I did the Texas Man Triathlon yesterday at Johnson Branch Park at Lake Ray Roberts. Derek and Jarrod joined me for the Olympic distance race - a 1,500 yard open-water swim, a 23 mile bike leg, and a 10K (6.2 mile) run. Lee was there too and did the Sprint distance race.
My normal goal would have been to try to finish faster than the Disco Tri since that is my PR for this course, but with my legs and feet (toes especially) still sore from yesterday's long run, I would be happy just to finish "upright". The race went much better than expected and I ended up crossing the finish line in 2 hours and 34 minutes.
My time is 8 minutes faster than last year, but 5 1/2 minutes slower than July's Disco Tri - not bad at all. I finished 15th out of 29 in the men's 35-39 age group ... and 77th out of 142 finishers. Here are my splits (with my Disco Tri times in [square brackets]):
- Swim: 27:17 (76th place) [26:53]
- T1: 2:43 [2:12]
- Bike: 1:07:00 - 20.6 MPH (29th place) [1:03:38]
- T2: 1:22 [1:10]
- Run: 55:45 - 9:00/mi pace (108th place) [54:59]
- TOTAL: 2:34:07 [2:28:49]
Not quite as many participants for this tri compared to last year (when there was a Half-Iron distance option) or the Disco Tri two months ago. The rescheduling due to Hurricane Ike probably resulted in a lot of people who couldn't make the new date. My bike rack was half-empty - a welcome change but I'm sure a little depressing to the race organizers.
Swim: The sun had barely risen as we gathered at the beach. Good news! With some morning haze/clouds, the east-bound start of the swim wouldn't be met with a bright sun. As Jarrod and I wandered the beach (while waiting for Derek who was still in line to get his timing chip), I met up with Lee who had run the 20K with me yesterday (well, not "with" me - he finished 24 minutes before I did!) and said hello to Coach Todd who was helping to run the swim starts.
While doing a quick warm-up swim, I immediately noticed that the wind was making the water a lot more choppy than normal. It also made me realize that I had forgotten to take my meclizine tablet - between the waves and lifting my head up and down to sight I had a good chance of getting dizzy. So a quick jog back to the transition area to gulp down a pill ... I got back to the beach just as the first wave of sprint racers took off.
About 12 minutes later, it was time for the Men 30-39 age groups to go - so away I went. Jarrod was swimming next to me and I saw him for the first few minutes whenever I turned to my left side. Eventually, things got a little more spread out and I slipped into a comfortable stroke.
About a third of the way into the course, I looked up and saw some racers standing/walking(!) in the middle of the lake. As I approached them, I looked down and could tell that there was a sandbar only 6 inches from my fingertips (normally you can't see anything in the lake unless the water is shallow). But I wasn't going to cheat and take a break - and swimming is faster than trudging through knee-to-waist-deep water anyway - so I veered away from the shallow water and kept pushing towards the first turn buoy.
The water temperature was good, but the choppiness did push me off-course the entire time. In the end, I would have thought that my swim split would have been more than just 24 seconds slower than my Disco swim ... maybe the swim course was short.
T1: I took my time in T1. Took some extra time to put on my Garmin heart strap (I wanted to capture the data) and also took an Accel Gel and two SaltSticks. Even though the weather was cooler than last year's Texas Man, I knew that my electrolytes were still probably on the low side - depleted from the previous day's run.
Bike: Had some trouble clipping in - first time on the bike in more than 2 weeks! (I should have practiced a little yesterday.) Tired legs. First half of the ride was not bad. Felt pretty smooth and I passed a few people. Shortly after make a U-turn at the 8.5 mile turn-around, I saw Derek and then Jarrod. The second half of the ride was definitely slower - partly because of the aforementioned wind coming from the south, partly because the road was a little rougher with chip-seal and patches, and partly because I was getting tired! Still a 20.5 MPH average speed (20.9 MPH per GPS for the 23.33 mile course) is not too shabby - even though I obviously lost the most time (almost 3 1/2 minutes) during the bike vs. my Disco PR. Looking at the Garmin stats, my average heart rate was 152 BPM (about the same as most spin classes) and the elevation change was 922 feet (not flat, but definitely not as hilly as some of the other rides I've done).
T2: Felt good as I rolled into the bike-to-run transition. Nothing interesting to report. Everything went smoothly (downed another Accel Gel and two more SaltSticks) as I headed to the now very familiar entrance to the run course to start the final 6.2 miles.
Run: Not as painful as I thought it was going to be ... maybe because I had realistic expectations. I tried to keep my pace between 8:45 and 9:00. I had an 8:53 pace at the first mile marker. Then I messed up and hit "STOP" instead of "LAP" on my watch - and didn't realize it until just before Mile 2. So my Garmin stats are missing almost one mile of data. Sigh ... one of these days I'll get it right.
The weather got hotter, but the temperature was still bearable at 9:30 AM. I only walked briefly at the rest stops - along with grabbing needed fluids (one cup of water - gulp, one cup of Accelerade - gulp, another cup of water - drink half & dump the rest on my head). High-fived Derek just after the 3.1-mile turnaround and then greeted Jarrod just as I passed Mile 4. The second half of the run definitely went more smoothly than the first half because it had an overall downhill grade. As I passed Mile 5 and did the last stretch towards the water, I tried to pick up my speed a little bit. A final burst as I entered the beach to finish the 10K and cross the finish line! Lee was waiting for me at the finish - having completed the sprint race about an hour earlier.
My average heart rate for the run was about 160 BPM and average pace of 9.07/mi for the 5.16 miles that I tracked with the Garmin. Since my heart rate wasn't that high, it is apparent that my legs were definitely the limiting factor for both the bike and the run. So this is good news - I had aerobic capacity to spare. I'll definitely need it for the Ironman Longhorn 70.3 - now less than 2 weeks away!
Full race results at: http://www.doitsports.com/results/page.tcl?id=195704
1 comment:
Go, Andy, go!!! :)
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