don't have to be a genetically gifted athlete to succeed. It takes hard work and consistent training and you can find out that your body is capable of some amazing feats.
Here's a picture from a warmup ride the Friday before the race, so you can oogle at the race bike setup. I love how it looks with the disc in the back.
posted by Chris Parker at
3:51 PM
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