August 2018 update

August totals: 18 miles swimming + 338 miles biking + 75 miles running = 437 miles. Well, it's time to reckon with the truth about my Ironman preparedness. Compared to 2016 when I did my first one, I have a deficit for the year in the amount of 373 miles of swimming, biking, and running. This represents 16% of my total. In August alone, I have a deficit of 25 miles, all of which is running. This is entirely Kennywood's fault. On July 31, the inertial forces of a roller coaster caused me to smash my knee into the metal seat in front of me. My knee is 90% better now, but pain and a forced limp caused me to limit my mileage. Well, the reason doesn't matter much, now does it? I feel unprepared for the run segment next month at my race, and since I should be entering my taper soon (the period before a race when an athlete decreases volume, allowing the body to recuperate), I shouldn't do too many more long runs. Ironman is as much a mental endeavor as it is physical. I'll have to work on my confidence in September!

My 6th annual Presque Isle Triathlon

Race: Presque Isle Sprint Triathlon

Date: August 26, 2018

Location: Erie, PA

Time: 1:22:29

Overall Rank: 62 out of 247

Age Group Rank: 7 out of 18

Results: http:

 

As always, my race report is too long. For those with limited interest, just know that I had one of my best performances at the Presque Isle Sprint Triathlon in recent years, and I had fun. For those of you who care more, read on!

 

This was my 6th time racing at Presque Isle State Park. I finished the course in 1:22:29, coming in 7th in my age group (of 18) and 62nd place overall (of 247). The course this year was in a different part of the park so it is hard to compare this year’s results with previous ones, but 62nd place is the best I’ve ever finished. Interestingly, my best segment was the 12.5 mile bike ride, in which I came in 54th place (finishing in 36:39, my average speed was 20.4 mph), but my swim segment was not far off (58th place, finishing 775 yards in 14:43). My running segments have never been my strong suit but I actually had a solid performance today, running 3.1 miles in 25:29 at a pace of 8:02 miles/min. This was the 73rd fastest run among the 247 competitors, and it was by far the fastest running pace I have ever had during a triathlon.

 

Observers report that my transition times were slow. It takes considerable time for me to strip off my wetsuit in T1, and I admit to spending an extra 10 seconds to my T2 today, as I chose to walk from where my bike was racked to the transition zone exit where the run course began. I didn’t think my transition times were any worse than normal, but it’s definitely true that I was slow compared to my friend Dan. Dan’s finish time was 66 seconds faster than mine; he placed 5th in our age group. This is typical, as he has always beaten me, and I admire him for that. The funny thing is that his success over me was not necessarily in the way I expected it. He out-performed me by 22 seconds in the swim, 54 seconds in T1, 8 seconds on the bike, and 35 seconds in T2. All of this is typical. However, I had a faster run by 53 seconds (not typical). If my transition times were equal to his, I would have beaten him by 23 seconds. So my friends, this is a great reminder that transitions during the triathlon count, and a race can be won or lost because of them. We shall not speak of my transition times again.

 

Besides all these statistics, I want to say this was a fun race. The weather was beautiful. The swim was in Lake Erie at Beach 10. The swim was a wave start, and I positioned myself with 3 or 4 rows of swimmers ahead of me in the middle of the pack. I didn’t really plan it that way, but after the race began and I found myself with kicking feet in my face and swimmers crowding me from both sides, I figured this was great practice for my upcoming Ironman, where the swim course will be populated with 2000 swimmers all at once. I didn’t panic and I didn’t even get frustrated. I just swam left or right to find a hole between swimmers. I drifted to the outside, away from the buoys. I probably swam a farther distance than I had to, but with water clearer of competitors, I could relax. Indeed, I didn’t swim at top speed. Maybe I was thinking about my longer Ironman swim (going slower means I can swim longer…), but honestly I just wanted to feel comfortable. That strategy doesn’t win races, but it does preserve the fun.

 

I started the bike segment using my typical strategy of maintaining a pedal cadence of 80-100 rounds per minute. With this, my speedometer hovered around 19 mph. About a third of the way through my ride, though, I began to second-guess this strategy. Science shows that at a cadence of 80-100 rpm, a cyclist is at the peak of energy efficiency. Just like a car, if one has high efficiency, one can go more miles using the same amount of energy (food for the body, or fuel for a car). But this was a sprint race! I’d be finished in less than an hour and a half, and I have trained my body to exercise for a lot longer than that. It therefore didn’t matter if I was burning fuel a little less efficiently, because it didn’t need to last that long. With this eureka moment, I shifted into a higher gear and pedaled at a lower cadence. This pushed me into the 21-22 mph range. I stayed aero for the whole race and tried to concentrate on making my pedal stroke smooth (if slower), and to keep my toes pointed forward at all times. This is something I’m not yet in the habit of doing all the time, but I am working on it. This foot position puts more force into each stroke and I can literally feel the bike thrust forward when I do it.

 

The bike segment featured unprecedented wind off the bay. There were wind gusts that pushed me from side to side, and I don’t remember ever being exposed to that condition before. Nearly all the wind was perpendicular to my direction of movement, so I wasn’t slowed down too much. Even during the higher gusts, my speed only dropped to 18 mph.

 

Running straight off the bike always feels strange, and today was no exception. I am so glad I have a GPS watch now, because it can tell me my running pace at any given moment. I was initially running at a pace of 7:45 miles/min. I knew this was not sustainable for me, so I tried to slow down. The key word here is “try,” because I only had limited success. I felt like I was running down a hill (I wasn’t) and putting on the brakes wasn’t having much effect. After about a mile, I got to an 8:10 pace and kept it there. I was working hard, my legs hurt, my breathing was labored, and my heart monitor tells me I was at the top of my range. Exactly right. This is what it should feel like toward the end of a race. At age 43, I don’t know how much faster I can train my body to be in swimming, cycling, and running. However, after 7 years of doing triathlons, I feel my experience allows me to race smarter. I know my limits and I know how much to push on any given day. Let’s just not mention those transitions. I want to end this report on a positive note.