PlayTri Festival - Day 2

Yesterday's sprint tri was a good warm-up to today's event. Derek and I had decent performances. Before the race, Derek said, "Now that we have a half-iron tri under our belts, we probably aren't giving this Olympic-distance race enough respect." I think he was right. The race WAS tough (mostly because of the wind - see below), but in the end, I think I did pretty well. Here are my results:

• 1,500m Swim: 33:52 (125th, 2:15/100m)
• T1: 3:54
• 27mi Bike: 1:25:08 (70th, 19.0 MPH)
• T2: 1:31
• 10K Run: 52:38 (110th, 8:29/mi)
• Total: 2:57:05 (12th of 33 Men 35-39; 71th of 181 Men; 82nd of 242 Overall)

Full results at http://results.active.com/pages/page.jsp?eventID=1571334. 242 Total Finishers - 188 Males / 54 Females.

My swim time seems slow - with a pace that is much slower than yesterday's sprint tri. I don't think this should have been the case because I was much closer to the front of the pack today and I feel that overall I had a better swim than yesterday. So I am guessing that the slower pace is because:

1. The Sprint tri swim course was shorter than 500m
2. The Olympic tri swim course was longer than 1,500m
3. The water was a little choppier because of the wind
4. All of the above

(Yep, the swim was definitely long. See http://www.mapmyrun.com/run/united-states/tx/irving/132526756 for the course. Switch to Satellite or Hybrid view to see the actual lake boundaries and select metric units to get the distance in meters. The distance appears to be almost 1,600 meters and that assumes efficient/direct swim routing - which was difficult since the course had so many turns, the current kept pushing me off-course, and the morning sun hindered eastern visibility.)

My T1 time was slow. Even slower than yesterday because my rack was much closer to the swim/run end (instead of the bike in/out end) of the long transition area. So I had to run much farther in my bike cleats - which is not only slow but damaging to the cleats. One of these days I'll have to learn how to mount/dismount while leaving the bike shoes clipped in and just run barefoot with my bike.

Here are the bike and run stats from my Garmin Forerunner 305:


(The bike time is a few seconds different from the official results because I forgot to start the timer until I had passed the chip mat and mounted my bike.)

The bike was tough - much windier than yesterday. We had a stiff headwind for most of the first 10 miles (up to the first turnaround), which was also mostly uphill. So as you can see from the chart below, my average speed for the first third of the bike was a disappointing 16 MPH or less.


However, after the U-turn, the wind was at our backs and the course had a lot of downhill parts for the next 8 miles, so I racked up around 19.5 miles by the time my watch said one hour of bike time had elapsed. (I also hit a top speed of almost 37 MPH coming downhill on Royal Lane with the wind at my back - that was something new. :-). The final third had a lot of hills and some rough roads and that headwind came back in the final two miles as we headed back to the transition area.

Bike course: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=http://pages.andrien.com/2008-04-13Bike43km611m.kml

T2 was uneventful. I had an Accel Gel but I forgot to take the 2 SaltStick pills that I had laid out. D'oh!

The run started off well and I was running a sub-8:00 mile for the first 1.25 miles, however, once I turned onto the Campion Trail, the southerly wind really kicked up and slowed my pace (slightly) and sapped my energy. I got a reprieve at the (approx) Mile 3.2 turnaround and with the tailwind was able to pick up the pace a little (and took a gel since I knew the aid station I just passed would be coming up again). I saw Derek on the out-and-back course at around Mile 4 and we exchanged greetings and words of encouragement.


The stretch between Miles 5 and 6 was tough, I had some uphill to get from the Campion Trailhead back to Colorado Drive and then the entire stretch along Lake Carolyn Pkwy had that nasty headwind again. As I turned left onto O'Connor Blvd, the wind died down and I got a burst of energy for the final stretch. The guy about 50-100 yards in front of me was in my age group and I wanted to try to pass him to pick up a place in the standings, but apparently he had the same energy burst as me so that plan went down the tubes. :-P

Run Course: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=http://pages.andrien.com/2008-04-13Run9km827m.kml

After the race, I signed up for a massage, got my post-race burger/potato salad/baked beans, and waited at the finish line for Derek who came in about 15 minutes after me. We enjoyed the sun and music and watched others finish their races (or start the second loop on the Half-Iron run). Very relaxing.

So, overall, I am very pleased with my performance. Luckily, no leg cramps on the run despite forgetting the electrolyte tablets - I guess the Accel Gels and a few cups of Accelerade at the aid stations were enough. In comparison with my first Olympic-distance tri, last fall's Texas Man, everything definitely improved. The numbers don't seem to bear this out - 2:57:05 finish vs. 2:42:17, slower swim/bike and transition times - but I know that the swim distances were different, the long run (almost 0.1 miles) through the PlayTri transition area slowed me down, and the bike course was more than 4 miles longer with a killer wind. The key, though, is that after all of this, I was still able to have a very good 10K run at a good pace - at 8:37/mi (per GPS), this is less than 10% slower than my normal 10K pace, and this is much better than the 9:46/mi for the Texas Man.

So I now have completed two Olympic-distance tris (and a half-Iron tri). I will do the Texas Man Olympic tri again in about 5 months and see if I can improve again.

Next year, I may do the half-Iron distance for the PlayTri (and hope that it's a lot less windy!) - it seems like a good course and a great race with lots of traffic, volunteer, and fan support. Or maybe I will again do the Sprint-Olympic back-to-back for comparison purposes. Either way, this was a fun race weekend and I look forward to doing it again.